Four Islands, One Blog Post

Time for another big catch up! Greg and I chatted about how I could make these posts more abbreviated but to be honest, I’m writing all this so I have a way to remember things, not for a cute little story to share with anyone reading. Feel free to just scan and move on with your days… I hope to be coming back to this years from now and remember who was on that amazing hike we did or what we did in Hakahaa.

Sailing north away from Hapatoni Bay and all the fun we had there was hard but we plan to come back later in the season. We hopped a few bays up the island of Tahuata with two different kinds of dolphins accompanying us. Griffin can recognize and report on many facts about any of the kinds of dolphins we see now and he spent most of the trip on the bow watching them come and go. We passed the town we’d hiked to and had lunch, Vaitahu, and dropped our hook around the corner in Hanamoenoa. Once upon a time I thought this would have been where we hung out after the crossing and I was excited to see the big sandy beach there. Our friends Jim and Ana on Balloon met us there, and our friends on Paradiso and Loulou were all anchored there too. The next day Paradiso’s crew came on board Rocket Science and we motored over to Vaitahu for another visit. When we hiked there we didn’t have time to look around and the anchorage isn’t that great so a day trip made sense. The dinghy area was a little tricky but we managed. Ashore, we got some more groceries, checked out the sites, and had another delicious lunch at Jimmy’s. There is a huge cultural festival happening soon on Ua Hua and we enjoyed watching lots of locals practice some of the music and dance they’d be performing there. 

Back at Hanamoenoa, which we just called the sandy beach bay, I was excited to get to shore and walk around the hills. Jim and Ana let me come with them around lunchtime one day and we had fun trying to find the trail up the steepest part of the hill. There wasn’t any preferred human trail, but many goat trails instead which are quite the challenge for us long legged folk. It was a challenging little hike, partially because of the terrain but mostly because there was no shade, no wind, and it was really hot. I longed to get my feet off of the burning ground, the heat through the thick soles of my trail shoes was intense. We finally made it to the top of the little hill, took some pictures, and scurried down a much easier path back to the beach and hung out in the water as the waves cashed around us. 

We met a few other boats there, it’s a popular spot since it’s close to Hiva Oa, the island with the other larger town. One was an Oyster 57, Pax Sapiens, a big dark blue yacht that had two super nice guys on it who are the captain and crew of the boat. The owner and family members would fly in soon so they were getting things ready. On the flip side was another American boat, a Cape Dory 28 (26?) called Persimmon from Pascagoula, Mississippi with a young sailor named Nelson as her single handed captain. Nelson had a heavy duty Sailrite sewing machine on board and brought it over to sew up a zipper on our sail cover that had torn stitches and Paradiso’s dinghy chaps which needed seams repaired and a patch on the bow. Paradiso’s boat logo has a heart in it and the big round patch needed on the bow turned into a heart too, we had way too much fun hanging out, being silly, and hearing some of Nelson’s stories. We fed him meals in exchange for his help sewing, after dinner he brought over his banjo and sang some sea shanties. Nelson and the Crew of Pax Sapiens invited Griffin over one evening to play games and hang out with the dudes, cool!  He had a blast and didn’t come back to the boat until 10pm which might as well be 1am here. 

We saw the dolphins go by a few times but they didn’t hang out in the bay like they did in Hapatoni. The beach was beautiful to look at and playing in the breaking waves was nice but the whole area was overrun with small ants that liked to see if your legs led to any tasty snacks to bring back to the colony. You couldn’t walk around without stopping to brush ants off all the time. So, though the beach looked like the perfect boater hang out and picnic spot, we ended up having some hang out time in the surf on the beach instead. Maybe the ants aren’t so bad at other times in the year? The cats may have liked playing with the ants but they nap on board instead. See Cleo in the tabernacle? A perfect hiding hole. It’s warm and even Gabby needs to sleep in the most cooling position possible.

We left sandy beach bay on November 27th and headed across the channel to Hiva Oa with Paradiso to get groceries and see town. Balloon had left a day prior for their haul out appointment and a few other boats we knew were also hauled out there, it would be fun to see the boat yard. Rocket Science’s draft is too deep to be hauled there or I’d be tempted to do so. We had put more bottom paint on right before we left but there are multiple spots, mostly on the rudders and the transom where the primer is showing and it’s tough to keep up with the enthausuasticly growing colorful algae here. Even the bright pink calcareous algae happily grows on the bottom paint and there’s an embarrassing number of barnacles starting to get big enough to see. 

For Thanksgiving, we invited Jim and Ana to come out to Rocket Science since their boat was on the hard and not as nice to hang out on. We roasted some chicken, made mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, cranberries, fresh bread, and a nice salad. Griffin helped make dessert, a pumpkin pie with a graham cracker crust. We were so full and happy we didn’t remember to eat the chocolate bar made on the next island to the North that they brought.

Town is a thirty minute walk away from the anchorage, it was nice to get out and about and see the surrounding area. Greg and Griffin went to the Gauguin museum where they also have the house where the artist lived when he came here. Seems like the unprotected art on the walls were reproductions but they really enjoyed going to see it.

One night in town, Lars played a concert at a restaurant with a couple other talented cruisers. Isabel let all the boaters know about it and it was great fun to fill the outdoor seating area, have some good food, and listen to the musicians jam. The upcoming cultural festival inspired the learning and playing of a popular Marquesan song which a woman in the audience helped sing, it was a hoot. What fun to have great talent and be able to share it with such joy. Since then that song has been played many times and it feels like the theme song to our time here.

The pier near the anchorage and boatyard was often filled with fishermen unloading their catch. One time while we were having boaters happy hour ashore with both boats afloat and in the yard, a boat was packing up their huge load. Coolers of tuna and massive pile of other fish kept us enthralled for a while. Griffin is fascinated by the possibility of seeing more sharks and heard that it may be possible in just this scenario but the water was too murky, bummer. 

We said goodbye to our boatyard friends and headed off at 5am on November 30th for the 80 nautical mile sail to Ua Pou. We had a lovely sail after the initial gusts around the island and caught up to Paradiso around 3pm. We came around the north side of the island, past the airport, and down the west side to one of the bays that’s nice to anchor in. Ua Pou has amazing geography, many tall spires are left from erosion of the once surrounding softer material. Even though there was some cloud coverage as we got closer they certainly make a striking impression. 

The bay we anchored in had a little town and a pier with huge crashing waves, the same ones that rocked the boat in rather an obnoxious way. We felt more sane when an even smaller boat came in and anchored near us, just watching them rock and roll was enough to drive you crazy. Part of the shoreline here has geography that reminds me of the San Juan and Gulf islands with sandstone carved out from waves that overhangs the shoreline, it’s intense. 

Paradiso had a mission here though! When they had been here before, Siebe had met a tattoo artist he really liked and now he finally laid down on the table and got his first tattoo. It’s intense, up his right arm from wrist to elbow, designed with multiple cultural styles. While he laid on the table the rest of us went on a walk up the valley of “the legendary pillars” to a waterfall and pool. 

Tattoo done, it was time to escape the rocky anchorage so we headed a bit further south around a point to a little anchorage called Vaiehu. It’s framed by a massive cliff that fostered lots of bird activity and the rolling waves made spectacular crashes on the shoreline below. In the bay there were many rocky points and the swell made it pretty intimidating to get ashore but Griffin and I found a spot to stern anchor the dinghy and climb out safely. We scrambled around on the rocks where some locals had been earlier and found the urchin remains they had left behind after harvesting the edible part. We threw them back in the water to feed the fish and enjoyed climbing around on the neat rock formations with the goats.

I got in few snorkels along the shoreline there with the Paradiso crew, Griffin is back to being very wary of the water, and Greg will jump in to cool down as needed. No sharks were seen there though mantas splashed and swam around and schools of fish often jumped out of the way of something. Another boat, Asgard, joined us there and we enjoyed meeting Kenneth and Julie who swam over for happy hour one day. They’re from Denmark and have amazing English, I thought Julie had spent a significant amount of time in the U.S. but she says she just learns accents from watching movies. I definitely should have watched more French movies! Griffin was interested in hearing about Kenneth’s business which is a software program for flight schools that’s now used worldwide, pretty awesome. 

At home, we’ve celebrated the Dutch holiday of Sinterklaas with family friends from Griffin’s preschool for years and are now well versed in the tradition. It’s funny to be here in the Marquesas for Sinterklass with a Dutch family this year and we had some fun with it. That morning, Griffin and I were goofy and attempted to secretly paddle the dinghy over to Paradiso to surprise them. We had to tell Charlotte and then Annemarie to go away while we pulled off the “surprise” of banging on the hull and throwing in a bag of treats and gag gifts into the cockpit. Later that day, Paradiso’s crew delivered traditional cookies in an artsy box and we ended the day with a game on board Rocket Science with all the adults in our little anchorage while the kids watched a movie. 

The waves and weather hadn’t improved much but we wanted to go back to the town anchorage and go ashore to do a loop hike that goes around near the bases of some of the pillars. We left early in the morning and anchored in the rolly bay again. Greg stayed on board as the long hike wouldn’t be good for his knee, that was the right decision! Julien, Loulou’s captain/dad, is a professional climber, hiker, and guide so it was an easy decision to go along with them and Paradiso’s crew. Griffin feels like he can do anything after the treacherous hike he did on Tahuata, and Julien and Edith’s kids who are 7 and 8 were going too. It was an absolutely stunning hike up and then along narrow ridge lines. We were incredibly lucky to have the clouds clear and be able to view the spires while we were up there. It took us just under 6 hours with lots of stops for drone flying (and rescuing), water breaks, and taking it slow down the super steep parts on the way back. 

December 7th we sailed the 35 miles or so from Ua Pou northward to one of the only bays we hadn’t visited on Nuku Hiva back when we made landfall in June. Hakahaa, or Controller’s Bay, is just to the east of Taiohae where town is. It was a lovely day for sailing, a reef in the main, the dinghy on the bow so we didn’t have to do all the work of stowing it, and we managed to avoid a few darker clouds dropping their moisture on the ocean below. The wind direction made the bay a tight point of sail but we caught up to Paradiso again and took the requisite photos and videos.

Controllers Bay has great views and is so quiet compared to nearby town and there were just the two of us here! The water was murky though, maybe from the outflow of the river, and swimming wasn’t very appealing but there’s a small beach nearby where we were anchored and lots to explore on shore. We hiked around to town, through the river where there used to be another bridge, had lunch at the bakery, checked out the little store, and one day we went to the up river dinghy dock. You can only get to if you enter the river mouth within an hour of high tide but it cuts quite a hike off of the way to town. The rest of the time it’s too shallow and makes the current too fast to get through safely. The beach here is steep and rocky, not a good dinghy option, but over in the corner there’s a spot to stern anchor the dinghy and climb out onto a steep rocky face then let the dinghy float back near the anchor with the bow tie loose. 

This bay is also home of the bamboo weaver, Thomas or Mahinatea Tata, whose work you can see all over the Marquesan islands. His workshop and home is right on the beach and he and his wife are very welcoming to visitors. We joined Paradiso’s crew and had coffee and fried bananas with them while he told stories and played his many stringed Ukulele, another skill he’s really talented at. They have an album with pages from visiting boats from years past that was really fun to look through, many boats from the Pacific NW had written in it. There weren’t any blank pages so Paradiso and us decorated and wrote one to add back on the boats and brought it in a sleeve protector to add to their collection. While we were there, a woman we had asked for some fruit from came and dropped it off where our dinghies were tied up nearby. Siebe gave them an old line as trade, what a deal!

The mythical burger joint our crew joked about when we first got here is really real and visible from the bay on the top of the ridge to the west. One day we all hiked up the road to check it out and enjoyed some fabulous food while looking down on the our boats and the larger view around. There were a few other tourists stopped there who were amazed that those were our boats way down there… it seems strange to us that someone would be here without a boat! The name of the joint is Belle Vue, just a little more of a belle vue than the city of Bellevue we’re familiar with at home.

The most amazing nighttime events happened here. Maybe because of the river outflow, there was a bloom of something that spurred lots of bioluminescence in the bay where we were. It was close to a new moon and the area is so dark, everything in the water gave off flashes of light. Little flashes from the wind waves gave perspective along the surface, the anchor line lit the depths, and everywhere we looked we could light from underwater activity. Most fascinating though were the mantas. Their huge wings lit up brightly from their movement while they flew along the surface or dove to depths and spun around doing maneuvers any stunt pilot would be proud of. One night, after watching the mantas for a while, Greg saw a much brighter and faster streak coming towards him, a HAMMERHEAD! He called for Griffin and I to come see but by the time Griffin got there he just saw the tail end as it was swimming away. After that every eye was searching for the faster brighter streaks of the hammerheads but no more were seen that night. The next night, however, we did see more. This time I made it up to the cockpit to see a group of hammerheads, their distinctive heads and huge dorsals lit only by the bioluminescence, split around the boat. The larger one, which Griffin has a name for, and a few followers went up the port side of the boat, I ran around the starboard side with just one hammerhead on that side that was maybe 9’ long. By the time we got to the bow they were headed off together again, their bright streak showing far in from of us. Absolutely bonkers. Maybe because of their swinging head movement they are even more bright and amazing in the bioluminescence? We hope to see them again, couldn’t get any good photos in the dark. 

We were spoiled by having Controllers Bay all to ourselves but we decided to go check out the smaller bay next door, partially so Siebe and Annemarie could be closer to a dive spot. It was worth it, Annemarie got some video of a hammerhead swimming by quickly on a dive. That bay has a small sandy beach with patanq courts, a big covered area, a big shower area, toilets, and a tap with potable water, what luxuries! We walked down the road and saw lots of homes, old stone platforms, and trees laden with fruit. The new fascination is the soursop (totara in Marquesan) which is sweet, tangy and a yummy addition to smoothies or fruit punch.

Soon it was time to head over to the Big Town of Taiohae to get ready for the cousins to arrive! Griffin is excited to bring them back here to hopefully see more sharks, rays, and bioluminescence.

More catch up on the next post… until then, adieu!