289: Exploring Taioha'e Bay and Nuka Hiva Island; Marquesas, French Polynesia

I don't know what it is, probably just not getting a huge amount of sleep, but after a passage like that we're kind of dead and we just need a day to just chill and recover. So we're collecting water right now. It just rained and the boat, how nice is that, got wet and cleaned. Made some chocolate covered bananas. They're in the freezer at the moment and Brian's making some banana smoothies because our banana stock all ripened pretty much at the same time. So I'm trying to use up the bananas and that's it. We've heard that this dinghy dock situation is kind of a bummer because your boat scrapes up against the cement dock and scrapes off your chaps and anyway we'll see how it goes. At least it's calm in here. Our first stop this morning is the fruit market. Each of the locals has a table and you can buy from any of them. Veggies are really hard to find here. There are lots of fruits but vegetables are not as common. Market starts at six in the morning and goes pretty much all day but the vegetables are the first to go if there are any. Love the red lampposts. Some attention to detail and it contrasts so well with the green, look how green that grass is baby. The green everywhere. One thing we've really noticed here in French Polynesia is how much pride they take in keeping the parks and everywhere clean. The streets, everything is well manicured, trash is picked up. You really just don't see any trash anywhere. Just very different than the Caribbean. We've decided to get some exercise and part of that process is heading out to what the cruisers have voted to be the best magasin. It's about a 35 minute walk, 40 minute walk from where we dropped our dinghy off. Oh there's a breeze, saved by the breeze. Yeah anyway it's kind of out here in the middle of nowhere. I wish you could smell this aroma right now. Oh it is beautiful. Oh free mango? Might be rotten. Oh it just fell. This is magazine Huaca. It is similar to other grocery stores in town but we're able to find baguettes and chocolate brioche in the late morning where other stores were totally sold out. If you don't buy your bread before nine in the morning you have a good chance of not getting any because people buy out what is there. Oh come. Oh great. Wow. Well we thought we were gonna have a rain-free morning, not so much. Although it is pretty light sprinkle so that's good. Big storm out there though. Can't even see Wapow. The plan is this morning to do a hike up to, I don't know which one of these peaks, but somewhere up there. And we're going with our friends on ruffian. I should get paid big money just for being me in my world. Just means I'm an open-minded individual. All right come on let's go. Well we've had a great hike up here. It's only been an hour or so but the views are truly incredible. And when you hike with ruffian the tradition is to to eat a pompomousse when you get to the top of wherever you are hiking. So I'm sure we're gonna get in here and eat some pompomousse. After our hike to the viewpoint we stopped at the Tiki Tejiva on the way back. It is a sculpture of two tikis on Tejiva hill. The tallest, a female tiki, stands 12 meters high and overlooks the bay of Tejohe. She is the guardian of tradition and knowledge. The smaller male tiki represents a warrior who is imposing his power. We have rented a car this morning and we are going to cruise around the island with our friends on ruffian. But before we start off on that journey we're going to use the car to fill up our diesel jerry cans at the fuel station. Have a good day. See you tomorrow. Oh wait wait wait wait. I saw some dents. Ron close the. Many scratches. Yes. For me. It's not a problem. Yes I know I know very well. Okay. We're good drivers. You have only this. Yeah. Okay. Okay we are filling up our cans here and getting things knocked off the list. This is good. So we are headed back to the dock now. We're gonna have to put all of these jerry cans onto our dinghy and then take it back to the boat. So that's what we're gonna be doing right now. We just returned the rental car to the rental place. What a view. We had a great day yesterday driving around the island. It was absolutely stunning. We saw tons of. Oh speaking of wild horses. Hello baby. You want to smell? I'm okay. Anyway we saw tons of wild horses. Pigs. Chickens. Cows. Oh she's brand new. Hi boys. Mind if we get by? Uh oh. Buddy sorry. I got a car and you don't. We saw incredible views. This valley is called the Grand Canyon here in Nuka Hiva. Very famous place. Beautiful canyon. And then that incredible inlet and that crazy road going to it. Yeah. And the religious site. Oh the tiki site with the oldest tree in the world or not in the world on the island. Got some ancient tikis here. The flat head top is for where they would make a sacrifice to the tiki. So back I think it was January or February. Every four years they have this big festival which they practice, celebrate their culture. And I think every four years they have it on a different island. This part was used and these pits right here are where the pigs were kept ceremonially in the ground and then served to the locals. And they do this not for the tourists but for themselves. But they invite tourists to join in. This is a massive ceremonial site. Goes all the way up into the trees. It hasn't even been fully excavated but it is all surrounding the largest tree I think on the island. I don't think it's in all of French Polynesia. It's a huge tree. These were carved into the rock and they are part of the ceremony. They are blood collectors. So human and animal. Listen if you're a cruiser, whatever you do, get the long term visa if you've got time. If you don't have time, make time. And don't be in a rush when you come to the French Polynesia and spend as much time as you need in the merit cases. Do not rush it. These are incredible islands and they each have their own personality. And we're just overwhelmed by how much we enjoy them. Right, Tootie? Absolutely. Especially Nuca Hiva. I did not think I would like this island very much. I don't know why. But it has been absolutely amazing. Well we thought it'd be the most commercial, the most visited. But there's nothing commercial about it. There are no tourists here. We haven't run into any tourists anywhere. Boy, you did a great job driving. The roads were not easy to navigate especially because it was pouring rain a lot of the day and the cloud cover was significant. It was not so easy. And look at the view. Just 360 degrees of these incredible mountains. It really doesn't get much better than this. We're going to start our journey towards Anaho Bay and stop in Controller Bay today. We need to do this before the wind starts building. We want to be in Anaho Bay for our anniversary and to basically have protection from the wind. So once it starts blowing, you want to be settled. And we figure that's a pretty good place to be settled until it passes. Then we'll keep going to the next bay over. So we're going to circumnavigate the island. It's stunning. You remember going to the airport? Yeah, we also saw the airport which was so cute. It's all the way on the other side of the island where there's no civilization. It's kind of a weird place to put it but I'm sure it's reasonable. It's like otherworldly. Yeah, cute little terminal. No security. There's one plane that comes in and out of Tahiti each day and then there's one little restaurant like sandwich shop and it was adorable. It was really cute especially the dog. Yeah and the the land on the northern side is so dramatic and beautiful and the ocean is beautiful. We definitely need to come to this bay and drop anchor. This is beautiful. Look at that. Look at that view. We've got a lot to do still and time is running out here in the Marquesas. All right, let's go. Okay, let's do it. And we're off goodbye beautiful Tahoe Bay. Man, just in time before those clouds and the rain roll in. This journey should take us about an hour, hour and 15 minutes or so. It's about six nautical miles, not too far and a perfect place to stage then for an early morning start over to Anahoe Bay. We are getting close to Kahoe Bay and there is one boat in the anchorage already. Plenty of room for us. Yesterday we were up on those hills there driving to see the other side of the island and had a great view of this bay and it convinced us to come in here. Thanks Squall.