Hapatoni Bay is one of the best anchorages because the gust of squalls do not funnel as strongly through the mountains and we are anchored directly in front of a small waterfall. The locals have been friendly and we found it interesting there are only 100 people living in the village, which is, less than Sara’s high school study hall and two grade years in Wade’s high school. We were still on the hunt for some excellent wood carvings for souvenirs and we met Teahina a lovely woman that showed us around town introducing us to all of the wood carving families. Occasionally they have a tour from Hiva Oa visit and all of the wood carvers display their work near the warf. We made friends with Kalino who carved the most beautiful marlin spike with several tiki faces. Wade prefers the rose wood and marlin spike without bone, which is, surprisingly hard to find, so we commissioned Kalino to make us a very special marlin spike that will be completed in a couple of days. As a warning, the carvings here are very beautiful but more expensive than other places and they are less open to trading.
In Fatu Hiva we met a wonderful solo sailor named Josh who arrived in Hapatoni Bay almost an hour after we arrived. Yesterday he captured an octopus for his dinner and proceeded to explain to us how he killed the octopus by turning it inside out. We were fascinated and then went hunting for ourselves this afternoon, to no avail. The visibility wasn’t the best because of heavy rain the last couple of days, but Josh did spear a Parrot fish. He rowed into the village to ask Teahina if the Parrot was good to eat. He was told that it was not good because of fish poisoning called ciguaterra. They would feed it to a local cat to make sure, haha. This is supposed to be one of the best spots for snorkeling in Marquesas; however, besides the manta ray that circled the boat when we first arrived, we thought the Tuamotus and Penrhyn were much better for clarity and fish variety.
A Lonely Planet suggestion is to hike the Royal Road to the white cross that sits on the top of a peak. Powered by solar a statue of Jesus is illuminated through the night. We hiked the “Royal Road” or if it has been raining the extremely muddy and slippery road to the top and the bay pictures were fairly nice, but really we enjoyed the forging for mango’s that were everywhere!
Canning update: As we arrived we had caught a skip jack tuna that we canned. We had heard the only way to eat skip jack tuna was fried, but boy were “they” wrong because skip jack tuna is amazing canned. We had the best tuna sandwiches this afternoon.
Cheers,
Wade and Sara
Boat Position At Noon: 09 degrees 57.619 minutes south and 139 degrees 07.140 minutes west.
