French Polynesie

Tiki in Nuku Hiva

After a very long silence on the blog front due to slow internet connections or none at all, we will now try to bring you up to date with the happenings of almost a year!

traditional tattooing

Pretty painful!!!!

During the few weeks before the festival began about 40 yachts turned up from all over the region the see the dance and cultural exposition and the sleepy town of Taiohae came alive with drums and dances, practicing for the big events. We soon became aware that the festival was not tourist orientated but was very much an event for Polynesians, local and visitors. These included delegations from the other Marquesian islands ( Hiva Oa, Fatu Hiva, Ua Pou, Ua Huka and Tahuata) and  Easter Island ( Rapa Nui) , Australs, a delegation of Canadian Indians and many more.

Some of the dancers from Nuku Hiva

Great effort went into preparing three beautiful sites for all the cultural presentations, the different venues ensuring that everyone would have the opportunity to see the festivities.
A couple of the venues were fairly inaccessible on foot and the participants were taken to them in 4-wheel drive trucks who being typically courteous to visitors a straggling yachtsman on the way! We were particularly lucky to have our friends Erik and Daphne to take us up to the more difficult places in their own car.

Big music, big men, small drums!

.....and big drums!!

The dance of the bird was sensual and beautiful and the dance of the pig was almost terrifying since it was based on ancient cannibal rituals.

incredible costumes and decorations

Nice legs!!!!

All the costumes from Fatu Hiva were made out of Tapa cloth, tree bark that is pounded till very thin and  colored.

Cree indians from Canada

Rapa Nui or Easter Island

Jose's favorite!!

He could not wait till it was his turn!

A few details of the costumes.

and some of the beautiful faces.

here all the food was served

and here it was taken out of the Umu or underground oven.

handcarved serving dishes

arts and crafts 

building a canoe the old fashioned way

hats........

and faces

Basil, who gave me my tattoo

the audience, Gert, Jeff and Eric

and of course the "gendarmes"

souvenirs in the cockpit

Taiohae, Nuku Hiva

The visiting dancers did wonderful displays of their ancient cultures. A few pictures as you can see speak a lot louder than words.

We should say that despite this being a Polynesian event all visitors were included and made to feel extremely welcome. All in all for the few days of the festival the atmosphere was nothing less than electric!

One remarkable event held in the beautiful valley of Taipivai included the feeding of the 200 plus people present with local foods cooked traditionally in ground ovens called Umu’s.

The roasted pigs, breadfruit, tarot, bananas etc. were incredibly served without the use of a single piece of plastic. Plates were large bamboo sections or woven coconut fronds and of course banana leaves were used to wrap the food. Our society could learn so much from these people!

When all the final and farewell speeches had been made the participants embarked on ships and airplanes to return to their own countries and islands, but not before pledging to repeat the process at another island venue in four years time.

the dinghy had not been cleaned for a while!

Christmas dinner table

The "snack" in Taipivai where we had our New Years Eve dinner with Miranda and Petra.

one of the ancient Tiki sites in Taipivai.

A small supermarket with a very lovely garden.

the hunters back with a goat.

Taipivai

Micki and Petra in Daniels Bay

walking up to the waterfall in Daniels Bay

Micki and Petra under the Banyan tree at the festival site in Taiohae.

For us in Nuku Hiva we spend a day preparing for the arrival of our visitors, Miranda and Petra.

They spend 3 weeks with us on board visiting the various bays around Nuku Hiva. These places are magnificently scenic and it was quite exciting in Daniels Bay when Micki en Petra found out after the event that they had been swimming amongst black tip reef sharks! One they realized the sharks were present the sharks were present in considerable numbers they settled down to admire these beautiful creatures which are not (as most sharks) considered dangerous to people. We visited ancient Tiki sites, incredible waterfalls and generally tromped about all over the island. New Year’s Eve was spend in Taipivai at “Le Snack” a beautiful outdoor restaurant with great local food cooked by our friend Riri ( meaning rain) who after training at a French cookery school in Tahiti had spent 10 years as personal chef for the Governor of French Polynesia. With these credentials you can imagine the food was superb!

The meal was followed by hard drinking and disco dancing at the local football club where Marqesians and yachties alike ushered in the New Year Polynesian style! Notably absent from our points of view were champagne and Auld Lang Syne. Luckily we had the foresight to bring some good whisky and the traditional Quaigg for the occasion!

Miranda and Petra returned to Holland the beginning of January and we started on reconstructing the new galley cupboards and other storage.

We spend much of this time back in Taipivai where we had become adopted by an incredibly generous Marquesian family who constantly took us on scenic tours gathering huge amounts of fruits only to return to yet another wonderful island meal at their home. These meals were generally comprised of mounts of fresh water shrimp, cooked in butter and garlic, more lobster than you could eat, and endless native vegetables and desserts slathered in freshly grated and squeezed coconut cream!

Simon and Tahia were always wanting to learn English and provided the cruisers with as many lessons in their language as we wanted. Tahia is a great cook and ran their “supermarket”. The 4 kids are lovely and great fun to be with. They came to the boat numerous times on Sundays, their only day off and enjoyed being away from their busy lives once in a while. We will miss them a lot!

the daughter of our friends in Taipivai during a children s dancing competition

Manta rays were a common site around the bay in the Marquesas

Beginning of May it was time to get ready for a brief visit to the Tuamotus en route to Tahiti. Jose was to fly to Holland for Miranda and Petra’s wedding so we limited our island visits to one stop only in Kauehi.

It is a fascinating atoll with a fully operational pearl farm which the locals were glad to tour with us.

Time was short and it was important to be well settled at anchor in readiness for Jose’s departure and we arrived in Tahiti the 26th of May.

Kauehi, one of the many atolls in the Tuamotus

Tahiti anchorage, looking at Moorea

sunset over Moorea

One of the many games during the yearly festival in Tahit, throwing spears at a coconut high up on a pole!

all the missed ones!

and the good ones!

a dance performance for the tourists!

but still very impressive

Tahiti for Jeff was a nostalgic visit as he was able to visit many of his old Tahitian and French friends from 37 years ago! Upon our first trip to a supermarket ( “Carrefour! Very nice!” we met Jerry and Ilona Tixier who were introduced to us by Philip and Leslie on Carina, a cruising couple we became friendly with in Panama. Jerry and Ilona immediately adopted us in much the same manner as Simon and Tahia in Nuku Hiva! Again, we ended up spending a lot time with them and their 2 lovely daughters and Jerry’s brother Joe.

Micki and Herve, Jeff's friends from 37 years ago!

Stefan, who was about 6 yeras when Jeff met him first, showing me how you really open a coconut.

Mari and Marama, Stefans parents and also very old friends of Jeff

Jeff helping to prepare lunch

Stefan and 2 of the kids visiting the boat

Jerry and Ilona, new Tahitian friends

and Joe, Jerry's brother

Parties on board Stravaig, Jerry and Nia.

and me,

and Jeff and John,

and lots more friends,

and me again, at Jerry's place

By the time Jose got back, after a very good time in Holland, a great wedding, lots of parties and being with family and friends, Jeff was still struggling to get some engine repairs done and had managed to prepare for the installation of some new rigging which had become necessary when a lower shroud had partially broken between the Galapagos and the Marquesas. We had been nursing the weakened rigging ever since.

Three weeks after José got back from Holland we got a phone call with the very sad news that her mum had passed away, very unexpectedly, she had not been ill and as far as we knew there was nothing wrong with her. It always comes as such a shock to the people left behind, although for her mum it was a blessing not to suffer any painful illness. It was so very fortunate that José had just spent 5 weeks in Holland with the whole family. It will be a while to adjust to the circumstances and hopefully the next trips will help with that.

at anchor in Tahiti,

this is what we were attached to.

With all the work completed we visited and said goodbyes to all our friends and sailed to Moorea, enjoying the beautiful island and swimming with shark and stingrays in its lagoon where the visibility underwater was about 200 ft, incredible!!

Moorea

where we swam and fed the stingrays.

Jeff trying out our new deckchairs

From Moorea we moved fairly quickly through the Society Islands, (Iles sous le Vent), stopping in Houahini, where we met a lovely missionary and his wife originally from the Cook Islands. They were most hospitable and told us of their scary experiences in Christchurch, New Zealand where they were living and working at the time of the dreadful earthquakes which almost destroyed the whole city.

Tahaa was our next stop, just for an overnight stop and the on to the beautiful and renowned Bora Bora where we spent 5 days at the yacht club relaxing before the  700 mile trip to Suwarrow.

the pastor and his wife in Houahine, missionaries originally from the Cook islands

their house and church

we are somewhere there!

Tahaa

Bora Bora

It proved to be a rough and uncomfortable sail with strong winds which seem to be getting worse the closer we got to our destination. By the time we made our approach to enter the pass we found big standing waves and a lot of current needed to be negotiated to make a safe entrance. pretty hairy stuff but what a reward it was to be anchored in the beautiful lagoon behind anchorage island.

Suwarrow is an uninhabited atoll which has become a special stop for sailors since a hermit, Tom Neale, who lived there for 14 years wrote his book about his experiences called “An Island to oneself”. Subsequently the Cook Islands Administration decided to station caretakers on the Island to protect it as bird and marine sanctuary. The caretakers we knew only as Harry and Anthony or Ants, were delightful and talented people making all the visiting yachts feel welcome and many times entertaining us at their evening barbeques with singing and Polynesian story telling.  Ants also took us on various trips to other islands (motus) along Suwarrows reef system, where nesting seabirds and coconut crabs were abundant. Scattered on the islands were a few whale vertebrae, unusual things to find in modern times.

Suvarrow

at anchor in Suvarrow

one of the outlying small islands is a frigate bird colony

whale vertebrae

coconut crab

lunch on another small island

the "social " area on Suwarrow

 During our approach to Suwarrow, we noticed an unusual sound coming from our main engine, but as it was so rough we did not investigate until we were safely anchored. We were fairly sure that the problem was either a faulty thrust bearing in the gear box or worn out flexible engine mount. We hoped that the mount possibility was the real cause of the noise. Our neighbors, Danny and Mo on the yacht “Sam” offered to help and amazingly Danny turned up with some strong rubber hose with which he managed to stiffen up the flex mounts. This certainly quieted things down and was all we were able to do bearing in mind the location.
Just about all the coral heads and reefs in the lagoon were pristine snorkeling territory. All fish that we were accustomed to seeing were present but double the size of those in inhabited islands, probably since those in Suwarrow are rarely hunted for food. One particular location is famous for its giant Manta rays and on a regular basis they come there to be cleaned. We were very unlucky in that when we visited this cleaning station the cleaning fish had no Manta clients and we had run out of time and good weather  so could not stay to try again.
We left Suwarrow and headed into rough seas once again for a 5 day downwind sail to Pago Pago, American Samoa.
Our final destination after this stop in Samoa will be Savu Savu n the island of Vanua Levu in the Fiji Islands. This particular spot is a well-known hurricane hole for the summer season.

American Samoa

Hiking up de mountain to the old cable car station with Mo and Danny

the new sea defenses in Samoa after the tsunami

being tourists

and yes, also in Samoa do you find a Macdonalds!

local buses are all painted and look great!

a few underwater pictures

picture courtesy Zan, we did swim with them though!