Marquesas in photos (Fatu Hiva - Tahuata - Oa Pou - Nuku HIva

Marquesas; Fatu Hiva

Today we sailed from Fatu Hiva to Tahuata Island. We left at first light just as the clouds that hung over the towering serrated ridge of the island lit up with the first color of sunrise. We sailed fast, and by midday we rounded the southern tip of Tahuata and came into the lee of the towering volcanic, jungle clad island. A pod of bottlenose dolphins guided us into a tranquil bay. We dropped anchor into soft sand and it didn't take us long to dig out the snorkels and jump in the water.  In the deep turquoise water around the boat a manta ray cruised lazily around us, his mouth open as he fed on plankton. The mountain ridge behind us has been eroding and the shoreline is littered with volcanic rocks and boulders which come right down into the water. There bright, tropical aquarium fish swarmed in huge schools among the shadows. On shore there is a fishermans shack, a temporary shelter for when someone comes to fish or tend the fruit trees. Out front stands an old carved stone tiki facing the sea. Behind rise coconut palms, mango trees, papayas, bananas grow so dense you have to push through them to get to the dirt road that traverses the island. Above towers massive black cliffs that rise majetically to 3000 feet, shadowing the anchorage.

 

We've seen three islands now, each beautiful and interesting in its own way. The people here, the Polynesians are friendly, stopping us in the streets with their big smiles, greeting us, welcoming us in Polynesian to the Marquesas. They've also shown us their favorite pastime, le change, the exchange. We now carry a backpack loaded with things to trade, old tshirts, lotion, flashlights, perfume, old sandals, wine and rum. We've gotten rid of quite a bit of stuff that was cluttering up the boat and we've aquired whole bunches of bananas, papayas, oranges, pomplemouse (giant, sweet grapefruit) a carved ebony wood Tiki (+ some money for this) and three tapa cloth paintings. As we walk through the town the valley echoes with the tap, tap, tapping of the women as they pound tree bark between a rock and a stick for hours until its thin, soft and pliable like cotton. They use this fabric to make traditional clothing for their dances, or they iron it and paint traditional images for the tourists. These islands are very remote, that's why they sometimes prefer to trade rather than sell you something as things like shampoo rum cannot be bought on the island! The people live well though, they have nice cars, cell phones, lots of food and a nice school and roads. We're living well too!

 

Every day a new boat arrives from crossing the Pacific. It's a lot of fun comparing crossing stories and wondering how those still on the way are doing. We're doing this upload with the satellite phone as there is no internet here. We're taking a lot of beautiful photos so sooner or later we'll upload them to share with you.

Galapagos to Marquesas: Land Ho!

Day 23 and 24                   The final push.

We're close enough now to estimate an arrival time. We've calculated if we push we'll make it before dark on Thursday. We hand steered to keep the speed up all day both days watching the miles and counting the hours. We're getting tired, constantly hanging on is wearing us down. We can't wait to prepare a meal of more than one course, set it on the table with a drink without trying to hold on to everything at once.

Day 25                              Landfall Hiva Oa

As the sun rose puff ball clouds ringed the horizon. To the west, straight ahead, as the sun illuminated particularly dark cloud, the pencil drawing silhouette of a mountain appeared. Hiva Oa, Marquesas, French Polynesia. We spent the rest of the day approaching the anchorage on the south. We entered the outer bay, the open arms of an enormous crater, one side having eroded into the sea. A few houses dotted the hillside that stretched up and into the clouds, disappearing high above in swirling clouds. We motored into the anchorage and found it chocked full of sailboats, all anchored with bow and stern anchors to keep from swinging into each other. We eased ourselves into a recently vacated spot, and as we were eyeing where to place our anchors, our good friend Robin from Katydid rowed over and offered to help with the stern anchor. We loaded it and 200 feet of line into his dingy, then motored forward and dropped our primary anchor between two boats. Cristina backed up as Robin dropped the stern anchor. We pulled both tight and snug as a bug in a rug, 3000 miles and 25 days from the Galapagos, we have arrived! "Welcome to Paradise," said Robin. Then our friends Phil and Jen on Sea Monkey paddled over and gave us a fresh baguette from town.  Friends, food, a secure anchorage; what else could you want?

The anchorage is calm, we relaxed and prepared a big meal with the last of our fresh food and nothing slid across the table, nothing spilled on the stove. We opened a fresh bottle of rum and savored a still boat nestled beneath towering, jungle clad cliffs. Then we slept, no watched, no night reefing, in the bed (vberth) with sheets (it's even cool at night).

Pacific Crossing days 17-19

Day 17   Perfect Sailing Day

If there are times while cruising when you cant find the sense of it, and you keep asking yourself why you are doing it, that wasn't the case today. Just the contrary, we had a perfect sailing day. The wind was blowing 15-18 knots from the SE, pushing us almost straight west towards our next waypoint. The waves from the stern were powerful lifting Bamboleiro up giving us a really good push surfing with them.

If that wasn't enough, we also had a current of about 0.5-1 knots in our favor. The sun was shining but the breeze kept the day fresh and we hand-steered Bamboleiro during the day to give "princesa", our autopilot a break.

Averaging 6 knots, we covered a good piece on our chart: 137 miles

925 miles   

Day 18    Muffin Pancake

The wind tapered off throughout the afternoon and by sunset we were gliding along slowly. We celebrated the easy sailing with a dinner of tortilla de patata, asparagus soup and a glass of red wine. How sweet it was! After dark the wind fell off some more, below 10 knots so the waves tossed us around slamming the sails. We started up the motor and put putted slowly W until at 3am the seas calmed down enough that we could keep the sails full of wind and sailing.

After the long night of wine and motoring, we slept in late until after 10 o'clock. You see we haven't changed our clocks since the Galapagos so now the sun rises after 8am. It sets at 8pm too, which is convenient for us who like to eat dinner late watching the sunset. Here we are truly the masters of our own time.

In the morning we thought muffins for breakfast would be a nice change, but didn't want to turn on the oven in the heat of the late morning. We cooked the muffin instead in a fry pan and it turned out like one enormous muffin pancake. We devoured it for brunch.

Miles today 103

Day 19         Same'o Same'o        

We're ¾ of the way there. We've jibed to the south west and our course is 240, direct to Niku Hiva.

Miles today 130

Miles to go 740

Pacific Crossing Days 14 - 16

Day 14                  Three Cups of Rain

Not much wind in the morning, decreasing in the afternoon to nothing. Squalls all over us and there was no escape this time, so we ate quite a few. This day we had all kinds of rain: thick rain, thin rain, misty rain, horizontal rain, vertical rain, rain that came without wind, rain that came with a little bit of wind and rain that came with howling wind! Most of the time it was chasing rain.

The seas were mostly flat so we spent a lot of time belowdecks watching Boston Legal with the speakers stuck to our ears, since the noise of the motor was too loud! After TV and popcorn time everyone got a fresh rainwater show in the cockpit. We motored all through the night. Lots of rain!

Miles today: 92

Day 15                FOB (fish on boat)

More rain in the morning, this time there are very dark squalls moving around bringing LOTS of wind so we tried to steer around as many as we could. Even so some chased us down and pounded us with rain and wind, so we reefed and unreefed fast and often.

In the afternoon the wind changed to NE, so we set a nice course due West.

Next morning we woke up with a  clear, blue, sunny sky. We put everything out in the cockpit to dry and threw out our fishing lines. Both lines caught dorados at the same time. We lost the first one, but we brought the second on board for lunch. Awesome lunch: Fish and chips with tartar sauce (without chips)

Miles today: 120

Miles to Fatu Hiva 1180

Day 16                Watching TV  

We made 121 miles west, and watched a lot of Boston Legal. It's a lot of fun to watch people who get up every morning, put on clothes and shoes, and live in a city making silly jokes about society. It seems very, very far away and exotic from here in the middle of the South Pacific.