After five days in
Hiva-Oa we sailed to Nuku-Hiva, ninety miles to the north. The anchorage is larger and the boats
are more spread out. So is the
village but everything is within easy walking distance. When we arrived Orpailleur was just
leaving but they helped lay out our stern anchor and threw us a fresh loaf. We were six days anchored off the
village and there is little to report except perhaps another memorable meal
aboard Y-Not, plenty of shopping for provisions in small loads and a morning
helping an American couple who arrived with their spinnaker completely wrapped
round the forestay putting their large headsail out of commission as well. They had other trouble too on the way
from Ecuador;
their auto-pilot failed and they hand steered for seventeen hundred miles. They seemed in remarkably good heart
after what must have been a trying time.
There was a wi-fi connection available so we were able to do some
administration, including booking flights home after
Christmas.
We then moved five miles west to
Daniel’s Bay, so called after the local couple who lived there for sixty
years. Eventually they were evicted
and their house razed to make way for a television programme. Daniel and his wife are dead now but
there are relatives about and we met some of them. It is an idyllic spot.
We held our own dinner
party with the Y-Nots and David, a colourful Welshman we had met at the previous
anchorage. David is on his third
time round, single-handed now but he told us he has had four wives, not all of
whom proved entirely satisfactory.
In a varied life he has been responsible for prestigious electrical
engineering projects, run a successful stud farm and had personal encounters
with John Bloom, the Kray twins, the Krays' top hit-man, Christine Keeler and
Mandy Rice-Davies (his favourite).
David is a quiet, undemonstrative chap who added richly to the social
occasion.
The following day
David led the party to view the waterfall, a famous local attraction. My nearest and dearest will readily
understand that I was reluctant to join this expedition. It reputedly involved a one and a half
hour trek each way to see a high, thin waterfall. Succumbing to psychological pressure I
joined the party. It turned out to
be worse than I feared. We left at
10.00am and got back at
4.00pm. We first rowed across to another arm of
the bay and a short way up a river against the current. Disembarking, the path was stony and
slippery although after twenty minutes we were welcomed by Simeon and Felicity,
relatives of Daniel and old friends of our David. They gave us fruit and
encouragement. We had to wade
across a boulder-strewn and fast flowing stream with water up to our knees –
both ways. We were badly bitten by
midges and it rained. The goal for
some of us was a long distance view of this, admittedly tall, waterfall. Those of the party who went further,
crossing the river three more times, found a dramatic gorge but the falls were
partly obscured by a buttress of rock.
On our return journey we were again entertained briefly by Simeon and
Felicity and were refreshed with fresh coconut milk and given huge
quantities of fruit by Daniel’s granddaughter and her husband who were shortly
to return to the island’s main village and had more than they could take away
with them. By the time we returned
to the boat the skin had been rubbed from both ankles and the tops of my toes,
my hip was causing me to hop along like Cassidy and I was generally weary. And yet….. on return I flopped off the
stern for a couple of restorative laps of the boat. Having towelled down I enjoyed a couple
of restorative beers, Mags cooked an excellent supper and over a couple of
restorative glasses of red we watched the full moon rise through the trees and
agreed that it had been a marvellous day.
This had something to do with friendship, something to do with sharing a
slightly challenging endeavour and a fair bit to do with the friendly and
generous spirit of the people we met on the way.
Daniel’s Bay and its
valley are difficult to describe.
They constitute a small piece of Paradise but at the same time are
part of the real everyday world.
Tomorrow we should
reach Manihi. The Tuomotus are all
coral atolls, none more than twenty feet above sea level. They are difficult to see from a
distance and, before the days of g.p.s navigation, were known as “the dangerous
Tuomotus”. Gypsy Moth IV was
stranded there last year, fortunately without loss of life or of the boat which
was salvaged, carried on a freighter to
New
Zealand and
repaired. We are going to be
particularly vigilant. The atolls
are large and frequently have only one or two navigable passes through which the
tide rushes four times a day at up to eight knots. We are trying to time our arrival to
coincide with slack
water.
