Sunday 6th April
WHO TIED UP THE DINGHY!
Everyone was up early to leave at seven to meet Jerome. Malcy enquires whether we still have a dinghy, looks round and finds we haven't! Who tied it up? Thinking back I did.. Oh no did I really have that much to drink! I then found the rope I had tied trailing in the water still attached to Quasar.. at least I'm not guilty! The bowline, which had towed the dinghy from Nuka Hiva and which would have been very tight had clearly come undone!
Barry then spots the Gendarmes on the beach about to recover the dinghy and engine, which had been in the surf had overturned and was a real mess! We shout and wave and Ian, from BWR, gives Malcy and Barry a lift to the shore and they paddle back after doing a preliminary sort out.
The others went on their walk whilst Malcy and I set up camp on the jetty with a hosepipe (for me) and a lot of tools for Malcy to attempt to repair the engine! We became a bit of a tourist attraction with visits from locals including a guy who made his living from repairing outboards and his girlfriend, BWR boats and the Gendarmes. I suggested to them that whoever untied the dinghy from the lampost may have interfered with the other knot as well and we suspected a couple of drunks on the quayside when we arrived or children, but they said there had never been any trouble before! We will never know what happened to it, but at least we still have a dinghy!
Being a Sunday around lunchtime there were suddenly loads of children around in the water clinging on to a BWR dinghy and stopping him moving. A gang of them (mainly girls) asked if they could play on ours. I said no, so they did anyway!
Malcy, in his inimitable way, worked at the quayside and later on the dinghy in the water for 9 and a half hours in the blazing sun, till he got the engine running nearly how he wanted it, having stripped the carburettor several times amongst other operations! I managed to burn my nose (seems to stick out under my hat) and my hands and forearms. You may ask why I didn't have sun-cream. Answer: because I never sunbathe and don't put any on unless I know I'm going to be in the sun a long time!
JB: Linds, Barry and I exchanged a look of guilt and a heavy sigh as we left the skippers to sort out the problem with the outboard and dinghy. We walked gingerly up the beach to meet our guide, the lovely Jerome (more about that later), our thoughts laden with whether we should abort the tour and help Malcy. But, then Jerome smiled (flexed his muscles, adds Linds!) and all was forgotten and we spent all day chasing him up and down hills, through jungles, along mountain ridges..well it didn't quite happen like that! But the tour was brilliant, given that Jerome had only moved to Ua Pou (he is from France) in September last year, he was particularly informative and knowledgeable about the island, islanders and their trade. The tour involved a 4 hour walk up to the top of a valley, along the ridge, down to the bottom of the valley, a visit to a waterfall, a visit to Jerome's vanilla pods and finally to an ancient Marquesan village. This walk took us from the Bay of Hakahau to the Baie of Hakatehau - Haka means bay and hau means peace.
As we hiked through the valley, plentiful fruit and vegetation surrounded us. It is quite remarkable that an island with a population of approximately 2000 should produce such an abundance of breadfruit, mangoes, coconuts and noni. Jerome pointed out to us plants, trees and flowers and described to us the many uses they had to the islanders. Personally I think he was trying to distract us from the steepness of our ascent which was certainly testing our powers of fitness. However, when we finally arrived at the top, we were rewarded with a spectacular view of 2 prominent basalt pinnacles, guarding the valley like sentinels (see today's photo). Apparently the island boasts 12 such pinnacles and these were once the cores of what were once volcanoes.
Whilst marvelling at the topography we munched our way through a coconut, several bananas - these were called piere and had been dried out in the sun for 4 days (truly delicious) and we also had some grapefruit. This grapefruit was so juicy and divine the thought of putting sugar on it would have been a dishonourable suggestion. I dislike the bitter taste of a grapefruit; this grapefruit was not in the least bit bitter.mmm
We then followed a mountain ridge, which undulated across the valley, with Jerome stopping intermittently to identify and explain to us the flora and fauna. We were fascinated by the diversity of use of the flowers and trees.
By way of example:
Ø The Purau tree - this tree has long straight branches and because of this is primarily used for building houses. It also has a strong bark and this is used for making rope. The leaves are used for cooking breadfruit. The liquid from the Purau flower is used for medicinal purposes, demisting snorkelling masks and finally lipstick. A rather useful tree!
Ø The Pandanus - this bush is used for making hats, bags and roofs of houses. Its flower is called Hinano the name of the local beer on these islands. Unfortunately the leaves of a Pandanus are edged with fine needles, so fine in fact that they were once used as weapons and could quite easily slit some ones throat. I tripped over one and 5 needles embedded themselves neatly in to my leg, although Jerome swiftly grabbed a Purau flower and rubbed it in to ease my pain.
Ø Ti leaves - these leaves are soft and fine to the touch but are strong and are used to make clothes. The root of the bush is used for its sugar - apparently it hosts more sugar than a sugar cane!
Ø Kokuu - these are small round brown fleshy seeds. When you peel them there is initially lots of liquid which seeps out - this liquid is used for washing clothes such is its strong cleansing quality. The black bead at the centre can then be polished and used for making jewellery. As an aside, it was at this point that Linds, who is usually giggly and exuberant, went very quiet and little did we know that she was collecting Kokuu with the intention of making herself a necklace when she returned to the boat (she's just far too clever!).
Having been hiking for 3 hours, Jerome took us to the Manfred Cascade, a beautiful waterfall gushing in to a neat round bathing pool. Whilst the trees were tall and luscious the sun was high and peeped through giving the pool an inviting shimmer and twinkle and so we all jumped in and enjoyed a refreshing swim.
Jerome then showed us his vanilla pods, growing along the side of the track, which he tends with care and love. He visits them everyday and explained to us why. When a vanilla plant is first planted it takes 3 years to flower. Then the pods flower for just one day. On that one day he has to pollinate them otherwise the flower will die. Even when he pollinates them some will die but most will close. He then has to wait 9 months before the vanilla pod is ready to be picked. He keeps all the dates in his head! Once picked the pod is placed in 65 C water and after that the pod spends one year drying out. So all in all a vanilla pods life is 5 years before you can start using it. Apparently, the Marquasan vanilla has the highest concentration of vanilla in each pod than anywhere else in the world.
Stay with me dear readers for we then went to see an old Marquasan village - the "sea" village. The tribe who lived here were chefs and navigators and were non warriors. There was a second tribe on the other side of the valley called the "mountain" village; these were warriors although there was never any fighting between these 2 tribes. However, history did bring them together during one unfortunate incident when the non-warrior "sea" tribe were attacked by another tribe. The mountain tribe came to their defence but on condition that the chief warriors son could marry the "sea" village chief's daughter. Sadly, his son died in the fighting.
At 3pm we finally arrived at a quaint little restaurant tucked away in the heart of Hakatehau Valley - Ti'piero. The owners were friends of Jerome's and there was a lovely ambience there. A feeling of bon homie pervaded the restaurant and so we ate the most delicious steak and potatoes washed down with Hinano beer. Piero, the chef was a chef for the French navy and told us that he had travelled around the world 9 times! A character larger than life; he kindly offered to give us a lift back to the village and didn't stop babbling as he drove along the high winding roads.
A wonderful day!
Monday 7th April
THE TOMATOES BECKON!
Everyone was in bed around 9 last night exhausted and having had about 9 hours sleep I decided to clean the aft heads before breakfast! Malcy had a series of jobs lined up including going up the mast to put back the spinnaker halyard, fix the tri-colour light etc, which involved dropping the Yankee and shock horror winding him up the mast manually (without the aid of an electric winch!). However with the spinnaker halyard now replaced this is now used for hauling the outboard back onto the boat and one of my recent jobs is redundant as I was the only one with sufficient body weight to swing on the pacerelle halyard to heave it back on board!
JB and Barry then set off to clean up the inside of the outboard petrol tank from sand by swilling it with petrol and then refilling it, did some shopping and actually found some onions, but no potatoes (our stock is exhausted) and we set off for The Tuamotus (alias the Tomatoes) about 480 miles away. There is not a lot of wind and progress is slow, but tomorrow guess what .. the kite tomorrow will hopefully speed us up!
In deference to Malcys deity like stature on the boat, I have invented a new name for him. In future he will be addressed as 'Your Malcyness' and we will bow and scrape appropriately at the same time!
Everyone has enjoyed the Marquesas tremendously, they are rugged and beautiful and the people are very friendly. Most of us have a favourite island, but not necessarily the same one! We have not been plagued with mosquitoes or other insects which has been a considerable bonus!
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