The above statement caused a sailing friend who cruised through these islands in the early nineties to say how amazed he was that we had not managed to make more contact with the local people.  This set us thinking and asking around the other yachties.

Basically their experiences, with one exception I will describe later, have been the same as ours.  Namely that the locals are not really interested in making social contact nor in fact business contact either.  That is not to say they are unfriendly, far from it, we are however not in any way an oddity and there is little interest in making money out of us.  The few who do are usually French.  In this town of 1700 people there is one lady who does washing at quite unreasonable prices and her service is awful.  Very erratic and usually takes three or four days.  The Lady who runs the gas filling service does not really care and lives outside town but rarely comes to the yacht center to pick up and return the gas bottles.  Living in paradise off the French State is easier.  This is in such marked contrast to the Galapagos where getting fuel, washing done, food shopping etc was all so easy.

So far as meaningful contact with the locals goes I am sure that the collapse of the world copra prices in the mid nineties and the subsequent shutting down of many of the coconut plantations with the resulting depopulation of most of the small bays has played a big part.  There is often no one in residence to make contact with.

The one exception we have heard of concerned two Danish boats.  They made contact with the Fatu Hiva school master and his son.  They gave talks on life in Denmark to the school children and then three of them, two men and one woman all in their twenties went on an expedition with the son.  They walked through the jungle for nine hours and over the hills to the uninhabited East side of the island.  Here they camped.  Next day they hunted and eventually killed a wild pig.  This was cooked whole in a fire pit.  They ate a leg and brought the rest home for the family.  Two further days of walking and camping at night and they returned to show off their bites!  I heard about this from the Danish girl.  I could only admire her stamina and a lot of the bites it was polite to see!

The above discussion must not misunderstood.  We have had a marvellous time here, visited many islands and a lot of exceptional sites.  Our visit has just been different than those of yachts ten plus years ago.

Since the last episode we climbed over the ridge above Anaho Bay, walked down to the village and on up to one of the largest sites of an old town there is.  Banyan trees over ten meters in diameter towered above us.  The bases of a huge number of sizeable dwellings abounded.  The pits where the next human meal  was kept were still there.  Gruesome.  A large area has been recovered from the jungle but it was obvious that there is much more lost to the undergrowth.  The population of these islands until the mid nineteenth century was obviously huge.  Returning for an excellent lobster lunch with ice-cream to follow we then somehow managed to scale the ridge and make it back to the boats.  Four hours walking/climbing in the heat of the day.

Our other expedition has been in Daniel's Bay.  This beautiful anchorage is thus known to yachts by the name of the old Marquesan man who, together with his wheel chair bound wife, lives there.  He has always welcomed yachts and his visitor's book is full of the cruising famous as well as many many of us lesser mortals.  A two hour walk up a rough track above his bay brings one to a 300 plus meter waterfall.  Reputably the worlds third largest fall.  A swim across a fifty meter pool, then under a bolder and through a further thirty meter pool brings one right to the falling water.  Under this and one can just get behind the fall.  The last pool is done into a gale of wind induced by the falling water.  Not all the party made this but all three of Nordlys's crew did.  A really refreshing swim after the walk. None of this compares with a four day pig hunt but we feel we have achieved quite enough!

Now back in Taiohae Bay we are preparing for the four hundred and fifty mile sail to the Tuamotus.

Entrance to Daniel's Bay

 

NoNo bites on Chris's leg

Happy times to all our readers

David, Annette and Christabel