The trip to ‘Ua Pou began with seven manta rays feeding near Raven as we pulled up anchor in the morning to make the passage, and concluded with a school of dolphins playing in our bow wave as we arrived at our destination in the afternoon. We’ve had many great dolphin encounters this trip – a smaller species that chase after us with great enthusiasm. If they’re in the mood to play, they race across the ocean from a fair distance away on a course designed to intercept Raven’s path, some of them leaping clear out of the water as they speed our way. We also sailed through a pod of melon-headed whales – a smallish whale that hangs out near the surface in large groups numbering into the hundreds. By the way, we’ve had absolutely zero luck fishing the entire time Raven has been in Polynesia, nearly six months! Our only close encounter occurred a week or two ago when at the end of the day we pulled in the trolling line, only to find we had lost the entire lure and snapped a 150kg test line. Whatever fish took the bait that time was way too big to bring on board.
‘Ua Pou had a rather uninspiring harbor, but the town was pleasant when we explored it on foot. Paola and I hit a few grocery stores and as we passed by the college athletic fields, we happened across a dozen or so Marquesan boys learning traditional dance. Dressed in board shorts, t-shirts, tennis shoes and baseball caps, they were chanting and prancing to the beat of traditional drums as they practiced the steps. This December ‘Ua Pou will host the Polynesian Dance Festival, with participants coming from all over the South Pacific – Hawaii, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Cook Islands, even the Maori from New Zealand. The festival only takes place every four years, alternating between Fatu Hiva and ‘Ua Pou, so this is the first time in eight years for the event to take place at ‘Ua Pou and they are already hard at work in preparation.
Next day we hired a taxi driver with a 4-wheel drive Toyota to take us on a morning’s tour of the island. He was quite an interesting and accommodating fellow. Fortunately Paola speaks French, so communications went well. We went to the village and beach of Hohoi, where I hoped to find a few of the “flower pebbles” I read about in the guidebooks – a type of volcanic stone only found on ‘Ua Pou and in Brazil. The surf was really rough at the beach, which consisted only of polished stones and pebbles – no sand at all.
The stones made a clattering noise as the waves broke on the beach and receded. No luck finding the ‘galets fleuris’ due to the rough seas, but our driver Jules then took us to visit stone carvers at their homes in the village and one couple gave us some of the raw stone. They seemed truly pleased when we offered them Raven t-shirts in exchange.
Jules also took us to visit a large pae pae, one of the archaeological ruins I mentioned in my last email. The community was busy at work restoring the site to be used for the upcoming dance festival. We met (for the second time) a self-styled native archaeologist (also the boys’ dance instructor) who was overly chatty, but scratched out a fairly humorous timeline of cannibalism in Polynesia. Basically the practice continued from a few hundred years BC until his grandfather’s generation. I’m getting ready to upload some photos as we now have access to the internet, so when you see the stone with a diagram and the word “Eat” scratched on it, you’ll know what it’s about!
Our guided taxi tour ended as Jules detoured to what turned out to be his rather extensive plantations. He loaded us up with native fruit – starting with a feed sack filled with pamplemousse (basically a grapefruit, but greenish, big as a soccer ball, and very sweet and tasty). He then added limes, oranges, bananas, starfruit and mangoes to the collection. I really don’t know if we can eat all that fruit before it goes off, but we couldn’t stop him! All we could do was load him down in turn with Raven t-shirts, enough for him and his wife and four sons. It turns out Jules and his wife Yvonne are quite the entrepreneurs, with extensive property and businesses. They are also world travelers. They’ve been houseboating on Lake Powell of all places, and they’ve visited LA, Las Vegas, the Philippines, Canada, Germany, quite a few other countries, and Australia is on the list for next year.
We are now in Nuku Hiva, our last stop. From here Raven heads for Hawaii and Mike and I fly home. We’re in a beautiful large harbor with a good-sized town (Taiohe, population 1700) curving along the harbor’s edge, and we’re enjoying some of civilization’s amenities.