MOLLY AND JESSIE HAVE HEARD THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE
…that there are boats coming here soon with KIDS on board! Pure music to their ears. Evidently, 24/7 with mom and dad isn’t as thrilling as it used to be. So, we have been hanging out on Nuku Hiva Island, watching each boat as it come into the anchorage, scanning each deck for signs of youth.
We spent a couple of days in the next bay to the east, called Daniel’s Bay. Evidently, Daniel and his wife settled there a while back, now his grown son and family live in a bucolic beach setting at the head of the bay. There is a nice little house, plenty of fruit trees, a horse, 2 dogs and a boat, surrounded by a white sand beach. Jim says he could live like that for a couple of years, no problem.
Down the river, which connects to the bay, is a little village with about 20 homes. This is the only place on this island to get clean water, so Jim traded some guitar strings and fish hooks for about 100 gallons of water, which we carried in jerry jugs from the village, to our dinghy, to our boat, and put it in our tanks. The men of the village were so thrilled with the trade that they gave us bananas, papaya, mango and coconut. It was a lot of hard work, but it’s been so nice taking showers on our boat again. We are much more careful with water now – pre-washing our selves and our dishes in salt water before giving them a fresh water rinse.
We hiked up to the world’s 3rd highest waterfall. It was an arduous hike – about 2 ½ hours each way, through raging rivers and ancient stone structures. The waterfall was very tall, although not much water was coming down. Most of the fun was hiking between gigantic volcanic mountains and lush green pastures. The trail was not very clear, but locals had marked the paths with little piles of stones every so often, so you could find your way. When we finally arrived at the end of the hike, there were twenty or thirty little stone markers that hikers had built showing that they had arrived at their destination. It looked very Zen-like!
Here is how our hikes go: Jim and Molly stop to study every bug, bud and bird. A two- hour hike could easily take them four hours. I am pretty goal-oriented; I want to get to the waterfall, take a picture and get back down so I can take a nap. I march at a ferocious pace. Jessie is a little like me, with slightly shorter legs. She keeps up, but asks politely if we could stop to breathe every once in a while. So, we all get together at the end of the hike, and have a fun time comparing notes.
Molly and Jessie and Jim went snorkeling in Daniel’s Bay early one morning, and played with an octopus for about an hour! He was hiding behind a rock, but seemed curious and came out to check out his visitors. He would change color when he was feeling nervous, or if the girls touched his head or made him feel threatened. In fact, he was able to change color on just parts of his body, to show where he didn’t want to be touched. They are very smart animals, I hear. There are some great huge coral reefs in the bay, and the snorkeling was fun, but not very good visibility. I am looking forward to the Tuamotus, where we keep hearing about 100-foot visibility and a zillion varieties of fish.
The main town on this island is Taiohae, which circles the bay that we are in now. They have a Saturday morning market right at the wharf, with fresh pastries, fish and vegetables. That’s the good news. The bad news is, it starts at 4:30 in the morning and ends at 7:00 am! You need a flashlight to see what delicacies you might be buying.
We rented a car yesterday and toured the island. Most of the roads are unpaved, and follow the steep cliffs. One wrong move and you are heading down a thousand foot bank. It was a bumpy ride, but we went to the other side of the island and checked out the anchorages to see where we might like to go next. The scenery is amazing – the mountains are tightly packed with all sorts of vegetation.
Before we went on our car ride, we discovered that the local medical association was distributing elephantitus pills to the entire island, as they do every year. It is evidently a big problem here – certain mosquitoes carry the bacteria. It is an awful disease; some part of the body swells up to huge proportions – usually an arm or a leg, and it never goes away. We dutifully took our pills, so we feel well protected.
We have been on this island, at different anchorages for two weeks now. I am getting a little antsy to get moving, although it has been nice to get to know a few of the locals well enough to get kissed on both cheeks when we see them! Everything is so expensive here, and we are afraid it will only get worse as we head towards Tahiti. We have pretty much stopped buying meat – only fish, and the fresh local vegetables and fruit. Honestly, baguettes are the only real bargain here…
There will be new pictures in the media gallery in a couple of days – it takes a long time to upload them when there is only one satellite that serves all of French Polynesia!