A beautiful island Sunday 02/07/2023
The Bay of Taiohae is surrounded on three sides by mountains, with a 750 metre entrance from the sea at the southern end. North to south, the bay is about 3,000 metres long. It’s a spectacular setting. Because it’s the rainy season, everything is very green (apparently it is a lot browner in the dry season). Being the middle of winter here, the days are relatively short: sunrise at 06:05 and sunset at 17:42. The temperature is warm, but not hot: a minimum at night of 22-24 degrees, a maximum of 24-27 during the day. Being the tropics, the daily range is small.
The village sits roughly along the north shore of the bay, where there is a small area of flat land. Taiohae is the capital of the Marquesas, but has a population of just 2,183 people – it really is a village. The island of Nuku Hiva has 3,120 people, and the Marquesas as a whole just 9,346. (The population was around 78,000 in the 18th century, but – as in many other places – it was decimated by smallpox and measles carried by European explorers, to which the locals had no resistance). Two languages are spoken in the islands: North Marquesan and South Marquesan. They are similar, but distinct, and are most closely related to Hawaiian and Raratongan. Altogether very exotic languages, which have an alphabet of only 15 letters in which vowels are used heavily, consonants much less. (The letters are: A E F H I K M N O P R S T U V – sorry, I couldn’t resist actually listing them!). French is an official language; French Polynesia is an overseas collective of France, and has representation in the French parliament and senate (although it is more independent than Martinique or Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, which are departments of France).
On Friday I walked up over a very steep hill, a saddle in the western mountain, and down the other side on a rough track to Colette Bay. Beautiful views and calm and peaceful. There were three others on the stony beach. There are certainly visitors here: around 35 yachts at anchor in the bay, and a relatively small number of people who fly in. Being winter, it is not tourist season; but it is clear that even in high season the island will not be overrun by tourists. The reason is obvious: you have to make a real effort to get here! The atmosphere is quiet yet friendly. When you pass someone on the road, you greet them. There are many beautiful places in the world that are quite overrun by tourists, and therefore spoiled. This is not one of them.
The sailing community here I think is the friendliest I’ve yet encountered. This seems to be due to the fact that everyone has made a significant effort to get here. I was the beneficiary of this friendliness on Thursday. When I was ashore in the afternoon an incredibly strong wind whipped through the anchorage. On returning to Manuka it was immediately evident that the anchor was dragging. An American called Randy came up in a large dinghy from a nearby catamaran: You’re dragging he said. I know – my anchor just isn’t big enough, plus it is a little damaged. He said radio Kevin at Yacht Services on Channel 72. I did. Kevin said he had a large 35 kilogram anchor he could sell me, and he’d be at his shop in 10 minutes. I said to Randy I can’t leave the boat; he said I’ll fetch it for you. Then I contacted a young French guy Gael on a nearby boat; he’d given me his card the previous day. I said I need help, can you get over here. Suddenly I had Gael plus a volunteer from a neighbouring boat on board, retrieving the old anchor, cutting the rusted connector with the chain using a handheld angle grinder and attaching the rather large new anchor – while I simply operated the engine and made sure we didn’t end up on the rocks. Quite an operation – one that couldn’t be done with one or even two people!
I went and paid Kevin for the anchor on Friday morning. He’s from Southern California. Reviews of his business on Google maps say either that he’s incredible helpful or that he’s rude and unfriendly. I suspect that dear Kevin does not suffer fools gladly, or arrogant people for that matter. I had a long conversation with him and he was charming. The last thing he said was If you need anything, any time, just get in touch.
I’d been helped too by a young American couple from Maine. Having got a local SIM card for my phone, I’d been dismayed to discover that it seemed to exclude the possibility of using my phone as a hotspot in order to connect my iPad to the internet (many US carriers apparently do this to stop you using too much data). I mentioned it to this couple. She said Is it an iPhone? I said yes. She said Give it to me. Ten seconds, and she’d got around the problem, using a trick she’d discovered online. All-in-all, there’s real help available here!
It’s a mixed community. Only a couple of French boats it seems (unlike say Martinique – but of course we are rather far from France here). Mostly it’s Anglo Saxons: Americans and Canadians, a few Europeans and the odd Australian.
My friend Patrick arrived on Triton yesterday morning. He’d been running about four days behind me. It was great to see him, and he was very relieved to have arrived – after a voyage of 36 or 37 days on his smaller boat. I invited him for dinner – nothing special, supplies here are very limited (and at least twice the price you would pay in London!). But it was great to sit drinking beer and reflecting on our journeys – as well as speculating on the way forward.
