Marquesas Islands

Once safely anchored, we went ashore, where we were met by ARC yellowshirt Rachael. She welcomed us with a smiling face, fresh fruit and garlands of fragrant flowers. We were so pleased to be ashore!

Laurent, the ARC agent, was also on hand to help us with the check in, ensuring that the relevant forms were completed and escourting us to the gendarmerie to clear immigration and get our passports stamped.

It was not all chilling out though, as we needed to measure our sails to enable us to order new ones. This was not as easy as it sounds, especially with such big sails – our genoa is 15m long. We dropped the genoa, folded it up and set off in the dingy to the beach, in hope of finding a space to lay it out. The first challenge was getting ashore. With the waves pounding on to a steeply shelving beach, it was all about timing it right to avoid a drenching. Once ashore, we managed to find an open hut which was almost big enough and set about collecting measurements.

We were blown away by the impressive anchorage at Taioha’e  – a large sweeping bay set in the remains of a volcanic crater. Mountainous walls rose steeply from water, surrounding the bay on three sides. The small town was perfect. A single road ran along the water’s edge with two supermarkets, still small, but the best for a long while. They even had fresh baguettes daily -such a treat! The other treat, after the long passage, was the variety of locally grown fruit and vegetables. The daily market was superb and it was there that we were introduced to the delicious pamplemousse. This is a large grapefruit, bigger and sweeter than any we have had before – delicious. Whilst here, we also managed to be ashore early enough to buy freshly caught fish.

In the whole of the Marquesas Islands, we were welcomed with open arms by the people who all smiled and said bonjour or kaoha. Collette, from the tourist information office, was a fountain of knowledge and organised a superb welcome event for the rally.

The afternoon started with a welcome song and lays of fresh flowers. This was followed by freshly cut coconut and a demonstration of local crafts and skills. These included the many uses of a coconut, local wood carving and the opportunity to make our own fragrant flower garlands and bead necklaces.

The day was rounded up by a welcome meal in the community hall – A buffet of fish and vegetables with the centre piece of ground cooked pig. We were entertained by energetic dancing and we even got the chance to join in. I don’t think they will be signing us up any time soon.

Richard took us to visit several archaeological sites which had been unearthed to display what life was like over 1000 years ago. Stone buildings with straw roofs, ceremonial stone platforms and a scattering of carved tikis – increasingly, these ancient locations are being reconstructed and used in modern day festivals.

Finally, we were shown an enormous banyan tree. This huge tree was an impressive cascade of roots with sinster deep pits around its base. Banyan trees are considered to be portals into the spirit world and this was was an ancient burial site, the deep pits being used to keep captive the victims before they were eaten!

Richard told us that the tree had been an inspiration for the tree of life in the Avatar movie. you could see why.

Our last stop in the Marquesas Islands was Daniel’s Bay. Only a small bay, large enough for a handful of boats, but surrounded by sheer cliffs. It was such an impressive place to be. Whilst here, we walked through the sub tropical rainforest to the Vaipo Waterfall: a horse tail type fall with a drop height of 350m (1148′). It is supposedly one of the tallest in the world. Unfortunately, we were unable to see its splendour close up as it ran behind a huge cliff face. We had to be satisfied with a view from a distance.

When choosing information to post about, we tend to focus on the places that we visit, but those of you who own boats will know that life onboard is not just about these experiences. Cruising was once described to us as ‘fixing boats in exotic places’. This is so true!

Our huge job while in the Marquesas Islands was to repair our sails. We had managed to order new ones, but they would be delivered to Tahiti. This was still about 1000nm away. We knew that we would have to patch them to get there.

Due to the enormity of the job in hand, this would have been almost impossible to do on the boat. Collette was once again on hand and put us in touch with the local council. They kindly allowed us to use the community hall for the day. This was at no hire charge as long as we paid for the electric (about £35). The next challenge was the sewing. Our small domestic machine was not up to the task, so we borrowed a heavy duty Sailrite machine from another ARC boat. Transporting everything ashore took three trips in the dinghy and we then spent the whole day patching and sewing. By 8pm, we were exhausted, but had still only managed to do about half of the job. Several of the patches were too far away from the sail edge to sew with the machine. We had no option other than to hand sew the rest.

Our second repair day was spent by the beach with the genoa draped over a rope line, hand sewing zig zag stitch with our trusty speedy stitcher. I am not sure ‘speedy’ is the right word, we got up to 6 stitches a minute. From 9am until 5pm, we sat on both sides of the sail stitching on patches. It was another very long  day, but I suppose that there are worst places to mend sails. Fingers crossed they will now last until Tahiti.