June 1st

Headed to the north end of Nuku Hiva on June 1. We had planned to leave early-ish in the morning but errands took longer than we thought they would, so we left sometime in the afternoon. There was pretty good wind the entire way, except for right as we approached the mouth of Anaho Bay. That meant drifting for a bit closer and closer to shore while we watched the sunset.

Since the bay took a dogleg into the actual anchorage, we didn't see where we wanted to anchor before it got dark but managed to hail Osprey on the radio and get some good info about reef locations. Since all this went on over VHF, we figured that a lot of boats had eavesdropped and knew some crazy boat was going to try to anchor at dark.

Even though there was light wind leading up to the bay and in most of it, there was a pretty solid 10 knots in the anchorage. So of course Ben wanted to anchor under sail and not fire up the engine. (For nonsailors--this is pretty unusual even in daylight).

The anchorage had a surprising number of boats, and nearly everyone was on deck watching us sail through. It was probably pretty unnerving to watch a dark boat weaving through the anchorage with no engine on. A couple of boats that didn't know this was Ben's usual MO had folks up on the deck with spotlights trying to get us to back off. We were never close enough for a collision to happen, but that didn't stop them from shining those annoying spotlights right at us and ruining our night vision.

The anchoring went really smoothly: Ben did fire up the engine for us to back down on it and make sure it set, but that didn't stop one of the boats from shouting at us that we were too close. Silly cruisers, we had lots of room.

Brian and Richard dinghied over after the anchoring spectacle ended to let us know they were going hiking the next morning with Joe and Heidi from Huck to the next bay over where there's a town and some of the best archeological sights in the Marquesas. Joe and Heidi are pretty entertaining--when they heard on the radio we were coming in after sunset under sail they made popcorn and watched the anchoring fun.

The hike was way more uphill than we had bargained for--and it was HOT and HUMID. About halfway there we realized it was Sunday and even if there was a store in the little village, it wouldn't be open. No cold beer in the middle of the hike :( To remedy this, Brian started foraging for anything edible--mangoes, coconuts, limes, etc. He succeeded in finding delicious mangoes and a coconut to nibble on.

The view from the top of the pass. Kyanos is the one in the middle of all the other boats.

 

At the village we stopped for a little lunch (baguette with oil and basalmic vinegar) and tried to locate these archeological curiosities. Brian stopped a local to ask where they were and he gave up halfway through giving directions and decided to just take us there. "There" ended up being up MORE hills with very little shade, but it was worth it to see the old burial sites and city ruins. The best part for me, though, was when our guide picked this orange something off a tree, cracked it open and let us try the insides. Turns out it was cocoa. You didn't actually chew anything, just sucked off the yogurt looking stuff around the cocoa nuts. Yummy.
Check out the pictures:

Baby head soup.

 

Father holding a dead baby.