Lyn's Log, 3rd June 2009
Nuka Hiva, Marquesa Islands

Nuka Hiva, Marquesas
S8º55', W140º06'
24,077 miles.

On 19th May we left early evening to sail to Nuku Hiva. The winds were light and we only made it before the next evening by motoring the last three hours. We came into Taiohae Bay where the main town is, with forty yachts at anchor, to find we were faced with two days of holiday and then a weekend. Some shops were open briefly early in the morning so we managed to get more bread and fruit juice.

Highlight of the holiday was an annual marathon race of 26 miles for the six-man outrigger canoes representing the various Marquesa islands. It was a really big event with proceeding beginning at four in the morning. There was music playing and speeches made, and various stalls like a flea market, all centred around the end of the beach and the wharf. Eleven canoes eventually took off at eight o’clock to paddle the thirty-nine kilometres around the bay, along the coast and back around the bay. After two and a half hours the winner arrived back with quite a lead on the next canoe. That's an average speed of 10 knots! No longer are the canoes dug out of trees, but are now hi-tech fibreglass

While waiting for our gas bottles to be refilled, we decided to visit Daniel's Bay six miles to the west. It was not easy to spot as the entrance was rather narrow and beside very high, almost sheer, mountains. It certainly was a spectacular place and when in the anchorage it was not possible to see out to sea. We had been told that drinking water was available in this bay, but the tap was a long way from the dinghy landing so it was only possible to get a couple of containers filled there. But it rained in the night and we collected a few gallons of rainwater to drink.

There was a lovely walk up the valley to a huge waterfall. Well it fell from a long way up but was thin and it was not possible to see the entire length of it. It was as if we were in a cleft where the mountain had cracked apart. The sun did not reach the bottom where there was a cool pool in which we bathed. But not for long as there were crayfish wanting to nip us and as we disturbed the mud covering the stony bottom, we could not see what was lurking there. Someone we had spoken to earlier had said there was an eel swimming in there. We also bathed in the river where we had to cross it just before re-entering the village. We constantly sprayed ourselves with Deet but we still found ourselves covered in bites that evening.

After collecting our gas bottles, and nearly dropping dead over the price of £30 for 9kg of propane, we visited Controller Bay to the East of Taiohae Bay. Unfortunately the wind managed to funnel down the long inlet of the bay from the entrance and the wharf on the chart was no longer there. With rocks around most of the bay we could not see a suitable place to get to land. We left the following day in strong winds for the island of Ua-Pou, making five knots with two reefs in the main sail. We managed to anchor with a little shelter from the swells behind the harbour wall by the main town of Hakahau. The bay was shallow, reducing the space for sheltered anchorage, and in the squally winds, the yachts would keep lying at different angles to one another so that yachts were at risk of hitting each other and we had to keep an anchor watch that night.

In town we found the one place to get drinking water. This was a fifteen-minute walk to the school where a tap was placed in the outside wall with a tiled plinth beneath it. At least the journey was along concrete roads and I made three trips with two five-gallon jerry cans on our luggage trolley. To begin with the tide was high enough for Andrew to dinghy to the wharf where I could lower the cans into the dinghy. He would then empty them into the yacht’s water tanks and return them to me. But after my last trip, there were too many rocks exposed by the wharf and loading had to be made at the beach. Andrew remained in the dinghy beyond the shore break, in waist high water. One by one I managed to carry the jerry cans out to, and into the dinghy and then swam behind it, holding a rope, back to the yacht. There were a few shops in town where prices were even higher than on Nuku Hiva, and there was no bread.

We sailed round to Hakahetau Bay on the northeast side of the island hoping that it would be more sheltered from the prevailing easterly winds, but still the swells rolled in and also strong gusts of wind. The island is small and round with very high peaks in the centre. It seems these strong gusty winds are the normal weather. The village was probably the prettiest we had seen with many flowers, shrubs with varigated leaves, and fruit trees. It had a school and a couple of churches, but we saw no shops.

A French couple arrived in the bay in their large catamaran on which they take skippered charters. So knowing some of the locals, they arranged for a large pot luck gathering for us yachties in the evening on the small wharf. There the locals had arranged a long table and a barbeque, and provided octopus, steak, chicken and fish, bread fruit, poi-poi (a bread fruit and coconut milk mash), a soursop desert, plaintain in coconut milk, grapefruit and bananas. To this we added our meagre offerings which they enjoyed tasting. After eating, of which they did a lot, out came a guitar and a local ukelele type of instrument, and the guys entertained us with some songs, and other entertainments. For a small group of German, English, French, American and Polynesian, it was a fantastic evening.

The next day we had an exhilarating sail in strong winds and high swells back to Nuku Hiva for a final connection to the Internet before leaving for the Tuamotu Atolls.