Royal Visit of Granny and Papa Part-I
Pacific Bliss
Colin Price
Thu 10 May 2012 05:42
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Granny and Papa in the
Marquesas - The Royal Visit
At 3am on Friday morning the
cranks of the Aranui's anchor finding a resting place woke us all.
  Having dispatched very excited
children off to school by 8am we watched the rest of the passangers being
dispatched on to the shore. Colin collected the
assembled luggage and boxes and then took the well travelled
G&P (they had left England a week previsouly and come by way of LA, San
Diego, Tahiti, Fakarave, Ua Pou, Nuku Hiva, Hiva Oa and finally fatu Hiva - the
most far away place in the Pacific you could hope to try and get
to.
 First off, a walk around
the village before collecting he children from school. Then back to
the boat for a grand old catch-up. Poor G & P not only have
they a made the never ending trip here they've also had to carry rather an
obseen about of on-line shopping from us. The wonderful collection of
gifts and letters from folk at home was hugely appreciated. The
wonderful skin rescue from Kerry and lipstick and nail Polish has only
got me only mildly paranoid!
 Papa with smelly leaves used in a hairclip  Gill walking
down the old highstreet with ZinniaThree generations living together in a
small space in a far away place is potentially not exactly one
that surpasses all others. The children have been missing G & P
dreadfully and Colin and I have obviously fallen into a rather chilled out
state, and are eager to share the way live.
With so many islands to visit and only a couple of
weeks to get round them we've only time enough to say drop off thank
you in the shape of cakes and get over loaded with fruit almost
to a point of our water line dissappearing. Along the way Colins folks are
proudly shown the largest drum in Polynesia and from the lady who has been
keeping our bikes safe, granny got a private demonstration of how Tapa ( a form
of paper and cloth) is made from bark. Other than nearly being eaten alive
by a evil dog all went well.
Big drums and dogs
  Hanavave - Bay of
Virgins
Anyone who makes it this far has to
be treated to a night in the dramatic 'bay of virgins' where granny
is able to purchase a wee bit of wood carved into the shape of a
bowl.
 The virgins head - Cosmo thinks
she's working on a laptop!
 G&P bought a lovely carved rosewood bowl from David
who engraved his signature as we watched
 The following day we had a
wonderful sail back to our friends in Tautata, cricky the children are
enjoying having G & P on board. Peter very proud to find his grand son
will be following in his foot steps, as an inventor. Zinnia and Granny could
chat for a life time, Z super keen on knowing everything about her
childhood.
    Cosmo and Papa being inventors together
 It was a complete treat to be
welcomed back with open arms to Fredrick and Roses home. I'd promised Pizza so
for the first day I busied myself making 5 batches of dough whilst Z turned into
the tour guide taking her grandparents on a long walk to see the ancient
hidden petroglyphs.
    During supper that night, lovely Frederick promised to
take G&P to visit the beautiful church in Vaitehu the next village
accessible by 4WD, but best of all for G & P they get to see the
dynamics of our lovely Marquesan family.
 The following day I was left with the ladies to teach
them how to make pizza, bread and sushi. Whilst the rest
of the family endure the road to Vaitehu.
Last time we where here we swam with and watched the
most incredible display of dolphins, this time the experience got a whole
lot better. Firstly because there where no hideous biting plankton in the
water but also because the water was so clear we where able to observed multiple
acts of fornication, not even a BBC wildlife film could top
this.
Dolphin following in the dinghy
  Fresh papaya and
Zinnia demonstrqates how fish used to be preserved   Petroglyphs on
the rocks    Boats in the
bay of dolphins and Papa takes a restTime to say our goodbyes and collect our treasures from
ashore, We're so hopeless at goodbyes so concure our return in a few weeks
time. The next few days we spend in desert d bays where we're able to
collect limes, breadfruit, grapefruit. But the top of all tops is Granny got to
almost headbutt a Manta Ray and snorkle with Morrish Idols.
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