Nuku Hiva

Nuku Hiva is the largest island in the Marquesas, where Melville jumped ship to write Typee, where Robert Louis Stevenson lived. It has some of the most spectacular scenery on earth, but you can't drink the water and the main harbor of Taiohae can be terminally rolly. Plus it has no-nos in abundance - you have been warned.

We decided to head for the most windward anchorage in Nuku Hiva, which is Comptroller Bay, the only bay ever named for an accountant. One of the nicest features of this bay is the lack of boats. There are 3 bays inside and none were infested with yachties, though there were no-nos in profusion.

The middle valley is the Taipivai Valley, immortalized in Melvile's Typee. ( If you want a better-written description try this chapter from Jack London ).

On the left you see a tiki from the famous marae Paeke, which is hard to find but well worth the effort. This marae, which is a Polynesian site of worship, is amazing in that there are no signs pointing to its location, you have to ask directions from friendly locals you meet. One girl finally gave up trying to explain things in French and walked us there. The main hazards are wild pigs, which are large, mean and abundant. The photo on the right is the admiral standing by a paepae, an abandoned house foundation, which are sadly common. In fact we found an entire Marquesan ghost town, literally dozens of these stone platforms, all rocks stacked perfectly, like Machu Pichu. The Marquesas were depopulated by disease in the 19th century and many of the the survivors moved to Papeete; indeed, more Marquesans live there than in all of the Marquesas.

The pic of the left shows the bay at Taiohae - you can see why it was popular with Whalers. If you look closely you can see boats on the left side. On the right is the admiral in the hills above the bay, where Toby made his escape in Typee.

One major chore in Nuku Hiva was getting a visa so we could stay there. We had read in the Galapagos that the only way to stay in French Polynesia longer than 30 days was to obtain a visa from a French consulate elsewhere. This caused us much anxiety, but we found they had no problem doing it at the police station in Taiohae. You have to get a bond at the bank to pay your airfare out if the boat sinks or you decide to become a beachcomber for real. When we were there a bond cost 115,000 francs each. You also have to buy a stamp for CFP 3000 at the post office. So, for about $1200/ea you can get a visa for 90 days. You get the bond back when you leave, so you have to make sure the bank has a branch wherever you intend to depart. We used Banque Socredo.

On the left is the entrance to "Daniel's Bay"; that's not the real name but that's what all the cruisers call it. Daniel is famous for his hospitality. Unfortunately, he doesn't live in Daniel's Bay anymore, at least where you expect. What happened is that they filmed some episodes of "Survivor" here and wanted to use Daniel's place as the set. Being such a nice guy he decided to move to the bay on the west side, which is a real challenge to negotiate. The guy who moved into Daniel's old place is named, I believe, Michel and he is not known for his hospitality. If he's in a bad mood he will run you off, with his vicious dog helping.

We needed water. We'd finally gotten some new watermaker membranes in Taiohae (yay FedeX!) but had not been able to fill the water tank since Oa Pou, a number of weeks earlier. We could have gotten water from Daniel but getting to his new place involves skirting a rough beach, known for flipping dinghies, and motoring up a river. By the time we realized what the situation was we didn't have any jugs and didn't want to brave the beach again. That said, we must say that it's worth doing once, because the river is the entrance to a valley that leads to the second highest waterfall in the world, a must see.

The way to the waterfall is unmarked except for the rock cairns left by cruisers gone by and "No Trespassing" . signs which we ignored since we can't read French. The waterfall is hard to actually see as it hidden at the head of the canyon, but the setting is just awesome, with sheer rock walls 1500' high and numerous smaller falls that empty the plateau above. The only downside to these wonders are the legions of no-nos, which will continue to remind you that paradise has its downside.

We needed to head for Tahiti, so we set sail for the Tuamotus

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