Only 60 miles away, Tahuata is directly South-East of Ua Pou. Despite this, it took us 26 hours to get there, sailing pretty much directly into the wind the whole time.
Night shifts, assumed to be long in our past, resurfaced as a thing.
We left Hakahetau bay on the northwest side of Ua Pou at 4pm and arrived into Tahuata at 6pm the next day just as the sun was setting. Lisa felt ill from the get-go and spent the entire time wandering from bed to sofa to cockpit, trying not to vomit and to be horizontal as much as possible. She was no use to anyone.
On the upside, we caught another Tuna, which kept the meat-eaters happy!
The following day it appeared that we were in the wrong bay and the one with a boulangerie and other stuff was a bit further north. We motored the few miles and arrived into a bay with an actual (walk-in) bread oven and well-stocked shop. Lisa made Pasta Norma for dinner and Will baked sticky toffee pudding for dessert. We watched The Boat That Rocked and were all happy.
The following day our friends on Selkie arrived to see us off. There were 1.5m wingspan manta rays that came to say goodbye to us too. They stayed for a good 5 minutes and were spectacular...
This would be our last night on the boat. There was another only-by-reservation restaurant and, after Lisa had done a run, we all went and had a fabulous swordfish send-off.
As we were waiting on the pier for Charlie to take Selkie back to their boat, Helen, Roo and Kit noticed about 8 enormous manta rays under a street light at the very end of the pier by some rocks.
They must have found some delicious fare as they were gliding backwards and forwards the entire time we were there.
They swam on their sides and we could clearly see their white bellies, black fins, and huge mouths under the water.
Our take-home message: no need for scuba gear in the Marquesas!
The next morning we set sail early, and headed north a few hours to Hiva Oa, the second largest island in the Marquesas. This was where our flight to Tahiti was booked from.
It was also where Captain Charlie needed to get various bits of paper signed, to make it official that we were off the crew list and no longer his responsibility :-(
That signing had to be done by a Gendarme. And it was Sunday. In Hiva Oa. Where time stands still.
We arrived in the harbour, anchored, lowered the dinghy, jumped in, zoomed off to the quay, moored up, and then began our quick march 1.5 miles through the midday heat to the main town and the Gendarmerie which closed at 12:00 for lunch.
We got there at 12.03. And it was like a scene from 28 Days Later.
Tumbleweed blew down the main street. A shutter banged in the wind. A stray chicken pecked at the ground (wild chickens are everywhere in the Marquesas. No foxes!)
Signs pointed to useful things like shops and tattoists and post offices – all of which were closed and shuttered up and utterly without signs of life.
We were in luck. Even on a Sunday, in the sprawling urban centre of Atuona, the Gendarmerie would reopen at 3pm for our business.
No problem, we thought – there will be something to do here. Perhaps some food to be had. Google will know.
Google did know.
There was one restaurant on the island. It did not have a website. It seemed highly unlikely it would be open. But we had 3 hours to kill, and we were hungry. So we walked another 20 minutes, via some top notch tikis, and got to the restaurant.
It was closed.
Thankfully, we were saved from gnawing our own arms off by Captain Charlie, who produced cereal bars from his bag. Lisa looked for a moment like she might weep with joy.
“Thank God you had food in your bag,” she said.
“I’m a daddy,” said Charlie with a shrug. “I always have food.”
To cut a long story short, we sat for a few hours, on a bench, and chatted. There were worse places to be. Then the Gendarmes turned up, we got the forms signed in a matter of minutes, and were on our way back to the boat.
We snaffled down some pamplemousse and Orangina (after all, we’re technically in France), and then hugged out our goodbyes. The sailing was over.
I think Kit said it best, as he cocked his head to one side and said “I think it’s a good thing you’re going now. It’s been nice, but it’ll be good to have our space back.”
Helen was horrified – but don’t be! We had a wonderful time. Truly the experience of a lifetime. But they don’t need us for the night shifts any more, and we have other adventures planned that aren’t going to adventure themselves!
We had a measly 48 hours left in Hiva Oa, so checked into our guest house, high above the bay, from where we could just about see the mast of Lucky Girl. That evening felt a bit like we’d just parted from our loved one at the train station. Every half hour or so we’d send or receive a message, saying what we were doing, and how weird it felt being without the others.
I guess after all that time we’d got rather attached to each other.
Still – I won’t deny that it was a very comfy bed, and a very long shower – no more boat-clean excuses for us!
Our guest house was built on the top of a steep hill – so steep that the owner said it took 3 years to clear and build the road, and then just 1 year to build the house. Even in his 4x4, Lisa and I held our breath a couple of times, wondering if it was about to stall and start rolling backwards and down to our doom. Even walking up it was hard work. The views were worth it, though (says the man who didn't have to build it...)
Nonetheless, we gamely hired bikes the next day (e-bikes again, sadly), and set off on another sightseeing tour which the owner told us was vastly overambitious.
Our batteries would run dead long before we got home. He’d be available from 4 to pick us up in his truck, he told us.
We looked at each other, and looked at the route we’d planned, and decided it was no more ambitious than our last route.
And so it proved. We climbed up to the top of the island, stopped for a breather, then cruised down the other side to the coast, where we had a delicious baguette avec saucisson lunch on the clifftops. Then we turned round, and with slightly more reliance on the e-assistance, we got home with 70% battery left. On the way we saw the usual Marquesan mixture of cows, horses, and incredible coastline. The owner thought we were some sort of superheroes.
Not content with seeing the island on two wheels, we were then invited to join some other guests for dinner at a fancy hotel, where some traditional Marquesan dancing was being shown off. So we got to practice our French (I managed to convince them that Asterix is better in English than French...) and see some more haka!
The next morning we made our way to a hut in the centre of Hiva Oa which functioned as the airport, and said goodbye to the Marquesas. On our way to Tahiti, we flew over the Tuamoto island group and saw a couple of amazing atolls with azure lagoon in the centre. This place really is beautiful.
Did flying feel like cheating, after all that sailing? Not really.
Perhaps that’s because we were flying at just 250mph, on a twin turboprop with a cruising altitude of 6,000m. To put that into perspective, that’s around half the altitude of your normal passenger jets, and less than half the speed.
Best of all, I looked up the maximum range of our plane after we landed… It’s a little too close to the distance we flew than is really comfortable: 870NM versus 855.
Glad we didn’t do any detours.
But the upside was that the views out of the window at 6,000m were spectacular.
