A continuation of the blog post for our second visit to Hiva Oa.

The site of Me’ae Iipona itself is small in comparison to the larger festival sites we visited in Nuka Hiva but it had a completely different role. It was the holy of holy places, where only the high priests, chieftains and heroes would be allowed to go. It was where the sacrificial alter was as well. The main tiki is the largest in the whole of French Polynesia, standing well over 2m high. It is the only place where we have seen a tiki dog, set to guard over the site.

       

John then freaked the girls out when he returned from a wander with two enormous snails. There were screams!

On our route back, we spotted a huge tiki in a back yard which was obviously being made. We stopped and a man came out, smiled and asked us in to get a better view. We found ourselves in his workshop where he was in the process of making a 3’ tall wooden tiki like the one in the photo. He also had a few beautiful instruments, 8 string ukuleles, which were in the last of the polishing processes. We asked prices but at $500 a dollar a pop they were a bit out of our price range. The stone tiki is being done on commission for the island Town Hall.

 

Having driven right to the end of the road (incidentally finding a couple of wild pomolo trees and loading up with fruit), we turned back and made our way to the village of Hanaapa which has the best anchorage on the N side of the island. There was little there other than a few beautifully maintained houses, with gardens so colourful. Hannah was satisfied when she found a baby goat and spent most of her time feeding it through the wire fence.

We had one more stroke of luck when we found another roadside banana tree in rough land. John and Lou liberated its load and we halved them between us.

Our last couple of days at Atuana were busy. We managed to book our New Zealand flights for 12 Nov with a return on 23 Feb to Apataki. Lou, Julia and the kids made good use of the local luxury hotel with swimming pool as a special treat to do this. Not so bad a view too. Thoroughly recommended. They do two deals for cruisers.

1.  $10 entry, buy drinks and stay the day with free internet and pool.

2. $35 entry, choice of main courses for lunch, free pool and internet. Kids are $20 ahead. E and H both got adult mains (no kid’s portions here) which were priced at more than the entry fee so a good deal for them. E’s eyes were out on stalks when she saw the size of her steak.

We also met up with a great crowd of Irish on their rather large Oyster 66 called Elvis Magic, newly arrived from the Galapagos. The kids made a new friend, a wee lad called Jonny, who, being the only kid on the boat and having not seen another child for a three weeks, was as desperate as our two to play. They were a really nice bunch but sadly in a rush to get to Bora Bora in a couple of weeks time.

Having restocked, refueled and said our goodbyes to a number of people we had made friends with in the bay whilst we had been hauled out over a month before, we headed out and SE towards Faku Hiva, the last island we plan to visit in the group before we jump to the Toamotus. We look forward to catching up with Sid, our French ex copper, who helped recover some of our photos on the broken computer, on route to work in Vanuatu in a years time.

We have enjoyed Hiva Oa on both our visits. The second time around, not having to deal with fixing Skylark was less stressful and more fun. Exploring the island by land was well worth doing and we got to see the amazing diversity of the island. With good and friendly locals, some expat French and a small (nearly) permanent boating community, it is an interesting mix of cultures – all getting along. All this place is missing is a  beach on the S side of the island but then we did have Hanamoenoa Bay just 5 miles away when we needed it!

On the basis that our next island group, the Tuamotus, are about as remote as you can be in the world and the shopping is near non existent, we have headed back to Hiva Oa to load up. We also need to have decent internet to do some catching up on blog posts, book flights and research vehicles for New Zealand. We timed our visit to coincide with Bastille Day celebrations. Unfortunately with the UK euro vote and its effect on the US Dollar which the French Polynesian currency to tied to, we have returned to civilisation after our lovely time at Tahuata to find everything is now 15% more expensive than it was a month ago.

Bugger.   Well done, Middle England.

It was a bit of a blast back through the acceleration zone that is between Tahuata and Hiva Oa but we timed it just about right. We had a slow passage but in flat water as we went through at the tail end of the tide. We arrived at Atuana to find some boats we recognised, most importantly Mary Ann II, who we had last seen a couple of months ago in the Galapagos. We had a quiet night with John, Julia and Murphy catching up with the gossip and to congratulate John in the completion of his circumnavigation whilst he was on route to the Marquesas. An achievement I’d love to emulate one day.

Once we went in to check up on what activities were planned, we got a bit of a surprise. We seem to have landed in the Polynesian equivalent of Scotland. French “occupation” of the Marquesas is a subject that is growing in importance to the islanders. Since the French restarted nuclear tests briefly in the 1990’s, there has been a growing dissatisfaction with the perceived offhand approach to control of the island groups. When the tests restarted without consultation, ordered by Jacque Chirac, the Polynesians rioted. The period is best remembered for the troubles on Tahiti but there was trouble on a lot of the islands and a nationalistic sentiment has been maintained here. Although the French eventually backed down, mainly due to the international condemnation of what they were doing,  the damage, locally, was done. Whilst most islands do celebrate “Bastille Day” (Fatu Hiva, 35  miles to the S, parties for three days), here on Hiva Oa, they have decided they don’t want to anymore. What they have done this year is have a nationalistic parade to celebrate Marquesian culture a week before 14 Jul, a gala day with no reference to anything historically French on the day (no National Anthem and definitely no French flags) and then another kids parade, a week or so later. There seems to be a large proportion of the population here wanting full independence.

         

The dancing was great with teams from several nearby villages joining in the fun.  Once the dancing finished and the prizes were handed out, the Mayor tried to hold court with the normal politicians “I love the sound of my own voice” chat but the experienced crowd was already moving towards the food tents. I suspect a lot of locals had been attracted to the day’s activities by the promise of free food and drinks which there were in great abundance! We got stuck in too.

We attacked the supermarket here to stock up on essentials and some nice to haves to carry with us into the Tuamotus. We lucked out as well as both the Airenui (the half container ship, half cruise liner we saw in Ua Poa – see that blog entry for a photo) and the normal delivery ship, the Taporo IX,  have called in the last week, meaning for once the island is very well stocked.

We shared the cost of a big 4×4 (10000XFP a day) with John and Julie and went exploring. We decided to visit the NE corner of the island where one of the best preserved archaeological sites is. The drive up was long. Only 30 miles but it took over 2 hrs. The roads are rough but reasonably maintained and the time taken was more in caution of their steepness! We stopped at various points to take in the glorious views as we climbed up and over the spine of hills running across the island, separating the N and S coasts. Once you get above 1500’, you have a noticeable change of vegetation with large fir trees predominant.

  

The various views seen here are all looking N. Note, Dad, your hat is still waiting for your return. H says she didn’t think you would mind her borrowing it for the day.  I think that the windswept headland in the panoramic is a crazy place for a hen run but there seemed to be plenty of birds around!