Kailani Capers: Marquesas Islands: Nuku-Hiva

We arrived on a quiet, calm Sunday morning. It was quite cloudy so it was hard to make out the islands on our approach in the dark, but when it came into view, the sight of land was exhilarating.

Entrance to the bay

Nuku-Hiva is the largest and most populated island in the Marquesas group, although it’s surface area is a mere 330 km, it still boasts the title as the second largest island of French Polynesia. We anchored in Taioha’e Bay, the main center of the archipelago. I believe the population of the town is less than 2,000 (1,500 in the 1998 census), and the island less than 3,000 (2,400 in ’98).

Our first day was spent decompressing from the passage. The boat was in sore need of sorting out and cleaning, the pile of laundry was intimidating, the to-do list of things we broke along the way loomed over us, we needed access to the Internet and we were HUNGRY for someone else’s cooking other than our own! We’ve been here for a week, and have managed to take care of just about everything.

Hand washing the clothes!

The village is small, quaint and clean. There’s a post office, a bank, a hardware store and two small food markets. We’ve had trouble finding fresh produce. The locals say “the vegetables are over” and that “now is time for fruit”. Hummm. Looks like we’ll be eating lots of bananas, grapefruit (pampelmouse) and sprouted lentils!

It really is beautiful here and quite dramatic – especially with the high peaks. It’s not much good for sailing though in that the peaks attract lots of cloud and the anchorages are not protected from the ocean swells and therefore a lot of extreme rolling at anchor. The ocean water isn’t clear due to so much rain run-off. We’d been swimming each day off the boat while in Taioha’e Bay – but later noticed no one else was. Then we moved to another bay trying to get into a calmer more protected anchorage – which is where we are now. It’s Daniels Bay – very pretty and much calmer and less populated than Taihoa’e. We went ashore our first day to meet the local that lives in a hut on the beach. We asked about swimming in the bay, and he said “NO NO… not safe”. It seems these bays are used by various species of sharks (tiger, hammer head, etc.) for breeding. Don’t want to be a part of that!! Hummm. We haven’t been swimming since – and that’s another reason to leave!

Sand the color of chocolate...

The visitor visa for French Polynesia is only 3 months, and there are a lot of islands and archipelagos to see. We’ve heard of some beautiful northern bays on this island, but think we will forego them as we are eager to get to the clear calm waters of the Tuamotus.

Here are few pics of our time in Taioha’e Bay and Hakatea Anse on Nuku-Hiva