Marquesa Islands, May 2009
The Marquesas are the far easternmost of the Polynesian islands, situated in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. They consist of a group of small volcanic islands, six of which are inhabited by a total of 8,000 people, still governed on a colonial basis by France. There are few islands between them and the Americas, so they are first landfall in the South Pacific for yachts from several directions. The great majority are those headed across the Pacific from the Panama Canal, via the Galapagos Islands. Others have arrived from California and Mexico, and a few from Cape Horn via Easter Island. Yachts from Australia and New Zealand arrive here too as part of a South Pacific circuit, having used the west winds of the Roaring Forties before turning north into the easterly trade winds. There were about 120 yachts among the islands when we arrived in mid May. Those from the USA and France were in the majority, several from Australia, Britain and Germany, plus at least one representative from each of Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. Apart from a few palatial charter boats based here, Sentinel was fairly average, certainly in terms of size. Most had taken about 25 days from
the Galpagos, but for us it was 40 from Mexico, our slowest ocean passage yet. “You didn’t sail right through the Doldrums” someone said disbelievingly. But we had, at no more than one knot for days at a time, even though most try to motor through this disturbed zone of very light winds, violent squalls and storms. It lies just north of the Equator and had been unusually wide when we crossed, well beyond our fuel capacity. Like most, we arrived first at Atuona, on Hiva Oa, famed as the place where Gauguin lived in his “House of Joy”. The little bay was packed with yachts organising their clearance into French Polynesia. Among those we met there was Jason Lawrence, his wife and two sons, on their catamaran Pegasus.
This was the first yacht from England that we had seen in two years, since New York in fact. Jason and family were being filmed for a Channel 4 documentary on sailing around the world, and so had a cameraman aboard who apparently meets up with them at each destination. Rather them than us, we thought. It seemed fraught enough to be coping with two small boys. After a few days we left Atuona to visit other bays among the islands of Hiva Oa, Tahuata, Nuku Hiva and Ua Pou. All were quite beautiful. Each bay would be backed by a lush valley nestled among sheer black volcanic hills that often took strange shapes. There would be a golden sandy beach on which the surf broke, and behind it a plantation of fruit trees – coconuts mostly, also bananas, mangos, grapefruit, lemons, breadfruit, custard-apples and papaya, eventually giving way to dense jungle. Well hidden in the trees would be a farm or often a tiny village of a dozen or so “faré” (open-air bungalows) with a little church and a telephone box. Hens and pigs seemed to run wild, there were also a few horses and goats. However makeshift the house, each would be surrounded by a well-kept garden with a trim lawn – quite incongruous with the jungle setting. Often there would be a track leading through the jungle up the valley, passing ancient remains, “tikis” (carved stone figures) and “pei-pei” (ceremonial rock terraces), long-abandoned and overgrown. At Hakaui on Nuku Hiva the valley grew narrower and narrower until it was just a canyon, at the end of which was a bare rock face with a waterfall 350m high – one of world’s highest. Although the Polynesians seemed to be living in a subsistence economy, they have the air of being comfortably well-off. Life is easy, and work stops early. Yet villages are kept immaculately trim and tidy. The main village on each island seemed endowed with a very generous infrastructure for such a tiny population, which would include a town-hall, other communal buildings, a hospital, post office, bank, pharmacy, police station, several schools, shops, a sports stadium, pretty churches, and port facilities – all of it quite new. Every family seemed to own a newish 4WD, a Toyota Hilux costing around £40,000 here. Yet there are few roads or places to go. Villages five miles apart by walking could easily be twenty on the unpaved circuitous mountainous roads and would take two hours to drive. Hakaui for example has just a quarter mile of grass track leading nowhere, the valley is quite inaccessible – yet we saw cars parked by several of the dozen or so houses. After we got accustomed to their habit of answering questions abruptly and offering no additional information, we found the people were pleasant and hospitable, much more so in the remoter villages. Towards the end of our stay villagers at Hakahetau on Ua Pou invited the people on the four yachts in the bay for an open-air feast. The amount of food was prodigious – fatty barbequed steak and chicken, starchy vegetables such as roast breadfruit, poi-poi, pureed plantains, and taro. It was delicious, but a little went a long way with us. The villagers didn’t stop until it was all gone. (Every Polynesian over the age of 30 seemed grossly obese, and we now realised why diabetes is such a major health problem.) After the meal two men entertained us singing traditional songs accompanied by a guitar and ukelele: Lyn responded with a couple of swing numbers on her clarinet. Not everything in paradise was perfect. Unlike other Pacific islands they do not have atolls, and none of the anchorages is well-sheltered. The ocean swell caused much rolling and difficulty getting ashore. Supplies were limited, surprisingly little fresh food for sale despite the abundance being grown, and getting drinking water involved long treks. Prices are extremely high: everything, even local produce, costs at least twice what one would pay in England and often much more. Our usual standard of comparison - a can of local beer in a beach-bar - was £3.75, by far the highest of anywhere we have been. A snack-lunch ashore when we arrived cost us £40, and we didn’t make that mistake again. And the beaches, inviting though they are, have no-one on them. They are infested with voracious sand-flies. We lingered longer than we should have on one while launching the dinghy, and came back covered in dozens of bites. The resulting infection in Andrew’s foot was our final memento of the islands.	Mt Oave, Ua Pou Village "Faré", Nuku Hiva Jungle Tiki

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