Bay of Bedevilment
23 August 2022
• Confrollers Bay, Nuku Hiva, Fenua Enata
by Karl
We sailed to Nuku Hiva today, our last Marquesan island. Our plan was to circle the island counterclockwise, stopping for overnights at the interesting bays, and ending up next week at Taioha'e, the big town with provisions and (hopefully) delivery of our replacement spinnaker car.
The passage started out fine - a close reach in a steady but moderate breeze, making six knots in sunshine. The spires of Ua Pou faded into the clouds behind us as the distinct ridge line of Nuku Hiva rose before us. But by 1000 clouds rolled in, the wind dropped and headed us, and it did not look like we would make our planned destination at Controllers Bay. We spent several hours pinching up close, barely making three or four knots. But the wind shifted just enough to lay the mouth of the bay, and by noon we were close to entering, in view of a turret like rock formation and a dramatic waterfall on the easterly rampart.
Controllers bay has three arms - and the middle arm sounded very enticing. Reputed to be calm and roll free, potable spring water at the landing, the possibility of paddling or walking up a river to the village of Taipivai with stores and wifi, hikes to a waterfall and stone carvings. We might even spend two nights here!
The wind dropped near zero and clocked around, so we fired up the engine to get to he head of the bay. We tried to anchor close to the landing beach in twelve feet of water with no rocks in sight, supposedly good holding in mud, and our troubles began. Our trusty Spade anchor simply would not set - we dragged backwards as if there was nothing at the end of the chain. I tried retrieving the anchor, thinking the mud bottom was too soft for the spade, but as I tried to pull the anchor up, it stopped hard, as if it was well dug in. When I finally got the anchor back on deck it was clotted with sandy, shelly mud- usually good holding. I tried setting our fortress anchor, whose flat blades sometimes hold better in mud, but the same result, we pulled backwards through the murky water as if there was no anchor.
We tried moving to deeper water that was a lighter shade, indicating more sand and better holding, and eventually got the spade to set sideways to the light breeze. We had wasted over an hour getting anchored.
But we had some lunch and launched the kayaks, thinking there still might be time to walk to town and the tikis. It was now a much longer paddle to the landing pier, beach, and river mouth - over half a mile. As we approached the beach, landing looked impossible, as the concrete pier had no protection from the waves smashing against it, the steep-to beach had a dumping surf break that would swamp our kayaks, and the river mouth had a much longer break that looked great - for a surfer. Our little kayaks are not designed to surf safely!
So after paddling back and forth outside the break looking for a ways shore, we headed back to our boat, securely anchored in the gentle puffs of wind and steady roll. Tomorrow we will head to the other side of the island.
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