Marquesas Diary, Hiva Oa

Four days on Hiva Oa. Couldn’t have been a nicer introduction to French Polynesia.

First day involved mostly chores and gathering intel about the island. First and foremost, we set about getting ourselves checked in with all the various authorities – the port captain, immigration, customs – which, in Atuona, turns out to be all in one convenient place, all handled by the same young handsome man at the gendarmerie. Easy peasy, and very pleasant – the hardest part was the 3-km walk from the dock in to town. Not the walk per se – it felt amazing to move our legs – but the sun and the heat were almost unbearable.

We were one of 20+ boats in the anchorage, pretty crowded by cruising standards – but nothing like a week later when there were 50+ boats in the same harbour because of the arrival of the Pacific Arc, which Bill describes as a semi-organized Pacific crossing for sailors who prefer to travel “in a pack” – you get the distinct impression it’s not his cup of tea.

We’d read about the Marquesan people and their famous hospitality, and we weren’t disappointed. Almost to a person, the locals that we encountered were not only helpful, but there is a gentleness and a generosity, and a joyfulness, that seems to be part of their neutral.

Mostly the women, but not just the women. Take for example the two gendarmes who made a special trip by car to the dock to meet us to complete our check-in process.  We had reported to the gendarmerie on day 1 to check in to the country, but our paperwork was incomplete and we had get a bond and go back to show it to them. The bond is a requirement of entry for non-EU visitors to prove you can afford to leave.  You’re welcome to visit – tourism being a mainstay of the economy here in French Polynesia – but they want assurance that you’re not going to stay too long.  The bond amount is set more or less at the cost of a one-way ticket home, and then your passport is stamped for a maximum 90 days.  There’s no recognizable bank in Atuona, and getting a bond is a bit of a nuisance, so instead we bought refundable plane tickets online to show to them, and that seemed to satisfy. Unfortunately though we managed to forget our passports when we went back to show them, and it’s a 3-km walk to town in the hot sun. So the good-looking gendarme and his partner offered to drive over to meet us at our anchorage to complete the process because, they said, they empathized with our long hot trek to town – “deux fois c’est normal, mais trois fois c’est trop!” 

There are two or three restaurants in Atuona – same 3-km walk away from the dock – and Shawn treated us to dinner out on Friday night.  It was early evening, and the worst of the heat was behind us, but the walk was still hilly and humid. Hitchhiking is a thing here in the islands – but we didn’t try it, thought we might save it for the walk home. Nevertheless, a lovely young woman stopped in her big SUV, just to say “ka’oha”, and to offer us directions or a ride to wherever we wanted to go. 

After our typical Polynesian dinner – sorry, Shawn, nothing vegetarian in this part of the world – lots of meat choices, including pork and goat and chicken and fish, and abundant fruit, but very light on vegetables.  Virtually none, other than breadfruit – if it’s even a vegetable? – indigenous, prolific, grows on trees, taste and texture almost indistinguishable from potatoes – makes delicious frites.

After dinner, the owner was on cash and we asked him about a taxi – he asked where we were going and said, Ah oui, attendez quelques minutes?  Bien sûr!  Seconds later, leaving the young unflappable waitress alone to manage all the activity in the busy restaurant, he walked out, beckoning us to follow – whereupon we piled into his truck and he drove us to our dinghy, no charge! 

If you get the impression that the locals like to come see us at the harbour, you’d be right about that.  Sandra drives down to the dinghy dock to pick up our laundry, and comes back to deliver it two days later.  Antonio meets us there the next day to bring the keys to our rental car.

I’d heard that, over the last few years, a large number of sailors had arrived and, unwittingly, overstayed their welcome – unable to leave due to the pandemic – and that, as a result, the locals had become somewhat resentful and unwelcoming towards cruisers like us.  But nothing could be further from our experience.  To a person, the people we encountered were helpful and good-natured.  Ask someone for directions, and she’ll get up out of her chair, walk with you out of the building and keep on walking/talking with you, maybe a block or two if need be, until your destination is there in view.    

On Saturday we rented a car and toured the island. Great day.  Bill was right in his element driving the little Duster 4×4 up and down the mountain roads, careening around hairpin turns. Amazing vistas – from 4,000 feet, looking over the island shoreline and out to the ocean and nearby islands. 

Driving inland, away from the shore, was I think maybe more spectacular – driving through dense lush green vegetation, up and down deep steep elevations, almost vertical at times, surprisingly mixed forest, not only palm trees and bananas and all the usual suspects you’d expect to see in the tropics, that and more, many never-before-seen (by me) tree species, not to mention a towering stand of pine forest! We had a window on this majestic island that we couldn’t’ve seen, or imagined, from our boat.

We arrived at Puamau, a small “commune” on the north shore of the island, in time for an extravagant lunch at the only show in town, called Restaurant Marie Antoinette – not that it matters what it’s called since there’s no signage or any indication that this house beside the road is anything other than a house beside the road.  Antonio had recommended it and warned us about there being no signage – but he said, no worries, we should be able to “imagine it”, because of the adjoining “parking lot” – which itself had to be imagined from the slightly enlarged driveway beside the house with room for, say, three cars. Anyway, turns out, signage is overrated – we found the place. Two women sat out back behind the house, not visible from the road – big smiles, they were expecting us, the three Canadians.

There’s an important archeological site in Puamau, and we decided to take a walk before lunch to see the famous “tikis” – large stone humanoid sculptures dating back to – well, it’s a matter of some debate, maybe 1,000 years or more – but this particular settlement was inhabited well into the 1800s. The Puamau site is especially famous for Takaii, the largest tiki in the world, standing 8 feet tall.

I had recently started reading Herman Melville’s Typee, his autobiographical account of the months he spent captive to the Typee tribe on Nuku Hiva – different island, but his account gives a first-person window on the way of life on these islands before western civilization took hold. Definitely worth the read. The year was 1842, and he was just 23 years old at the time, having signed up to a whaling boat and then jumped ship with a mate. They arrive in a nearby valley where they are taken in by the Typees. After a time, he begins to feel a captive and fears for his life. His account details the day-to-day life of the Typee, their warring relationship with other tribes on the island, ancestor worship, the special status of chieftans and priests, the way the settlement is organized, the architecture of their homes and sacred places, family life, men and women, taboos, cannibalism. It’s surprising to learn that this traditional culture and lifestyle remained vibrant and pervasive as late as the mid-1800s, really not so long ago. (Spoiler alert: He ultimately escapes the island, having been well-treated by the Typees throughout.)

The tikis are humanoid stone sculptures carved to honour their chiefs and warriors. They are typically placed at the “marae” which are huge ceremonial platforms made from flat basalt blocks. The marae were the exclusive domain of chieftans and priests (men) used for worship, burials and human sacrifice. Women were excluded altogether from the marae, from what I can tell. They also built huge stone platforms called paepaes (Melville called them pi-pi) which provided a foundation for tribe members to build their family homes using bamboo (walls) and grass (roofs).

You may have wondered how it is that Captain Bill Morris, kid born and raised in Toronto Canada, became such an old salt. Well, I have wondered that too. In addition to his Finnish and Ukranian heritages – I wonder, could he have decended from the mer people? Or, might he count Marquesan boatsmen among his ancestors? Just a thought.

Unbeknownst to us, the Puamau site was less than a kilometre away from our lunch spot, but there was some lively discussion between the women about the best route we should take to get there – ever helpful, the younger woman got up, beckoned us to follow, and then walked us halfway there, before pointing to the site. On the way, we remarked on a large tree ladened with giant fruits, pamplemousse, she confirmed, and then invited Bill to help himself.  By day’s end, we had six giant grapefruit scarfed from a few different trees along our journey.  The giant grapefruit trees are everywhere, and heavy with fruit – I’m guessing also indigenous to these islands.

En route back to Turtlebones, we stopped at another commune on Baie Hanaiapa on the north coast – no food, no tikis, just a pleasant stroll along the beach, and a few pamplemousse. A few local fishers anchored in the bay.

The site at Puamau, though truly impressive for its tikis, was less impressive that some others for its excavation of the marae and paepaes – the physical structure or architecture of the tribal community. Capping off the day, we visited another archeological site, Upeke, very near to Atuona – no tikis here, but the site itself is astonishing in its beauty and its magnitude. 

And finally a stop at the Cavalry Cemetary in Atuona, famous for the gravesites (or perhaps memorial gravesites) of Paul Gauguin and Jacques Brel – both of which appear to be often visited and well-attended, while the rest of the cemetery is beautiful but neglected.

On Sunday morning, we bade farewell Hiva Oa and set out on a 6-hour passage to Fatu Hiva, about 50nm to the southwest.