A Letter Home From The Marquesas

Related to my last post with the tsunami warning while sailing in the Marquesas, I came across the following letter at my mother's house on the weekend, which was written a couple of weeks before the tsunami story unfolded.  It is a mid-90's narrative of a short cruise through the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia aboard a 30' sailboat.  The dawn of the internet was happening at that point, but not yet really available to deep water sailors.  How times change...

Monday, May 27, 1996
Baie d'Hakahau, Ua Pou
Isles Marquises, Polynesie Française

Dear Mom & Jim,

Hopefully you received a postcard from me sent from Atuona shortly after our brief phone call. I promised to write you a real letter, so this will be it. The ridiculous cost of phone calls from here, plus the irritating satellite delays, makes writing a more effective means of communication (from me to you, at least).

We've now been in the Marquesas islands for 3 weeks, and I've thoroughly enjoyed the islands and their people, as well as meeting other cruisers from Canada, U.S., England, Wales, Scotland, France, Germany, Sweden, Cayman Islands, Saint Martin, Australia and New Zealand [more than half the boats here came across from Panama via the Galapagos Islands, whereas Mexico had almost entirely Canadian and U.S. boats]. The weather has usually been pretty dry, except at Atuona, Hiva Oa, but last night & this morning were pretty wet. It's warm, occasionally hot, but usually nice at night, with daytime cabin temperature usually about 90ºF. The islands themselves are tall & breathtaking, volcanic in origin, with lush vegetation covering them. The peaks, often vertical for 1000-2000', rising to 4-5000' elevations, are magnificent, but often shrouded in clouds.

From Atuona, on Hiva Oa, where I spoke to you, we sailed south to Fatu Hiva [about which Thor Heyerdahl wrote a book of the same name]. The village there has about 100 people, many of whom are wood carvers or make tapa cloth. There were many children, who swarmed around us at times  so insistently as to be irritating. For the most part, I enjoyed the kids, but John (skipper) found them a pain in the butt -- one day while rowing the dinghy ashore, about 5 older boys swam out & clung to the dinghy, making progress virtually impossible for about 10 minutes. The village is at the foot of a valley with imposing rocks rising 1000' on either side of the entrance, then opening into a lovely valley a mile wide and a few miles long, surrounded by jagged, vertical peaks -- perhaps a volcanic crater at one time. We hiked an hour up the valley one day with a couple of 10-year-old local boys as guides, to visit a spectacular waterfall, dropping hundreds of meters down the valley side. The water was amazingly cold, considering the tropical climate.

At Fatu Hiva, some of the cruisers arranged for one of the woodcarvers' families to put on a traditional Marquesan feast, which over 25 of us attended for US$10 apiece, seated around a big table in his showroom/workshop. From my logbook: "They put on a magnificent meal, with goat (very good), green papaya coleslaw, banana paw, paw paw (the consistency of paste, but somewhat tart), chicken, poisso cru (raw fish -- skipped that), sashimi (skipped), rice with coconut milk (very nice), pamplemousse & bananas, and jus de pamplemousse to drink (excellent)." I should note that "pamplemousse" is not normal grapefruit, but a giant, coarse, sweeter variety than what we get at home. The rind is often an inch or more thick, and the fruit is absolutely delicious.

Before leaving Fatu Hiva, I bought a few small wood carvings from Henri, the fellow who put on the feast. We looked at tapa cloth (made from the bark of some tree & painted in black ink with traditional or modern Marquesan tattoos & tikis & other patterns (gecko, sea turtle). The quality of the tapa varied greatly from one artist to the next, and I didn't find anything I liked in a size small enough to safely carry home. Most of the carvings & tapa made in the Marquesas are sold in Tahiti.

From Fatu Hiva, we sailed north again, to the west side of Tahuata island & settled for a few days in an open anchorage under a very steep hill/cliff, rising a few thousand feet above. The water was pretty clear & I got in some good snorkelling, even swimming (very briefly) in sight of some dolphins (who wanted nothing to do with me). We visited tiny Hapatoni village in the next bay, with only 40 villagers, and I bought an ornate wooden dagger & a small tiki statue. The main "road" of the village was stone-filled & level and has been there longer than memory. Signs of stone house platforms were also visible on the hillside above, attesting to the much larger population before the arrival of europeans (the Marquesas have ~7000 people now, compared to over 60,000 150 years ago).

Farther north along the coast of Tahuata, we spent a few more days in our first anchorage with a white sand beach (previous bays had stone or dark [lava] sand, rather than white [coral] sand). Hana Moe Noe was definitely a pretty bay, and also had pretty good snorkelling (no, I haven't yet seen any sharks).

From Hana Moe Noe, we sailed north around the west end of Hiva Oa, and spent one night in Baie Hanamenu, at the NW corner of Hiva Oa. We hadn't even planned on going ashore, but heard that a wild boar (as opposed to a wild bore like me) had been killed the night before, and a pot-luck dinner was planned at the home of a frenchman living there (only a few inhabitants in this isolated valley). We took a cake & wine and enjoyed a nice evening. We watched them split & grate a coconut & make coconut milk from the grated meat, in which they cooked a pot of crabs. We also watched the opening of the earth oven in which the boar meat was cooked -- a hole in the beach in which a fire had been built, and stones placed inside until they were hot, then the meat on top of stones, covered with banana leaves, and sealed over with sand. With coconut-milk rice, pear & some raw fish (which I skipped), it made a great feast. Boats in Baie d'Hakahau, Ua Pou (courtesy Wikipedia)At 0300 that morning (still that night), we set out for the island of Ua Pou, which we reached in late afternoon (~60 miles).

After getting settled at Baie d'Hakahau, we were told that there was a big party in town that evening so we went in & bought tickets. It was some sort of fund raiser, and many of the other cruisers were there as well. The dinner included breadfuit & yams (yuck), coconut-milk rice, pork in a mushroom sauce, poisson cru (I finally tried the raw fish -- not too bad), somehitng like Chinese spring rolls (quite good), french bread, and cake for dessert. The entertainment included Marquesan dancers of a number of age groups & was quite interesting -- I thought the young 8-year-old girls the best, swinging their little hips at full speed. Later, the party turned into a dance, and was obviously the only entertainment in town -- everybody was there. We left ~22:00, as we didn't sleep much the previous night. The town of Hakahau is pretty, quite modern, with magnificent spires rising above the town to the south: God was clearly having fun when he built this place.

From here we expect to visit the leeward side of Ua Pou, then head for nearby Nuku Hiva & visit a few of the anchorages on its coast. Then, off to the Tuamoto archipelago (about 5 days' sail from here), where we may stop at Ahe and Rangiroa before continuing on to Tahiti (roughly a month from now).  From there, I expect to fly home to Vancouver & start to put my life back in order. I'll call you guys when I get to Vancouver, or if I change plans significantly  Take care. Hi to Anne's family & Jim's kids.

Love
        Dave