Vaitahu Bay and Project Days

April 27, 2024 (Saturday):  Vaitahu Bay, Tahuata

We moved only a few miles south to Vaitahu, the largest village on the island of Tahuata, which sits in a stunningly steep and lush valley.  The dinghy landing situation here is notoriously challenging, as there is a cement wall, metal ladder, and lots of swell; necessitating some skill in getting off/on the boat and setting a stern anchor from the dinghy itself to protect the boat from getting smashed against the cement pier.  This process is all while large 5 foot swell is lifting the dinghy up, down, and swirling around.  We decided to go for it, taking our crew of two families, as well as the SV Lyrae crew of 6, in two trips. 

We were met at the dock by a local whose English was limited but stated, “I have problem.”  He needed his boat from a few bays down and had no way to get it.  Off Chris and LJ (from SV Lyrae) went in our dinghy with him for what turned out to be a longer than anticipated 3-mile dinghy ride.  He was very thankful, promptly took off in his boat with his gun, returning later quite proud with 3 goats.  He asked us to look for him at the dock in his truck the next morning, as he wanted to give us fruit. 

In town, we ate dinner at Snack Chez Adriane (a food truck), the kids played soccer with local kids, and we bought some coconut cookies at the local Magasin (store).  Cora and I continue to try to learn French, which we are finding very challenging, as well as some basic Marquesan phrases.

The Marquesas’ isolation was broken in 1595 when Spanish navigator Mendana and his fleet anchored for 10 days here in Vaitahu Bay on Tahuata, christening the islands “Las Marquesas de Mendoza” in honor of his sponsor.  The original name of these islands is “Fenua Enata” (Land of Men).  His marines indiscriminately shot and killed some 200 Marquesans, including 70 Tahuatans.  A series of explorers from England, America, and France arrived here in succession to expand their control.  Once the Europeans arrived on the scene, traditional Polynesian culture took a beating due to guns, disease, whiskey, and missionaries.  There was also massive depopulation due largely to disease.  The estimated 16th-century population of over 100,000 inhabitants, was reduced to about 20,000 by the middle of the nineteenth century, and to just over 2,000 by the beginning of the 1900s. Yes, about 100,000 people down to 2,000.  During the course of the twentieth century, the population began to revive, increasing to about 8,500 by 2002. It has continued to increase slowly since then with a thriving Marquesan culture.

April 28 (Sunday):  Back to Atuona, Hiva Oa

              Spent the morning watching spinner dolphins, swimming, and snorkeling with the Tucker family.  Heard a honking and looked over at the dock – there were the locals from last night we helped.  Over in the dink to the pier, where they loaded us up with a massive bag of pamplemousse, a huge bunch of bananas (over 60 on the stalk), and a handful of mangoes.  We joked around in our broken French and their bits of English, all of us laughing.  Our cockpit is loaded with fruit in hanging nets.

              We decided to go around the outside of Tahuata (the windward side), the southern tip striking volcanic rock devoid of green, then the eastern side of old craters; I see why the name of this island means “fire spirit.”  There was a bit of seasickness, but it came and went, forgotten when a pod of dolphins spent time leaping and playing in our bow water.  Just one mile out from our destination of Atuona, we had a double strike of two beautiful yellowfin tuna. 

We put our anchor down in much less swell than our prior visit here.  We had a wild moment when a squall came through dumping sheets of rain, a fishing boat sped past giving us a huge wake, the grill started to smoke, our bilge alarm went off, and the cooler went into the water that Calder fetched in the dinghy; ALL at once!  Then calm, and we enjoyed a dinner of over-the-top tuna steaks and sashimi bowls with the Tuckers for their last night with us before leaving the next day.

              The goodness flowed through our experiences of the last two days – First, we gave the locals a dinghy ride.  Then they gave us tons of fruit, which we shared with another boat, Kekada.  We were gifted with two glorious tuna from the sea.  We shared some tuna with Kekada and they made us some crepes.  Round and round it goes.

April 29 (Monday):  Boat Cleaning day!

              Just us four Hyers on board for the first time in almost 6 weeks between guests and crew.  We used the time to dig-in to the cleaning that we had postponed… with a break for our daily baguette and pamplemousse of course.  We stopped at the boatyard, using a mix of English and French to convey what we were looking for, and found parts that we could use for tomorrow’s project.  Cora found herself sitting on the ground happily surrounding by three purring kittens, the conundrum being that she had only two hands to pet them.  All 60 of our bananas are starting to ripen before our eyes and we are digging in.  More tuna steaks and sashimi for dinner.

April 30, 2024 (Tuesday):  Workday

              Cruising life is ideally about 50% play and 50% work with passage-making in between.  Yesterday and today are definitely workdays.  The kids dove back into school and I saw patients via telehealth.  Chris drilled a hole through the bottom of the bilge into the keel cavity to evaluate for the water we thought was in there, which he indeed found.    Using the manual bilge pump, we sucked out 25 gallons of fresh water that was in our starboard keel.  The water had leaked in from incorrectly-sized mounting screws of the bilge pump float switch over time.  We are so happy to get that heavy water out of there and Chris rebedded all the screws to prevent this from occurring again.  He also used available parts (a fuel deck fill port) purchased here in Hiva Oa to create a low-profile watertight access port for future inspection and water removal if needed. 

Calder and Chris then filled our diesel tanks, jerry can by jerry can, in a few dinghy rides back and forth to the nearby gas station.  Cora and I set off to town for groceries.  Both to and from town we were picked up by locals (no hitchhike thumb needed), where we were able to practice our limited French.  The hospitality here is notable.  At the grocery store we picked up some very limited vegetables (the supply ship is due soon, not having been here for a while), as well as a pair of brightly colored ruffly tropical sleep shorts that cracked Cora and I up; love the general store where you can get your onions and pj’s.  We stopped at the local artist’s market where we bought seed jewelry, as well as a locally-carved tiki and ray.  We ate the last of our fresh tuna in poke form; what a gift those two tuna were for our family, as our freezer had been emptying.