Author: cruisingrunner

Our first day after arriving we spent holed up on our boat eating, drinking, and soaking in our own arrival euphoria.  The second day we checked in and explored the town.  On our THIRD day, the fun began as we were able to welcome two of our buddy boats who we travelled across the Pacific with.  Chara arrived first, and Tim and Alex were in the dinghy ready to assist them with their stern anchor, if needed.  But Chara eyed their spot, steered to the back of the anchorage, turned around, dropped the stern anchor, pulled forward, dropped the bow anchor, pulled back, and they totally nailed it.  It was a beautiful thing to watch.  We had picked up extra baguettes that morning, so even though they weren’t needed to assist with anchoring, Tim and Alex got to be the bread delivery men.  The Chara crew were anxious to get to shore, so we offered to give them a ride in our dinghy whenever they were ready (since ours was already in the water and the outboard was already on).  They made an appointment with Sandra (the agent that assisted us with check-in) and they were just going to relax until then. 

Next to arrive was Lady Carolina, not much after Chara.  Their entrance lacked the professionalism of Chara’s spot-on anchoring, but it made up for it in, let’s just say, flare.  As I did with Chara, I was taking pictures of them on their approach outside the harbor with the telephoto lens.  At some point I get a reasonably clear glimpse into the cockpit, and I have to look away.  Then I’m not sure of exactly what I saw, so I have to look again.  This time, I’m sure.  If you’ve seen the movie Borat, you will know what I’m talking about.  Steve is wearing a bright yellow contraption.  Picture a banana hammock with suspenders.  And later I would learn it also sported a G-string.  “Oh my god!”  I yell across to Chara, “What is Steve WEARING!?!”

Steve proudly displayed his mankini to the anchorage as poor Kyle ducked at the stern in sheer embarrassment.  And in typical Lady Carolina style, they had to circle the anchorage 2 or 3 times to pick their spot, then once they picked their spot and dropped, they decided that wasn’t good and moved.  In the final anchoring spot, they enlisted Tim’s help in the dingy, so he got a front row show for the mankini.  I do think at one point Steve did put shorts on, because there’s a fair amount of bending and lifting involved in anchoring a boat, so he was perhaps putting all of us out of our misery while making himself a bit more comfortable.  Of course, through all this the time for Chara’s appointment came and went and they had to drop their own dinghy to get to shore anyway.  Then we had an all-day happy hour on Exodus, complete with baguettes “four ways.”  We had a good time catching up and chatting about our passages.

But no, the mankini adventures did not end that day.  Our other buddy boat, True Blue V, arrived two days later, and since they had missed the original show, Steve was planning to make up for it.  I had made some allusion to “Steve’s arrival attire” on one of our radio nets, so Craig and Leann knew that something might be up.  As soon as they were heading past the breakwater, Steve donned his mankini and raced out in the dinghy, driving it while standing, as if he were driving a chariot.  They almost died!  The best part was that there was a tour boat of what sounded like teenage girls leaving the harbor at just the same time, and Steve faced them and gestured with arms high in the air, and whole harbor erupted in screams and squeals.

Once True Blue V got anchored, we had another lovely day of eating, drinking, and catching up.  We were lucky on Exodus.  We got to relive the arrival Euphoria several times, in addition to our own.

The checkin process was very simple and easy.  No long waits.  No drama.  Of course, we hired an agent through the Pacific Puddle Jump registration and paid $200+ so if it hadn’t had been easy, that would have been a waste of money.  The best part about the agent fee was getting an exemption from the bond requirement.  You see, immigration is very tightly controlled in French Polynesia.  Non-EU citizens are only allowed to stay for 3 months out of 6 months, so unlike Mexico where all you had to do was leave the country and re-enter, in French Polynesia you have to leave for a longer period of time.  There are ways to get exceptions and extensions, but they involve either a lot of leg work ahead of time (with 2 visits to the French Embassy in your home country) or some sort of health or boat issue when you’re here.  Anyway, I think the tight immigration is actually a good thing for French Polynesia in that it is probably preserving the Polynesian culture rather than opening it up to a bunch of rich western immigrants who want to get away and settle here. 

Back to the bond requirement… when you arrive in French Polynesia you either have to have a return airline ticket already booked or if, like us, you are arriving via your own boat, you need to post a bond equal to the amount of an airline ticket back to your home country.  Then when you clear out of the country, you get your money back (getting hit by an unfavorable exchange rate twice, presumably).  So, by hiring this agent they arrange an exemption to the bond requirement.  They also had a representative in Hiva Oa take us to the Gendarmerie and help us get checked in and arrange our duty-free fuel paperwork.  The Hiva Oa rep’s name was Sandra, and she was immensely helpful in many ways.  Sandra is the one we called when the tsunami sirens were going off.

When she took us to the Gendarmerie, we rode in the back of her pickup truck, which was covered, but it was stiflingly hot back there.  We rode with another boat full of people, so we crowded in, and all cleared into the country together.  At the Gendarmerie there was just one form to fill out, which included a section to declare all of your tobacco, firearms, medicines, and alcohol.  I remembered one of the blogs I read said you could just write something like, “that which is needed for the household,” or something like that, but when I asked Sandra, she said I should simply write down exactly what we brought.  Without my spreadsheet in hand there was no way I would be able to write exactly, but I took my best shot, and overall, I way underestimated our alcohol inventory.

Atuona is the most windward official port of entry in French Polynesia, so many puddle jumpers make their first landfall there.  The harbor, called Baie Taaoa (aka Traitor’s Bay) is small and it faces southwest.  There is a breakwater reaching almost halfway out across the entrance to the bay to protect from some of the swell that comes in, but it is generally known as a pretty rolly anchorage.  We found it quite pleasant while we were there.  I guess when there is a particularly severe storm down in the Southern Ocean it can generate a lot of swells from the south which makes this anchorage pretty much untenable.  Luckily, we didn’t experience that.  When we arrived, there were 12 boats bow and stern anchored, and I think while we were there we saw as many as 18-20. 

The town of Atuona is really nice even if it is quite a walk from the harbor.  Traitor’s bay is actually a double lobed bay.  Baie Tahauku is the eastern lobe where the harbor is, and Baie Atuona is the western lobe where, well, Atuona is.  The walk takes about 30-40 minutes, and you get some nice views as you walk around the point between the lobes.  But it’s also pretty easy to get a ride too.  One time I was walking along alone, and someone stopped to give me a ride.  At home, would I have ever accepted a ride like that from a stranger?  He didn’t speak English, but I was able to tell him to drop me at the post office.  Needless to say, the people there were quite nice.  There are several stores, and provisioning was good.  Our first trip to town I went a little crazy buying outrageously expensive fruit like pears and tangerines, since we had been out of fresh fruit for a while.  But after a few days we were buried in the fresh local fruit, like pamplemousse, bananas, and mangoes, that people gave us.  Contrary to all the hype among cruisers, you CAN get eggs here.  I brought only enough eggs from Mexico for our crossing, and we’ve never been without eggs since arriving.

Our first trip to town we hit the Gendarmerie, the ATM (which had a much-loved air-conditioned kiosk), all of the stores, and one of the “snacks” in town for a pretty gross burger and a couple beers.  We had a fine walk back to the harbor munching on baguettes the whole way.  We learned that the gas station right on the harbor has baguettes in the morning, and you can pre-order, so you don’t have to go in crazy early to make sure you get some. 

I thought the town smelled like Hawaii.  Maybe it was all the tropical fruit and the moist air.  But it definitely reminded me of Hawaii.  It would rain a few times each day for just a short bit, making it a fire drill to get all the hatches closed on the boat so we don’t get drenched inside.  This is where we made it part of the process when leaving the boat to make sure all hatches are closed.  Yes, we learned the hard way.

Any tourist propaganda you read about Atuona will include the fact that Paul Gaugin and Jaques Brel are buried there.  I had never even heard of Jaques Brel, but apparently, he was a famous Belgian singer.  Of course, I knew the French painter Paul Gaugin, and I kept mentioning we should walk up to the cemetery.  I never had any takers.  So, one of our last days there I headed into town alone to see the cemetery and pick up a few final provisions.  It was a short, steep walk up to the cemetery, turning right just before the Gendarmerie.  There was some roadwork being done on the very narrow road, and the workers stopped so that I could comfortably pass.  The cemetery was quaint, and yes, I saw and photographed both graves, but the view of the town and the bay from up there was spectacular.  I was OK having that moment alone.

We met another kid boat there almost right away.  They were on s/v Mojumbo and they were from Tasmania, finishing the final leg of a 4-year circumnavigation.  Zeke is 14 (I think) and Nena is 12, and they were very welcoming to Alex and Brenden and took them to shore to play a couple times.  Once Lady Carolina arrived, they were quite the gang, and when I just now asked Brenden what he remembered about Atuona, he said, “oh, that was my favorite place because we built really cool forts on the beach.” 

While we were still a couple miles out of the Atuona harbor, I was picking up a couple boats on AIS, and I recognized one of the names, Senta.  They weren’t anyone we had ever met, but they often checked in on the radio nets, and I was quite happy to see someone familiar.  So, I hailed a couple times on VHF and finally got a response.  Turns out it wasn’t the owners on board, but a hired crew to bring the boat here.  The guy was really nice, told us there were 12 boats in the anchorage, and that he would be happy to help us with our stern anchor when we got there.  12 boats.  I’d seen photos of the anchorage at seminars back in Mexico, and 12 seemed like a lot.  Everyone was likely using stern anchors both to keep the boats pointed toward the harbor entrance, into the swell, and also so that everyone would fit.

When we arrived, we went immediately to the back of the anchorage near shore, because with a shallow draft and all, that’s just what cats do.  We found a nice spot in what I felt like was too shallow of water, but there was room, and we totally nailed the bow/stern anchor setting.  Alex and Brenden are such a good help at this, and since EVERYONE in the anchorage was watching the new boat come in, it’s good we didn’t give them any drama. 

Our Euphoria was temporarily disrupted when a siren alarm started going off.   Now, we knew about the earthquake that had happened off the coast of Chile (thanks Colin), so our first thought was, “oh no, tsunami!”  No one else in the anchorage seemed to be taking any action and there wasn’t any radio traffic about it.  So, I radioed Sandra, the agent on shore who would help us with our clearing in process the next day.  She assured us it was just a test, and there was nothing to worry about.  What a relief!  We couldn’t imagine having to haul up anchor and head back out into the ocean right after we had gotten there. 

Later we learned that is exactly what had happened to people the day before.  They had a real tsunami warning and evacuated the harbor.  I guess they learned they needed to test their system as a result.  The skipper from Senta stopped by and we had a chat, and it turns out it’s a totally different Senta, not the one we knew of in Mexico after all.

The Marquesas are the youngest of the islands in French Polynesia.  But they must be older than the Hawaiian Islands, since there are not active volcanoes. (I’ve never googled that, though, so don’t quote me on it.)  The landscapes are stunning with high peaks and lots of tropical greenery. 

OK, I have to dip a little into the guidebook for some of the following history, however, I’m somewhat shocked that my “Guide to Navigation and Tourism in French Polynesia” still refers to the “discovery” of the islands.  As if they didn’t exist before Europeans visited.  But I digress.

Anyway, the islands were really first discovered and settled by people believed to have migrated from Melanesia, sometime around 1-20 AD.  The first Europeans to *cough* discover *cough* them were the Spanish.  They went to Fatu Hiva and Tahuata, but first they were like, “what,” and then they were like, “huh,” and then they just got bored.  So, they didn’t stay long.  The Marquesans are famous for repeatedly repelling occupation by various French, British, and American explorers, militaries, and missionaries.  It was only in 1838 that French Catholic priests were there to stay on the island of Tahuata.  During all the contact with the Europeans, the Marquesan population was severely decimated, in fact, they came close to disappearing altogether.  While we were there, I noticed a concerted effort that has been made in recent decades to preserve the Marquesan language and culture.  One archaeological display in Taiohae (on the island of Nuku Hiva) said the Marquesan language was almost entire replaced by Tahitian at one point.  Fortunately, they are not reviving the practice of cannibalism, but the art of tattooing the body is making a strong come back.  Their dancing is concentrated on a yearly festival where there are competitions among the islands.  I heard it said that the missionaries frowned on the erotic and suggestive nature of the dancing, but I don’t know if that ever really came close to dying out.

The Marquesans are quite religious, with Catholicism being the most obvious Christian sect on the islands, and that is here to stay, there is no chance of the ancient Marquesan religions making a comeback. 

They are in an odd time zone, being 9.5 hours set back from UTC time.  Their currency is the French Polynesian Franc, and we didn’t notice any signs of any poverty.  They are highly subsidized by the French, but at the same time they are a proud people who are proud to be Marquesan, not French.  So, this creates a sort of love/hate relationship.

I loved the Marquesas, and I’m saddened by the fact that we had so little time there.

It is difficult to describe the feeling of Euphoria you get when you have finished setting your anchor after a 22-day ocean crossing.  The boat is still and peaceful.  There are no watches to stand.  There are other people around.  You feel relief.  You feel a sense of accomplishment.  You feel happy.  The closest thing I can compare it to is finishing a long-distance race that had a particularly grueling last couple of miles, but you still managed to PR.  Oh, and the race had to be in some exotic location, and you got to stay and explore afterwards.  Surprisingly, we weren’t in a hurry to get off the boat.  We were just happy to be there.  We opened a bottle of 2000 Spanish red wine we had been hauling around for a while, and the boys got to drink sodas for their “safe arrival cocktails.”  We made snacks and hung out in our cockpit all afternoon as others from the anchorage came by to say hi and welcome us.  (No one brought us baguettes, though.) 

People say that you can smell the land as you get close.  I tried, and I didn’t notice much of a difference, but as we were entering the anchorage Brenden, who has a much more acute sense of smell than I do said, “it smells sweet like pollen.”