Marquesas Diary, final installment, the northern islands

Leaving Tahuata, got away by 7 am, heading to Ua Huka, about 60+ nm northwest – a 10-hour crossing if we average 6+ nts.  But definitely not to be.  The wind died right down, and very soon we were struggling to maintain 3 nts.  We like to avoid arriving anywhere at night, especially to any anchorage where we haven’t been before, and it quickly became obvious that we couldn’t make Ua Huka in daylight.  Quick turn to the right, turn on the engines, and now we were heading back to Hiva Oa, this time to an uninhabited bay on the north side of the island, Baie Hanamenu.  We had the anchorage all to ourselves, a somewhat unremarkable but still lovely peaceful spot to wait for next sunrise.

Georgeous day and perfect conditions for sailing to Ua Huka.  Quick 6-hour crossing, starboard tack on the beam all the way.  Winds picked up, and so did the seas – in the end we had seriously shortened sails, and we got quite wet from all the spray.  By 2 o’clock, we’d arrived at Baie d’Hane – stunning looking harbour with dramatic red and green headlands on each side.   

Ua Huka is the smallest of the inhabited Marquesas islands – less than 600 people, well outnumbered by the 1,500 wild horses and 3,000 goats who wander the island.  Few yachts visit here, although its beauty is second to none, and it punches well above its weight, culturally speaking.  The main village of Vaipaee boasts the best museum in the Marquesas, that includes a 300-year old canoe, and the quality of wood carving in the small village of Hokatu is reputed to be “by far the best in all of Polynesia”.  A wealthy family on the island maintains a botanical garden and arboretum, and the variety and number of birds who populate several of the out islands is second to none in the Marquesas.  All that to say, it was exciting to arrive here at Baie d’Hane after an exhilarating day at sea.  But sadly, it was not to be … 

We spent well over an hour trying to get a hold onto the bottom of that bay – and to no avail.  We just couldn’t get a comfortable bite.  After three unsuccessful attempts, we hauled up the anchor, and continued along the south shore of the island, arriving at Baie Haavei just before nightfall, in plenty of time to drop our hook in daylight.  Unfortunately though, the so-called bay was completely unprotected to the west and the headland to the east, while stunning to look at, offered precious little protection.  The anchorage was both windy and wavey, and too exposed for us to even attempt to set an anchor. 

By 6 o’clock, we’d resigned ourselves to another unplanned all-nighter.  Heading to Ua Pou.   This time though it felt quite different than our last unexpected departure. For one thing, we weren’t leaving in the dead of night having just been blown off our hook.  It was a beautiful evening, literally a sunset sail.  Excellent conditions.  And we had all our wits about us.  Quite similar in distance as our unexpected passage from Fatu Hiva to Tahuata – but that time we left at midnight for an 8-hour trip and arrived conveniently around 8 am.  As luck would have it, this time, conditions were perfect for a speedy passage – 16 to 18 nts of wind, right on the beam – normally we’d’ve loved it.  But, departing as we were at 6 pm, we had to really slow down and kill time if we wanted to arrive at Ua Pou after sunrise.  So we put up a radically reefed genie – really just a little ascot of a thing – and no main.  As usual, I took the first watch.  Full moon, pretty spectacular – first full moon since the one that lit our way out of Mexico a month earlier. It felt a bit silly though, bobbing out there in the middle of the ocean in the middle of the night, trying our best not to go anywhere.  But certainly pleasant enough. We moved along at 4.5 nts, even with just our little wee triangle of headsail, and twice we had to tack hard – almost 180 degrees – just to kill time. In case you were wondering about that zigzag track on our PredictWind map on the Turtlebones website – we weren’t arguing among ourselves about which way to go, just killing time, waiting for daybreak.

Next morning, we arrived safely at Baie Hakahau, Ua Pou.  Seemed like a well-protected harbour, with a large well-maintained breakwater.  Big wide bay, with rocky spires all around. 

Third most populated village in the Marquesas with about 1,000 residents.  Although a bit crowded with 6 other boats, another catamaran (cat) left shortly after we arrived, and so we gained a good spot and set a good anchor.  But all the other boats had set stern anchors – meaning, a second anchor off the stern of the boat, involves pulling it out of the hold, tying it on at the back of Turtlebones and taking it out in the dinghy, dropping it back there off the stern of the boat – a real nuisance but sometimes necessary to keep boats from swinging around.  Because everyone else had one, we had to have one too – anyway, it was the safest thing to do because it was quite crowded and there’s a lot of swinging in a windy wavey harbour – and cats and monohulls don’t all swing the same way at the same time.  So there we were, all nicely pinned down in parallel with the other boats in the bay. 

We had nice easy shore access by landing the dinghy right up onto the surf-free sandy beach. The swimming was lovely, and it was endlessly entertaining to watch the constant procession of local men of all ages, bare-chested and physically fit, paddling their modern version of colourful outrigger canoes all around the harbour. 

The village itself gave you the feeling that it had once been a little more vibrant, maybe pre-covid.  The only restaurant was permanently closed, and we were not very successful in our quest for bread or vegetables.  Shawn and Bill got out and over to the beach early the next morning – we’d learned that the boulangerie would be open at 5 am and closed by 8 am, so they were there before 7 – but no baguette on Sunday, didn’t you know? 

We planned to spend several days here, as our base to visit the island.  So much to see and do – some nice hikes, beaches, archeological sites.  But alas, our time on Ua Pou was cut short – you guessed it – another anchor issue.  After a really lovely first day, without incident, Bill woke me in the middle of the night – the stern anchor had dragged, we were now perpendicular to the other boats, and our stern was pretty close to our nearest neighbour.  Off Bill went in the dinghy in the dark to pick up the anchor and take it back out to where it had been, while I held on to the other end, gathering up and letting out the line – big nuisance, but no damage done.  However, when it dragged again, and then again and again, the next morning, we said ka’oha to Ua Pou and set sail for Nuku Hiva.

Our first stop on Nuku Hiva was at Baie de Controleur – which consists of three fingers, we stayed in the big middle finger called Anse Hakahaa. After the first night, we had the whole bay to ourselves.  

A bit of a challenge to get ashore, but well worth the effort.  The small village of Taipivai lies a short distance up the river from the head of the bay, and thanks to the previous day’s rainfall, there was just enough water in the river to allow us to motor in.  Taipivai is small but well-endowed, likely due in part to its proximity to Taiohae, the largest village in the Marquesas.   Maybe also due in part to this valley having been made famous by Herman Melville who lived among the Taipi (Typee) people in 1842.  It was thrilling just to be there, to imagine the way of life in this very place, before western influence, and the events described in such detail by Melville in his autobiographical Typee. 

Taipivai has a store and a church, a bridge over the river, a paved road, an archeological site and waterfalls nearby, an artisan market and a large festival area built on top of large stone platforms which appear to have been re-purposed from an earlier century.  It’s a lot for a village of just 345 people.

We couldn’t visit the actual marae or paepaes where Melville stayed with the Typee people, as it is not maintained and has been left to become overgrown and inaccessible. Which at first seems a bit surprising, given the importance of Typee as perhaps the most popular source of information about the Marquesas in the English-speaking world – but it makes sense, I suppose, whether due to lack of funding or lack of desire to celebrate their ancestral life through the eyes of an American writer.    Instead a huge amount of energy, effort and resources are spent here in Taipivai in celebration of Marquesan history and culture through art and festivals. 

At the artisan market, Bill spotted a large beautiful sword-like carving that he fancied as a sculpture we could hang on a wall in our home. And now it’s ours – thanks to Shawn’s very generous host gift to us – and precious to me as the first piece of art that Bill and I have jointly procured. 

In the process, we were treated to some delightful Marquesan hospitality.  First, we were introduced to Christelle, who incidentally we had already met briefly earlier in the day.  Christelle was born in this valley and spent her entire life living here in Taipivai.  We were meant to settle the price with Christelle, which we did readily, and when asked if the piece was her work, she explained that her husband, Matthieu, is the carver.  She pointed across the field to a tent-like structure that covered a pile of large logs, and said <Il est la, voulez vous lui rencontrer?>  And then she proceeded to walk with us to meet Matthieu, who was there under the tent with several other carvers, working on preparations for the week-long biennial Marquesan cultural festival – to be held later this year in December, right here in Taipivai.  Long large teak logs – say, 20 feet long and 18 inches diameter – lay under the tent in various stages of preparation.  The most elaborately carved logs would be used as welcome posts, or protective front-facing columns, in the covered structures that will soon be built to receive the large numbers of festival participants and guests.  The teak logs are being decorated by the carvers with Marquesan crosses, tikis and other traditional images. 

The festival itself is a massive celebration of Marquesan culture, including food, tatouage, wood and other carving and, most importantly, dance performances by the various participants.  In previous years, pre-covid, there were much larger festivals – less frequent but including indigenous people from beyond the Marquesas – pan-Polynesian, or further yet reaching New Caledonia and the Maori of New Zealand, sometimes including traditional dance troupes who have established themselves in France and elsewhere, and at least once it was a pan-Pacific festival where there was participation from many countries, including Canada.  Hard for me to say which indigenous people attended from Canada, but Matthieu and Christelle were clearly enchanted by their music and their teepees.  Christelle and Matthieu were both very animated and loved to laugh.  In our brief encounter with them, they gave us a little window into their lives in Taipivai that are so much fuller and richer than I might otherwise have guessed.

Our second stop on Nuku Hiva, and likely our last call in the Marquesas, is here in the Baie de Taiohae, being the biggest village and the administrative centre of the Marquesas, village population 1,700.  A good place to re-provision. By now we had become desperate for fresh fruit and vegetables – and bread.  It’s true, we could make our own bread, and we did that several times on our crossing – but as tempting as that is, now that we’re here in French Polynesia, we’ve been thumbs down on firing up the 450 degree gas oven – it’s already so uncomfortably hot here. 

Taiohae village is big enough to have a fruit and vegetable market down by the dock, and baguette every day at one or other of the three grocery stores.  And there’s a bank in Taiohae, and other stores too – including a marine supply store where Bill found us a new dinghy – much smaller than what we want or need, but it has the distinct advantage that it’s here, it’s new and it doesn’t leak! 

Bill and Shawn went scuba diving today, I can’t wait to hear all about it.