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Exody - Days 83-87 - Nuku Hiva - Melon Heads, Garden of Eden



Six coconuts, six grapefruit, twelve oranges, five starfruit, one green papaya, a half hand (about 50-60) of green bananas and a half branch of bird pepper. That was our haul of fresh fruit purchases (2950 polynesian francs=circa 25 euros)after spending an hour with a local and his wife at Hakau - a collection of homesteads rather than a village - at Hakatea Bay (also called Daniel's Bay) in Nuku Hiva. Rightly billed in the book as a 'must stop', we arrived here yesterday Easter Monday April 6th midday via an early 5am start excursion to the other end of the island - 4 miles beyond Cap Tikapo - where we had gone in successful search of melon head whales. We found a substantial pod of about 50, some of which tracked and played alongside Exody folowed by bottle nosed dolphins which stayed with us most of the 10 miles to here. In this perfect natural harbour, fairly free of swell with a backdrop of 500 metre high volcanic mountains, and with a sandy beach at the head, we saw several large manta rays circling the bay in the afternoon. After Marian expertly cut my hair, I spent the last hours of daylight stripping and servicing the second of our primary winches which had seized earlier in the day - just like its port-side sister had about a month ago, one day out of Galapagos.

We had arrived at Taiohae Bay, the large and reasonably well protected main anchorage in Nuku Hiva on Easter Friday morning, April 3rd, after a quiet 85 mile overnight sail from Tahuata where we had been anchored at Hanamoenoa (or Steven's after a lone local who lives ashore)Bay. About 30 boats at Taiohae altogether including Exocet Strike who had arrived a few hours earlier. Anchored a fair hop from the dinghy dock, we went ashore to the village of the same name to find fruit and craft stalls (of which there were a large number) open but shops closed and varying reports about Easter weekend opening, though we were told that there would be fish and fruit/veg display/market , especially for Easter, from 04.30 to 11.00 Saturday. As elsewhere in Marquesas, the town was clean and tidy but seemed to host a rather large population of stray dogs!

Marian and Petter went shopping Saturday morning early and found most of what we needed. I nursed some kind of 24 hour bug and laid low. Aretha hosted happy hour that evening with Pentagram and Afar 6 now arrived. Sunday opening allowed me to do the remnants of the shopping then Petter and I enjoyed live local music with our coffees and internet at the dockside cafe before rejoining Marian for another of the customary (at least for here) baguette based lunches! I spent a couple of hours cleaning the rust and other staining from Exody's transom - amazed at how quickly these build up when at sea in the tropics. We bit the bullet and bought 100 hours of French Polynesian hotspot internet for about 100 Euros hoping that our connectivity might thereby be a bit better for the remaining four weeks that we are in French Polynesia. Our three nights here were all a bit rolly with some heavy showers to add to the discomfort (get up to close hatches, no breeze in the boat, get too hot, get up to open hatches after rain shower....repeat etc etc...)

Left early o'clock Easter Monday for the Melon Heads and today, Tuesday 7th we joined Casper and Caroline from Aretha at 7am to tackle the walk to the reputed third highest waterfall in the world, tucked in between massive vertiginous volcanic buttresses after a magical two and half hour hike up the valley with two river crossings (no bridges!). The most memorable part of the day however was meeting the local and his wife before the walk, and then, on the way back, walking with them through their bountiful fruit laden 'garden of eden' which they tend with their extended family of ten people in all. Muscular, fit and traditionally tattooed, he had the attributes I imagine of his warrior forebears - talking to us - (principally about the fruit and the amount of very hard work he did) in kind of staccato outbursts (think Haka) reminiscent of war cries. All of us were personally instructed by name to attend specific fruit pickings or to taste things - for example the purple pistachio fruit - littered on our path (now I know why Pistachio ice cream tastes nothing like the nuts!). His wife much more serene but fully on the case with writing up our (very good value!) bills. They both helped us back to the dinghies parked in the river with our full sacks of produce and have assured us that their spring water is of the best and could be bottled and sold, so we'll be back to take the dinghy upriver to fill our jerrycans at highwater this evening before we leave this particular paradise.


Peter (Skipper)



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