27 August 2004 - Arrived in Nuku Hiva
So, here we are anchored in Taiohae Bay of the island Nuku
Hiva, Iles Marquises (Marquesas), the northern group
of islands in French Polynesia, at 08° 55.0' South by 140° 06.3'
West. We arrived on Friday morning, just after sunrise following a 23 day passage from Hawaii. It was a fairly
tough slog upwind to get here, with uncooperative weather the first two
weeks. We are now catching up on sleep and eating fresh provisions
once again. One of our boat neighbors kindly brought over a sack of
limes and bananas when we arrived so we enjoyed bananas flambe, banana pancakes,
and we're going to make key lime pie later today.
We had been able to see land since the previous evening, but didn't want
to try an unfamiliar anchorage while it was dark, so we slowed down a bit
to get to Taiohae Bay in the light. There's lots of room to anchor,
and we see about 8 other cruising yachts here, including one from Montreal,
Canada. We chatted briefly with Jean-Pierre this morning; they have
been sailing for 5 years, and now plan on leaving their boat here for six
months while they fly back to Montreal next week. Friday we cleared
into the country by visiting the local police ('gendarmes') to get our passports
stamped, and the local bank to post a bond which the authorities can use
to pay for an airline ticket back to Canada, in case they decide they need
to get rid of us. The bond cost about $2500 for the two of us, but
we get the money back when we leave the country. We also visited the
local post office to buy some stamps and a phone card. All these visits
took a while, because the businesses all close between noon and two o'clock
for siesta. Very civilized! We also bought a steak to cook on
the BBQ later, and found some canned butter from New Zealand. This
will be handy, as we can now enjoy butter on our popcorn while at sea!
The store also had some powdered 2% milk, which is a pleasant change from
the powdered skim milk we have been drinking.
When we returned to the dinghy we found it half-floating on the beach,
full of sand and water. We had tied it to a tree so it didn't float
away, but the surf had gone higher than we expected and tried to pull it
out to sea. The only thing we lost, thankfully, was a can of WD-40.
The reason we had brought the dinghy to the beach in the first place was
that our dinghy motor wouldn't start, and we didn't want to row all the way
across the bay to the docks – it was closer to go to the beach. On
Saturday Barb spent most of the day doing laundry while I took the engine
apart. It turned out that the throttle and choke valves were both seized
in the carburetor, probably because there wasn't enough grease on the shafts
to resist the salt water. Yesterday (Sunday) we took advantage of a
break in the rain to test out the engine and zip into town for a walkabout
(as much as one can "zip" with a 2 hp engine).
The town seems quite nice – there are about 2000 people living here, in
smallish houses with huge green gardens. Lots of banana, breadfruit,
pamplemousse and coconut trees are growing in the yards, and we see dogs,
goats, pigs, and horses roaming freely. Nuku Hiva is a very hilly island
(very pointy hills), and very green. This is likely due to the large
amount of rain, of which we had plenty in the last 72 hours. In fact,
we collect the rain that drips off our awning, and have almost filled our
200 litre tank plus we used another 15 gallons for doing the laundry.
We plan on staying here for a few days while we clean up the boat and
do a couple of fix-it chores (like sealing the leaky windows!). Then
we want to see some of the other bays, including one that has the third highest
waterfall in the world (200m). We will probably stay in the Marquesas
for three weeks total, before heading for Rarotonga in the Cook Islands.
We would like to see more here, but we need to make sure we get to New Zealand
by the first week of November. We think we may stop in French Polynesia
on the way back to Hawaii in a couple of years...