Iles Marquises

The iles Marquises are rugged and breathtaking. Huge rocky cliffs dotted with lush greenery fall straight down to the crashing ocean with few bays and beaches to be found. There are just enough anchorages around the islands to tuck in and explore, but much of the coastline is too rough to approach. We’ve been in the iles Marquises since our arrival in French Polynesia about 3 weeks ago. Time has slipped by. We visited 4 islands in this group: Hiva Oa, Tahuata, Ua Pou, and Nuku Hiva. We divided our time between exploring on land, diving, sailing between islands, sitting tight in anchorages during rough weather, doing boat repairs, and preparing to set sail for the next island group.

There are a lot of sharks here. It’s awesome. There are also a lot of mantas here. Equally as awesome. In nearly all of our anchorages, we’ve spotted mantas at the surface in the bay and some of them have come right up next to the boat! During our dive in Baie Hanatefau on Tahuata we had a manta cruise right up to us, do a few loops, and then swim off. This dive was probably our most fantastic, though they have all been beautiful. It was along a steep rock wall that dropped to more than 80 feet in depth. The sea life was amazing and we both wished we could have stayed longer underwater and gone farther. Some of the species we’ve been excited about spotting, in addition to mantas, include day octopuses, nudibranchs, a juvenile rockmover wrasse, spotfin lionfish, fire dartfish, scorpionfish, black tip reef sharks, white tip reef sharks, cleaner shrimp, the whitley’s boxfish (which are rare everywhere except the Marquesas), garden eels, and a sea turtle. We have spotted sharks on nearly every dive (except the dive where we retrieved Mark’s phone after it leapt overboard). The sharks have been completely uninterested in us, and we’ve watched most of them deliberately take a wide path around us to keep their distance. This means Kris was not able to get great shark pictures underwater. Maybe next time. We also spotted sharks interested in our boat a few times just after anchoring, especially when Mark was cleaning the bottom. Stuff falls off, little fish come in to eat it, sharks come in to investigate. French Polynesia has fully protected all sharks in their waters, extending through their Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), making it the largest shark sanctuary in the world in 2012 covering 44.7 million square kilometers. It shows.

And then there are the sharks at the dinghy dock in Baie Taiohae on Nuku Hiva! The quay in town is used by everyone: small fishing boats, dinghy’s, the ferry, supply ships, navy ships, etc. The dinghy tie up is along the cement quay where two metal ladders extend down into the water so you can tie up and climb up regardless of the tide level. This tie up is right next to the part of the quay where the people from the fishing boats clean their catch. They throw the fish guts directly into the water, which is directly into a boiling pile up of large sharks thrashing around to get the bits before the other sharks. It’s not particularly deep, so their dorsal fins and tails are on full display splashing around. Approaching the quay on our dinghy provided a particularly fun view of sailors stretching out their arms from their dinghy’s to reach the ladder and climb up the wall with the sharks thrashing around just to the side. The dinghy dock in Baie Tahauku on Hiva Oa had its own fun challenges. That bay gets a lot of swell so as you approach the cement quay in the dinghy you get tossed around quite a bit more. There is also a break in the quay next to the boat ramp, and if your dinghy gets pushed over or sucked in there during low tide it can get trapped under the cement quay at high tide (and subsequently destroyed)! There is also only one ladder and it’s right next to the place where your dinghy can get stuck. At that quay, you only need the ladder at low tide. At high tide, the water comes up over part of the quay so you end up walking through ankle deep water to re-enter your dinghy. We’ve done a few beach landings too in places without cement quays. They have been in relatively calm bays with minimal break along the beach so we could safely get in and out. While exploring the beach in Baie Hakatea on Nuku Hiva we came across more sharks! These were young sharks, cruising back and forth in the light surf along the beach in about 1-2 feet of water. They could not have been more than 2 feet long. How lucky are we to have spent a few hours watching them?! And yes, Kris spotted a few right next to us as we waded back into the water to launch the dinghy.

We’ve really enjoyed exploring the islands when we’ve had the opportunity to walk around and stretch our legs. High mountains surround everything in the valleys we’ve explored and fruit trees and flowers are everywhere. All the small towns we’ve visited have had ceremonial sites with large open grass squares lined by thatched roof open walled structures on 3 sides and tikis of varying ages around the courtyard. The only downside to exploring on land is the insects. We have been thoroughly introduced to no-nos (similar to no-see-ums). Kris had such a strong skin reaction to hundreds of bites that we also spent a half day going to the local hospital to see a doctor for a prescription and then walking to the other end of town to the pharmacy twice (because at first it was closed for the standard 2-hour lunch break). Kris’s rudimentary French is really being put to the test!

We celebrated Mark’s birthday onboard with pizza and chocolate chip cookies. There was a huge storm and we stayed put, indoors all day, watching the rain and lightening. This was the first time we were so close to lightening that we decided to put the tablet and phone in the microwave. There is some information out there that a microwave can work as a a Faraday cage to protect electronic devices from the electrical power of a direct lightening hit by providing a path for the electricity to flow around the cage instead of destroying the electronics. No harm in trying it! Next time we’ll probably add a VHF handheld radio to the pile too, just for good measure. Mark’s birthday storm, which lasted for a few days, also tipped us off to a big leak. At some point during the past year, 2 of the 4 stainless steel ‘standup’ bolts, that fasten the top clamp plate for the rubber mast wedge in the mast deck collar, had sheered off completely. This allowed the wedge to slide up the mast a few inches, leaving a nice gaping hole all around the mast where it goes through deck and down to the keel. We learned of this by noting the bilge pump running multiple extra times as well as finding water on the floor of the forward head. This kicked off a 2.5 day repair where Mark pounded the wedge back into place, reinserted the two bolts that were not broken, drilled out the two seized broken bolts, and then replaced them with spares we luckily had onboard. Way to go Mark! This one had the potential to put a serious stop to our cruising plans since the wedge provides structural stability to the keel-stepped mast (along with sealing water out). Luckily we caught it before any additional damage was done!

Once the storm passed and the repair was complete, we decided we were finally ready to move to our next anchorage (where we found the baby sharks). As we started weighing anchor, we very quickly learned that we were very stuck. The anchor was tightly wrapped around something below the boat. Given the storm, we thought perhaps a tree had made its way through the river and into our anchor chain. Mark jumped off for a quick snorkel but could not even see the end of his fins. The water was still very milk chocolatey due to the rains. So we pulled out the dive gear and went down together. We followed our anchor chain down and within minutes of reaching the bottom at about 20 feet we found what we were stuck on: a medium sized rock with lots of crevices. It was perfect for a chain to wrap around and lock into. The viz was already only about 6 inches, and now we were on a muddy bottom pushing and pulling the chain around creating a zero viz dive for ourselves. We basically did it all by feel, unable to see each other. We could feel the boat move on the chain and know when we had a little slack to be able to move the chain. It only took us about 15 minutes to clear the chain and then we surfaced. We decided to do a second short dive to confirm our work, hoping that some of the sediment would have cleared away so we could at least see a little. We could see a little, and found one other area where the chain was lightly stuck as we followed it along the bottom. We cleared it, made our way to the surface and back on board. Then we finally weighed anchor and set off about two hours later than planned.

We’ve also had the chance to try some excellent local foods at restaurants and in markets, including poisson cru (raw fish soaked in coconut milk), fried chicken, local honey, banana filled pastries, fresh citronnade (limeade), vanilla beans, small peppers in oil, and mitihue (a semi-solid coconut milk that has the sour zing of goat cheese). In addition the stores are well stocked with quite a few European treats like brie, Orangina soda, fresh baked baguettes, pain au chocolat, Haribo gummies, and Nutella, among other things. Frozen foods and packaged foods are easy to come by. Fresh fruits, vegetables, and eggs are hit or miss with stores having different things in stock on different days, while each island waits for the supply ship to arrive with new stocks. Nuku Hiva has a great fruit and vegetable market with locally-grown produce that we’ve stopped by multiple times. We’re well stocked with pamplemousse, bananas, mangoes, cucumber, cabbage, tomatoes, carrots, and even some lettuce, as we prepare to set sail. We also picked up a breadfruit and we’ll figure out how to prepare that later. We’ve eaten out a few times, enjoying both local cuisine and pizza. Kris had one of her top 5 unique pizza topping experiences in Nuku Hiva. She ordered the the “vegetables of the day” pizza. Those ended up being whole black olives, grated carrots, green beans, and cucumber! Mark had a pepperoni and ham pizza. We washed down the pizza with French Polynesian beers. We’ve tried both options: Hinano and Hoa Tea. Both are quite refreshing.

Next Stop: Iles Tuamotu, starting in Raroia.