About these updates… I started an email list so if you prefer not to receive these updates let me know. Also a few updates are only on SailingSalsa.com, and all the email updates are there, but not some of the recent photos since I have very limited internet for uploading large files they are only going out compressed via hotmail. So if you are reading this on the website rather than via email, you can email me to get on the list and I will try to get you the back emails that have all the photos attached since I stopped adding them to the website. Lastly, if you respond to this email I will get it and respond eventually but sometimes I only have a few minutes to paste the update and pics into an email so I don’t always get to respond to everyone but I’m working on catching up right now!!! Hope you enjoy the update! -Kirk

Ok, a little late for the marquises update as I am preparing to depart Tahiti, but certainly better late than never and I finally have decent internet! I already mentioned Fatu Hiva my first landfall in the Marquises, certainly the most scenic anchorage I’ve ever seen with towering volcanic mountains all around. I also mentioned my detour to Tahuata on the way to Hiva Oa. The anchorage I chose isn’t described in any of my guides, but it is on the Northern most part of the island and was a nice little cove or bay with a sandy bottom and beach with easy dinghy landing. The snorkeling and fishing were good plus it was only about 6 miles from Baie Tahauku or Atuona the main anchorage in Hiva Oa where you check in. After two nights there I sailed over to Hiva Oa and got most of my paperwork done. I decided the anchorage in Tahauku is just horrible, borderline evil. There is often a heavy swell rolling in that breaks in the back of the anchorage, everyone has to put out a stern anchor to hold the bow into the swell and stop you from swinging into your neighbors who are all crammed into this little bay. I would recommend that cruisers seriously consider not stopping here, you can check in at two other islands and there are no officials that I am aware of to bother you in the smaller towns and anchorages along the way.

After dealing with officialdom in Atuona (maybe I’ll elaborate on this later) I made the short sail back to the northern beach anchorage on Tahuata for a few nights before sailing around to the west side of the island where it is not only more protected but more scenic as well in Baie Hanatefau. Several cruisers reported this to be their favorite anchorage in the Marquises but I would have a hard time choosing just one. Baie Hanatefau is reported to have excellent snorkeling and a friendly village about a one-mile south of the anchorage in Baie Hapatoni. The guide and locals recommend not anchoring in front of the village, as it is quite deep, less protected and littered with coral head that can snag your anchor chain. By anchoring in the northern bay you have a better protected anchorage in an uninhabited bay, and still only a few minutes dinghy ride to ‘town’. I had a great time here for several days hanging out with friends from other boats and even some local fishermen. The first day I arrived the jolly fisherman arrived with a Polynesian type outrigger fishing boat propelled by a small outboard motor, they had a lot of fruit to trade and immediately said “no business, only trade”!. I had two bootleg DVDs from the Galapagos that cost about $2.00 each and after they piled a bucket full of Mangos, Papayas, limes, and apples on my deck I handed over the DVDs to the young captain who spoke almost enough English to inform me that they might be back around 3AM with lobsters and coffee (turns out the DVDs were overkill compensation for the fruit as I soon learned after talking to a few other cruisers that had done some trading with the locals earlier). The fisherman made good on their word and the barter, sure enough around 3AM I heard some knocking outside Salsa along with some laughter. I got dressed and came out on deck to greet the fisherman who passed three nice sized lobsters into my bucket and then showed a bottle of rum they traded from another boat and asked if they could come aboard, why not… We started off with rum and coke, and just before sunrise switched over to rum and coffee (mostly rum with a little coffee). The high mountains of the island on the East side of the anchorage delay the sunrise for an hour or so making it easy to sleep in or in our case continue partying well into the morning. The Marquisan told me that no French lived on this island and that they wanted it to stay that way, they didn’t like the French influence and presence seen on the larger islands and have been fighting to hold on to their land for future generations (good luck to them). They also mentioned that the island (like most all of the Marquises) had more fruit then they could eat and that I should be able to find more ashore as they did not regularly trade with the sailors to keep them provisioned Just before the Sun creped over the mountains and into the anchorage the fisherman said they needed to get back to their families, and had to roll one of the three out of Salsa into their Canoe, seems he had a little too much rum and too little sleep :-).

If you dinghy into the village there is a road that leads to the next village north if you are up for several hours of walking each way. I only walked about a mile up to a cross visible from the anchorage where you get great view from the slight elevation, BUT, you also can forage for Bananas (I got a full rack shoved into my and a friend’s backpack), probably 30LBs of bananas off a tree right on the road. You can also find Papayas, limes, and if you trek only a few yards off of the road and brave the wasps you can climb for mangos, maybe even breadfruit. A little work and you can get a lot of fruit for free. While I did put everything in a backpack before hauling it back through the village to the dinghy, I didn’t feel bad about it, a LOT of fruit is always falling off the trees, littering the roads, and woods. There is easily more than the locals can eat and obviously you don’t go picking it from peoples yards, we didn’t even take any fruit within sight of a home.

If you have a few old CD’s you can trade one or two for about as much fruit as you can carry, an old CD seems to have a trading value of around $10 whether you are trading for fruit, crafts, tattoos, etc. Other excellent trading Items are wine, rum, 22 caliber rifle cartridges, and cigarettes all obtained in Panama for about 1/5 of the price they go for here in French Polynesia. One could easily finance the majority of their expenses here by simply stocking up on some of these items in Panama. Rum, seems to be the most easily traded item costing about $5 a liter in Panama for a decent brand like Abuelo and worth at least $25 here. American Cigarettes like Marlboro Lights selling for around $1.00 a pack in Panama and go for around $8.00 here but may be harder to trade since not everyone smokes.

After several days on Tahuata two other boats and myself sailed overnight to Ua Pou with favorable winds and good conditions the entire way, arriving at Bai d’Hakahau in the morning. The approach was great as this island has the largest spires in the Marquises, with the peaks almost always covered in clouds, makes for a wonderful view as I sailed as close as I dared to the entrance of the bay before starting the motor for the first time on this passage to enter the breakwater. Inside Bai d’Hakahau the anchorage only accommodates five or six boats comfortably and is a little rolly from the ocean swell sneaking inside the pass. If you anchor the normal distance from other boats you risk swinging into them as the wind in this bay seems to be unstable, going from calm, to 25 knots from different directions daily. Luckily you can anchor in sandy muddy bottom in only 15 feet of water, relatively shallow for French Polynesia where you often drop the hook in 50’ of water requiring a lot of chain to get a reasonable scope even though I’ve managed to get by fine so far with only 150’ of chain, what I would say is the minimum for this area. The island of Oa Pou is sometimes skipped by cruisers in favor of bigger islands or better anchorages but I had one of my best experiences with the locals here. It started when a good friend, Martin, an Austrian on a wooden gaff rigged ketch and I went ashore looking for a local tattoo artist. Martin speaks some French and after speaking with a few locals most people recommended Muana, a Marquisen who not only does tattooing but teaches the traditional dancing and singing to the locals. Martin was looking for what he described as a local motif on his shoulder with several animals as the traditional tattoos often include geckos, whales, sharks, dolphins, manta rays, turtles, and more. Eventually a local teacher on a bicycle guided us to Muana’s house and the Tattoo artist said that maybe he could tattoo Martin tomorrow after work around 2PM giving us both a skeptical eye. We noticed he had plenty of fruit trees in his yard and also asked about picking some since we are constantly on a fruit acquisition mission and he declined but told us another place to check and then sent us on are way.

Its worth mentioning that a lot of Polynesians initially respond in this stand-offish way to foreigners but usually warm up to you shortly afterwards with heartwarming generosity as was the case with Muana and his family over the next several days. He directed us to a neighbor three houses down who has a plantation full of fruit who told us he had more breadfruit in his yard than he could eat so he picked two for us to take and told us we could come back to trade or buy other fruits but we eventually got all the Papayas, Pamplemousse (a fruit similar to a grapefruit but bigger and sweeter), and Bananas, some for free and others in exchange for just a few old CDs. I think the three best things about the Marquises has to be the People, the scenery, and the fruit. The worst things would be the lack of protection in the anchorages, and the prices and availability of goods in the small stores when you can find one. A store the size of an American convenient store like 7-11 is considered a supermarket! But back to the Muana Tattoo story. The next day we arrived at 2PM and Muana was ready to Tattoo martin. We asked five or six times what the cost would be but Muana would only say as he laughed, “its not expensive”. You can get a very nice expensive tattoo from a French guy at the “Pension” (Hotel), but Martin wanted the real-local-deal. Muana also informed us that he didn’t have a book with pictures of his work because he never made one, besides he doesn’t need one, you just have to walk the town and look at the locals to see the great work he’s doing. Muana also doesn’t like to pre-design his tattoos and use a image transfer to copy like “the French guy” but rather goes by feel so you can’t be 100% sure what you will get but you know it will be good!. He said when he was done he would explain the symbols and give a price but assured Martin he would get some animals in there more or less as the theme. An hour or two later Martin had a great tattoo with a Dolphin, gecko, turtle, and whale linked in a spiral on his shoulder. I started to think about a tattoo as well.
Around this same time other friends from another boat Therese (from Sweden) and her boyfriend Helga (Norwegian) were negotiating what turned out to be a beautiful tattoo of a Manta Ray on Therese’s back from Jerome “the French guy” at the Pension. We later gave her plenty of grief for not going with our local guy and paying four times as much but the truth was that both tattoo artists did excellent work.

Later the next day we watched a really interesting display of local Marquisan dancing and singing featuring none other than Muana our tattoo guy who even invited us to watch them practice the following evening. By this time, as is usually the case with the locals Muana had fully warmed up to all four of us (even though he only tattooed Martin so far, and invited us not only for a beer after the dancing, but to his brothers house to pick the biggest sweetest mangoes I’ve ever seen where we sampled some of the ‘local brew made from pineapples, and for a drive around the island to see some of the landscape, AND to his place for a traditional Marquesan dinner!! Muana’s hospitality seemed endless but the weather deteriorated making the anchorage unsafe so I missed the dinner and left Ua Pou for a better anchorage on the last island I would visit, Nuku Hiva, but not before getting Muana to give me a tattoo of my own!.

Taiohae is basically the capital of the Marquises where there is decent but expensive provisioning, internet, and a large somewhat rolly but reasonably protected anchorage. I found this bay less interesting than the smaller villages and uninhabited areas so I stayed two nights till Monday to score fresh baguettes and sailed in rough seas only 3 miles to the next bay, Daniel’s Bay (AKA Baie de Taioa), not to be missed. Here not only did I find several old friends, but a reasonably protected anchorage, the best so far, an amazing hike to a waterfall and fresh water swimming hole, free potable water, plus friendly locals who sold us a full compliment of fruit for a great price to provision for the 500 mile sail to the Tuomotus. I know I’ve said a lot about the Marquises already but that really is only the tip of the iceberg, with limited power to run the laptop I think I’ll leave it that and send an update about the passage to and from the Tuomotus, plus the week I’ve now been in Tahiti next. As I write this it is June 29 2009, and I plan to sail from my current location near Papeete to the adjacent island of Moorea only 25 miles away alluring me everyday as I watch the sunset behind its 4000’ high mountain peaks. I expect to be in the Society Islands around Tahiti, Moorea, and Bora-Bora for a few weeks even though I am running a little behind schedule for Australia, there is just so much to see!!

Filed under: sailing • Trip

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