95. Nuku Hiva

After making landfall, cleaning the boat, provisioning, and catching up with friends on SV Kismet, SV Bula, and SV Sky Pond, it was time to do a little exploring. We had heard from our buddy boats that renting a car was a worthwhile experience to see the island and various types of landscapes the changes in altitude brought. Also, since there was a cruise ship that had arrived in the bay, the main town would soon be flooded with tourists, which we were keen to avoid. So, we paid $90 USD and picked up our small SUV for a day of terrestrial exploration.

The day was filled with driving up steep inclines (which were very fun with the manual transmission) and equally steep downgrades, as we drove through the dramatic terrain to visit the different bays that we planned to explore by boat the following week. The lower elevations were filled with tropical vegetation and we passed countless cows and horses, which were sometimes tied up along the side of the road. I wondered how often anyone came to check on them and hoped they got enough water to drink or at least that the vegetation was enough to sustain their hydration. We even passed a family of pigs with little piglets running around, foraging on the side of the road. As we passed over the ridge line, we pulled off the side of the road to take in the incredible views of Hatiheu with its row of sawtooth spires that stick up above the town, overlooking the bay.

As we made our decent to the north side of the island, we stopped at an archeological site along the way to check out some ruins and one of the oldest banyan trees in the world. We tried to listen in on a tour group but found them only speaking French and all the signs were in French or Marquesan. Unfortunately, we didn’t find the stop too educational, but interesting nonetheless. We continued meandering down the steep road and arrived in the town, just in time for lunch. We ran into our friends on SV Sky Pond who were anchored in the neighboring bay, Anaho, and had walked over to explore the town. The famous dish at the restaurant was coconut goat, which became our first meal eaten onshore since leaving Mexico.

After lunch, we hopped back in the car and headed up the hill towards the island’s airport which we heard had more spectacular views and a very different climate from the lower elevations. We continued up and up and up and found ourselves immersed in the clouds. The A/C went off and we rolled down the windows, welcoming the cool air that felt like a foggy morning in San Francisco Bay. The tropical vegetation of the lower elevations was transformed into a lush fern forest with patches of pine trees. More and more horses were found roaming free and seemed to be relatively wild and disinterested in any human contact. Our views of the landscape below were often obstructed by low lying clouds and we would have to stop at each viewpoint and wait for the clouds to shift or dissipate. It was amazing to see how different the landscape and vegetation varied at each elevation. We would have liked to explore much longer but it was getting late in the day and time to head back.

The following day we pulled anchor and departed to explore by boat with plans of circumnavigating the island. Our first stop would be Daniels Bay, just west of the main anchorage in Taiohae. Upon leaving the protection of the main bay it became apparent that a circumnavigation may be a bit more challenging than we had expected. There was a significant swell from the easterly trade winds and we were getting rolled around quite a bit just trying to sailing downwind, so motoring/bashing upwind in the opposite direction sounded like a nightmare. We met up with our friends on SV Bula a few days later who had sailed/motored around the whole island and recommended against it, saying the sketchiest areas were rounding the corners of the island since there was a cumulation of multiple conflicting swells and currents.

We made the turn into Daniels Bay and dropped anchor amongst 5 other boats and were soon joined by SV Oceane, a Danish boat we had recently met. Having Danish crew ourselves, we began noticing an unexpectedly high proportion of people from Denmark. Martin and Simone explained there is a popular show in Denmark about a family sailing the world with one of the seasons taking place in the Marquesas Islands, inspiring a lot of Danes to take on the same kind of adventure. In a similar way, SV Delos and the other countless YouTube sailing/cruising channels have done the same for many Americans, including myself. For this reason, there were a handful of Danish boats and our crew got regular dinner and happy hour invites from their fellow countrymen.

Now that we had left the main crowded anchorage of Nuku Hiva and settled in to a smaller quieter bay, I felt like we were officially back in cruising mode!