Green in the Blue

We left Tahu Ata at 8pm, after a nap and dinner following our long day out foraging. With strong winds and big seas, we expected to take twelve hours for the 70 nautical miles to Ua Pou. Plotting and setting our course for the west side of this new island, we chilled in the cockpit until about 10pm when we decided on shifts for the eve, 2-3 hours watches each. I slept first, lightly, because of the heat inside the cabin and due to the bumpy seas.

After skirting the edge of sleep I got up at 1am to relieve Brian, but first we changed our course to wing and wing. The wind vane was meandering 25 degrees to either side of our destination at about 4am so we had to pay particular attention, but the star shine in the middle of the isles in the middle of the Pacific was amazing and luminous, reassuring and prehistoric. Their consistency and strength allowed for strong Polynesian paddlers to navigate with ease between archipelagos, explorers of the Pacific who found and founded uninhabited rocks surrounded by miles and miles at sea.

I woke for the second watch in the night, this time with first light to see the island that we were soon to fall for. The landscape was majestic, rugged and rocky. Volcanic plugs stood strong all over the island, clustered inland and together, islands unto themselves, or small burps of basalt that lingered above otherwise sloping island sides. The consistently strong winds made for large waves to ride, and the sunrise illuminated the breakwater at the top of each swell with a green enlightenment, perhaps a hint to the green flash that is said to occur when the setting sun illuminates the top layer of ocean.

A welcome moto gave us thumbs up, the shelf a base for a towering monument at the southern tip of Ua Pou. This rock is known as Tuakahu, and contains significance for the first inhabitants of these islands, perhaps inspiring stone carvings of their tiki gods, as well as the missionaries who traveled far and wide to share their establishment with these peaceful people, introducing Cathedral for an alternate name.

Because the land mass interrupts regular flow, and we were traveling to the leeward side of the isle, the winds ceased and we tacked back and forth in order to make our destination. Vaieo Bay, also known without encouragement as Plan B, was a large, isolated cove with deep anchorages, not a building in sight. The only signs of life were two fishermen who were paddling their vaka, or outrigger canoes, to pull up fish for their families. As we had read in a glossy newly published magazine guide, the Yachtmen’s Guide to French Polynesia (the women know better than to read this false propoganda), the Valley of the Kings was a must see, and near this bay. However, landing spots on shore for the dingy looked bleak, there didn’t seem to be a road or trail to carry us inland to this fabled destination and the only other sailboat we saw carried south past the bay on their way to Haka Maii, the next bay south, where the guide suggested that we begin time on land for the Valley of the Kings. Deciding that we’d have more luck on land from the same small village, Brian hauled up fathoms of anchor chain (the windlass, a type of winch for the anchor, has been stuck and snagged, so the Captain gets a great workout each time we need to pick the hook).

We turned back south after asking the pechers (fishers) about the quality of the anchorage there. Because it was their village, they guaranteed it. When we were held fast close to the boat that had passed us and in front of Haka Maii, a village like many in the Marquises, at the mouth of valley, lush and hilly, with a multipurpose community area and church at the leading edge of the rocky beach, we took a nap. We were exhausted after little sleep during the overnight passage, intense sun in the morning, strong gusts and much maneuvering, and Brian’s chain gang workout.
The afternoon tick tocked away, and when we realized that in a few hours it would be dusk, we decided to hit the land and see where we would be lead. As we launched the dingy from Kayak’s bow and began to row towards the boat ramps, 5 or 6 young men began to gather at the water’s edge, as one of their friends had swam out to the 5 person vaka that was moored between our boat and shore. This brave soul was the sole soul in this outrigger, and we realized that he intended to paddle the yellow banana boat to shore. As the strong winds massaged the water’s surface for many kilometres, the swell was large and waves crashed against the rocky beach, meeting the base of the boat ramp and ejected spray a few metres into the sky with the most powerful waves. The fearless Polynesian began to slowly creep up towards shore, glancing to his stern continuously to check the pattern of the swell, which rolls in sets, as every ocean dweller knows. Everything about him was strong, from his jawline that was stressed for concentration, his dark eyes set in determination, to his biceps seasoned to paddling, his dark Marquisian tatu down one arm, summoning tradition and history, to his paddle strokes, quick and efficient to move the boat in his desired direction. The men onshore were shouting direction and encouragement in their deep Marquisian language, asking him to paddle or wait, to go now or no, the wave is too big. They came closer down the beach and the concrete boat ramp, waves crashing on their feet and larger ones up to their waists, when eventually they were swimming and being tossed around in the white froth in order to get closer to the vaka to aid in gliding it safely ashore. Finally the pilot of the banana boat was satisfied with the calm moment and he paddled with the might of his strength and endurance to shore, where the others were ready to catch the long boat alongside outrigger and hull. The rower lifted his body with ease from the cockpit as the boat reached the hands of his waiting friends and they gracefully eased it out of the water, up the ramp and onto stretchers. Their ancestors would have been proud of their voracious patience, protecting assets and heritage, skill and agility.

Needless to say, we decided that the waves were too big for our little hard dingy and the locals who had helped with the yellow vaka were meandering away. I didn’t feel that we could elegantly, or safely for that matter, follow that performance. Instead we tootled around the little bay, avoiding turd-like clusters of lava rock plopped alongside and one in the middle of the slightly sheltered hold. We saw a couple people from the other boat snorkeling, lighting the idea that we could swim to shore in the morning. We spoke with the family from Theitus, a mix of older Europeans and younger Americans, about life on a sailboat in the Marquises, and paddled back to Kayak for vodka with freshly squeezed OJ and chess.

Then began the great breadfruit experiment!

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