Please stick with me on the title of this blog. I stole it from the father of dear
friends. Last month, Pedro’s sister
called to tell us that their father, Jim Yocum, died of a heart attack. Then the next day, we got word that two very
dear friends of ours in Florida lost both of their parents within a couple of days
of each other. Now, please don’t think I
am taking any of this lightly. While
these loses are beyond huge and our hearts are still breaking, we take a lot of
comfort in knowing Pedro’s dad enjoyed 85 really good years, was happily married
for 64 years and died peacefully. Our
friends’ parents lived to age 90+, were happily married for 70 years and both
too died peacefully. The moral of this
story is that while those left behind indeed leave a huge loss, a life well
lived should be celebrated. When we
spoke to Pat (Pedro’s mom), she reiterated that both she and Jim were happy and proud that
we were living life to the fullest and chasing our dreams. While we’d all rather have our loved ones still
with us, we know we were truly blessed to have them as long as we did. I was touched when our friends told us
about their parents and shared a saying from her father. Whenever he talked about his life, family,
and friends, he would always respond with “Aren’t we lucky.” And, despite this monumental loss, we
couldn’t agree with that sentiment more
. While this picture is a few years old, whenever we think about our life, our family, and our friends our
first thought always is
“Aren’t we lucky!!!!”
Now, to get the blog updated. When last we left off, we’d had a great sail
from Hiva Oa back to Nuku Hiva which has become our Marquesan home base. As many other cruisers also use it as such, it’s a
great place to meet back up with friends in addition to re-stocking supplies. We arrived on my birthday and had arranged to
meet a group of friends at a local bar with an amazing view of the harbor. Four of us were celebrating birthdays in
January so we had a good crowd. For some
reason no one took any pictures (alcohol may have been involved) but, trust me,
it was a great party.
With the partying over, it was time to get back to
work.
Alison promised that if we got
the material (they sold it in Hiva Oa), she would make our dinghy a new and
much needed cover.
Alison did all of the
sewing, Dan did most of the design and rest of us helped wherever we
could.
All in all, it took about 5 days, but the results were fabulous.
Those 2
are so talented.
They even designed cup
holders and a cover to protect our outboard engine.
Sporting our new dinghy cover, we decided to hit a few other
anchorages to show it off (just kidding about showing off the dinghy cover but
we do love it).
Our first stop was Anaho
Bay which is still on Nuku Hiva but on the north side of the island.
We’d wanted to visit this bay anyway and it
was great opportunity to visit with our friends Ann and Roy aboard Modus
Vivendi who were making this their last stop before leaving French Polynesia.
This bay, which might be our favorite in
the Marquessa Islands, is only accessible by boat or by a two-hour roundtrip
hike (either by foot or horseback) over a 700-foot elevation mountain to the
next town.
Despite this isolation, the
bay is home to about 10 houses, an adorable little church, and a
restaurant/hotel (they mostly had tents to sleep in but there were a couple of
rooms too).
The restaurant was situated
right on the water. We literally had our feet in the sand and watched baby
sharks swim by as we sitting there and, while the limited menu was fixed, both
meals we had were a little different and delightful.
Originally, we planned to only stay for a couple
of days in Anaho Bay but we ended up staying almost 2 weeks.
We quickly discovered the wonderful beach which we walked at least once a day
and hiked across the mountain 3 times (twice we went all the way into the
neighboring town to visit the local grocery).
We were fascinated to meet locals riding supplies across the mountains, loved meeting the local dogs and even found limes, coconuts and mangoes on our walks.
Next, we learned that there was another hike to
the east side of the bay (the far east side of the island too). This went to another
harbor that we couldn’t easily take the boat to because it is neither charted nor
protected from the massive swells of the ocean. While it wasn't a boat washed ashore, we did find a raft whose origins we spent a bit of time pondering over. On our walks to the east bay, we met 2 local farmers.
Each time we walked by, the first gentleman (I am embarrassed to say I forgot his name) flagged us down and handed us various fruits to try. While watermelon is my absolute favorite, we enjoyed delicious samples of dragon fruit and pamplemousse that he gave us.
We bought watermelons to take
back to the boat and he insisted on giving us a bunch of tomatoes that he said
could not be sold (we still don’t know what was wrong with them as they tasted
wonderful so I think he was just being nice).
Another morning, we awoke at
4:30 am to allow time to dinghy ashore (yes in the dark) and the one-hour walk (again mostly in the dark) and arrive in time to see the sunrise.
The second gentleman, Roger, was also happy to show us his
farm.
While he grows several things (yes,
we also bought produce from him too), his main crop is taro.
He explained to us that once a month with
each new moon he plants a new crop.
These plants take about 8 months to mature so he knows which crop is
ready for harvest each month.
We enjoyed meeting him so much that he invited back to his house where we along with another boating couple (they were from France so served as our translators) met with Roger's wife Veronique and enjoyed an afternoon cocktail with these amazing people!
For about the first week or so, we loved having the bay
mostly to ourselves We were able to swim to the reef directly from the boat or visit the restaurant for cold beer. Soon, we got into the habit of
taking a cocktail (in my case my concoction of homemade coconut milk and local
lime juice) ashore each afternoon and basking in the shoreline water that felt
like it was close to 90 degrees!
It
seriously couldn’t have been much better.
While we did enjoy meeting several other boats who started arriving into
the bay, by the second week, it was getting a bit crowded and we’d been out of
eggs (the stores across the mountain didn’t sell any) for over a week.
So, we pulled up anchor and had a great sail
over to the island of Ua Huka.
We’d visited Ua Huka a couple of months before for the Marquesan
festival and enjoyed riding our bikes around.
However, we’d never found the time to visit the 2 towns that are at the
opposite ends of the island (the boat anchorage is located almost in the
middle).
The bay was so calm when we arrived that we were able to row the dinghy rather than attach the engine. So, we took our bikes ashore
and spent the next couple of days riding to each end.
The first day’s ride was much longer and
steeper terrain than we’d anticipated but it was so fun to see.
On our way home, as we were walking our bikes
up the extremely steep hill, a sweet local stopped and told us to throw the
bikes in the back of his truck as he gave us a ride back to the anchorage.
Unfortunately, my limited French was not good
enough for a great conversation, but we did manage to converse a bit (plus we
got out of walking up that monster hill).
Our second day’s bike ride was much shorter but the town was no less
charming.
As we rode past a group of
children playing in their yard, they waved us down and asked if they could ride
the bikes.
Of course, we had to let
them. Two of them were either experienced
or extremely intuitive but I had to help the 3
rd little girl get
used to the bike.
It was, however, fun to watch
them enjoy themselves.
At last, we decided to head back to Nuku Hiva where we met up
again with Dan and Alison.
They
are stuck in Nuku Hiva awaiting a couple of boat parts and we knew we were going
to be leaving the Marquesas soon.
So, in between daily provisioning trips and playing with our local dogs, we spent as much time as we could
with our friends.
In addition to a dinghy fishing excursion which netted nothing edible and couple
of local hikes, we decided to again rent scooters. For our second scooter excursion, we took them to
another section of the island to a hike that several other friends had told us
about.
As always, an outing with these
two was perfect!
We stopped for a picnic
lunch and thoroughly enjoyed the hike through this landscape on a different section of the island.
Speaking of Dan and Alison, in our last blog, we put a link
to the wonderful song they wrote. Well, as
if that wasn’t the most amazing gift, they took my favorite song ever, made
the most amazing video to accompany it and uploaded it to their YouTube channel "Sailing Equus." Here’s the link to that.
.
As I type this, we've just arrived after a 3-day sail in Raroia,
an atoll in the Tuamotu chain of French Polynesia. Dan
and Alison (who took these pictures as we left) are still in Nuku Hiva but hopefully only a couple of weeks behind
us. We’re excited to explore this next
part of Polynesia and hopefully have many more adventures with our friends. But I’ll fill you on that next time.
Until next post!
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