Kathy's Weekly Recap Log June 11-17
18 June 2008 | The Bay of Virgins, Fatu Hiva
Kathy
Wed, June 11 Weather: Beautiful day with fluffy clouds, the wind had died down a bit Meal: Chicken pot pie School: Full day of school Movie: None Other: Sean fixed the boom brake and Ashley, a young, professional sailor and crew on Astra, came over to give Sean some pointers on rigging and to fix our mainsheet pulley system. Sean went to the catamaran, Zangezi, to pick up the spare monitor they dug from their bilge. Tara wanted to take me to the snorkeling spot she'd gone to the day before and we decided Casey needed to get off the boat too. So the three of us went snorkeling while Sean worked to hook up the monitor. Tara took us to the "rough" side of the bay and told me to drop the anchor. I reluctantly did, but didn't feel comfortable. Since Casey couldn't get her foot wet, I held her legs while she stuck her masked head into the water to "snorkel" from the dinghy. I felt we were too close to the reef, where the waves crashed, so I pulled the anchor to move out a bit. Tara was not happy with me. I was taking way to long and she just wanted to jump in the water. I reanchored and we jumped in. Tara headed toward the point at the entrance to the bay, where the surf was even more extreme. I didn't feel comfortable and told Tara we should just snorkel by the dinghy. She was not happy with me again and said I was too cautious. Another boat, B'Sheret, was coming into the anchorage. It was one Sean had talked with a lot on our crossing. We stopped by B'Sheret on our way back to Adventure. Michael and Linda had come from where we're going (Fatu Hiva) and were going to where we had come from (Hiva Oa), so we traded info on anchorages, sight seeing, and village services. We got to know them better that night when they came over for chicken pot pie.
Thu, June 12 Weather: Beautiful day with fluffy clouds Meal: Left over chicken pot pie School: Full day of school Movie: Other: Sean and I were going to Resolution Bay to buy gas and a few groceries. We stopped by Zangezi to get their short grocery list and then to B'Sheret to pick up Michael and Linda. In town Sean and Michael found gas out of barrels ($8.40/gallon) and both got 5 gallons. At the store, we found that they didn't make fresh baguettes today, so we had to buy some from the freezer. The eggs were all gone too. In trade for the monitor, we returned with baguettes and butter for Zangezi.
When we got back, the girls were almost done with school and Tara really wanted to take me to the outer reef. I told her I would only go if she could get her dad to go with us. She finally talked him into it and the three of us went. There was a lot of surge, but the fish were beautiful. We even saw a puffer fish in its "golden" stage, when it turns from black with white spots to a brilliant yellow with black spots.
We packed Adventure for our early morning trip tomorrow to Fatu Hiva.
Fri, June 13 Weather: Sunny with large, fluffy clouds; light showers during night Meal: Grilled cheese sandwiches and soup School: Day off from school Movie: Other: We pulled anchor at 6am and I headed for B'Sheret so we could yell goodbye and wake them up. As we left Hanna Moa Noa, the water was calm and the winds light, but we were in the lee side of the island. Just as we rounded the tip of the island, 8-foot seas and 15-20 knot winds hit us on the nose. Tara ran below to get a sea-sickness pill and I braced myself for a rough ride.
9 hours later we arrived at Fatu Hiva, known by some as the most beautiful island in the world. The steep, green cliffs that line the anchorage in Baie des Viergens (Bay of Virgins), and also known as Baie Hanavave, are a beautiful contrast to the rock spires that jut high into the blue sky. Palm trees start at the waterline and grow up the surrounding hills until they become too steep to support the weight of the tree. The multiple layers of mountains, spires, and valleys stacked upon each other form a surreal 3-deminsional view I've not seen before. The Aranui, a ship that doubles as a cruise ship and supply ship, was anchored in the deep bay when we arrived, along with 6 other sailboats. Since the side of the bay that has a sand floor was full, we anchored in the side that's known to have a rocky bottom. Sean jumped in the water to check our anchor and then we settled in for a low-key evening. We were all tired, so we didn't even launch our dinghy. Tara dropped Casey's $350 pocket camera, which has made it through many other falls. This time, it really broke. We have two other cameras, Tara's pocket camera is best for under water and mine is an expensive, larger SLR camera that's difficult to lug around. Casey's camera is the one we used the most. We have a 3-year warrantee from Sharper Image, so if we find one of these stores in the Marquesas islands (where baguettes have to be trucked in from one village to another), we'll be good to go.
Sat, June 14 Weather: Sunny with large, fluffy clouds; light showers during night Meal: Grilled chicken, rice, pink bananas, unknown shredded veggie salad at Theresa's home School: Day off from school Movie: Myth Busters Other: Sean and Tara hiked to the waterfall with Windy and Georgio from Argonauta, while I stayed and watched a movie with Casey because of her hurt toes (which are still very raw and bleeding). The water fell from a very high cliff, but it was just a trickle because it hadn't rained much lately. Sean, Tara, and Windy went for a fresh-water swim, their first in a very long time.
Casey and I watched Surf's Up and ran the generator to charge our batteries. Sean and Tara got back in time for lunch. I had to make macaroni and cheese from scratch because they don't have boxed mac and cheese in these islands. While Sean was in town, he found out that the bread baker is in the town 3 or 4 miles away and delivers bread very early in the morning. If we want bread, we should be back at the store at 5am tomorrow because the locals buy all the bread early. I don't want bread that bad.
A local woman named Theresa makes dinner for cruisers who are willing to pay 1700 cfp (about $25) per person. Wendy and Georgio had signed up for it and asked if we wanted to go with them. We decided that we'd buy two dinners and split them with the girls. At 5:30pm, we met in the village and were confronted by children wearing only underwear, asking for bon-bons (candy). I had a bag of suckers that I brought from Panama, but was going to throw them away because they had gotten a bit of moisture on them. Sean tried one and said they were still good, so I'll have to bring them to the village tomorrow.
The dinner was o.k., but we were glad we didn't buy four plates. I saw bunches of bananas hanging on Theresa's fence and I asked if I could buy some. She told me to pick whichever stock I wanted. I picked a stock that had about 20 ripe ones on it and Wendy picked a stock with a bunch of green ones.
Sun, June 15 Weather: Sunny with large, fluffy clouds; no rain Meal: Roast beef, mashed potatoes, corn, baguette, fresh-squeezed lemonade School: Half day of school Movie: Big Fish Other: I awoke at 6am and decided, since I was awake, I should dinghy into the village and see if there were any baguettes left. The fact that they were supposed to have croissants was what really made me decide to go. When I got into the village, there were a surprising number of people out and about this early Sunday morning. As I walked down the street, I realized that I had no idea where to go to get baguettes. The map in my guide book was outdated and the store was not where it use to be. I saw two older ladies standing on the street talking and I said, "bonjour" and then "baguette?" These are about the only French words that I know. The ladies pointed down the street and made a twisting motion with their fingers. I looked and saw a tan truck with people standing next to it. I nodded my head as if I knew what they had said. But one lady, wearing a red sarong with white flowers and clashing top, realized I didn't understand. She took me by the arm and pulled me along as she walked down the street. We got to the truck and I looked inside. I saw what looked like pre-cooked meat in single- or double-serving containers. But no baguettes. "Baguettes?" I asked the man in the truck. He made a similar gesture as the ladies had made, pointed oddly down the street.
The lady that had taken me this far, started down the road and motioned for me to come. I trudged after her. We tried to converse with small words and lots of hand and body motions. She told me her name was Maudlan and that she had 7 children, 5 girls and 2 boys. I was trying to ask her how long she lived on Fatu Hiva, but she didn't understand. I stopped and dug in my backpack for my French for Cruiser's book, which I'd left on the boat. As I looked, I came across the reading glasses that I had brought to give away and pulled them out. I asked if she needed glasses for reading. She said, "Oui!" So she tried a few different magnifications and found one she liked. She told me that I must come to her house to get some pamplemousse (sweet grapefruit) on our way back. We walked for 10 minutes, curving on the paved road until we came to a white truck with about 15 people sitting and standing around it. Many of them held arm loads of baguettes. I stood in line behind six other people while Maudlan went to one of her friends to brag about the reading glasses. The lady seemed really interested, so I pulled the 5 other pair from my backpack to see if any would work for her. But they were too strong. She was hoping they were for watching TV. rather than for reading. Maudlan walked to the front of the line and bought some baguettes and then motioned for me to come to the front too. I looked at the other people in line and they were all still smiling, so I asked for 5 baguettes and 10 croissants. They only had chocolate croissants left. It cost 1375cfp ($18). Maudlan and I walked back through the village to her house. She picked 4 large pamplemousse, 6 bananas and 10 lemons and then went into her house. She brought out some beautifully-inked tapa cloth, made by pounding bark into a coarse cloth and decorated with native designs. Fatu Hiva is the only island where the time-consuming process of making tapa cloth is still undertaken. Maudlan told me that her daughter makes the tapas. I picked one that had two tiki men and a dolphin in a circular pattern and asked her how much. 1,000cfp ($13) seemed like a bargain, so I bought it. Maudlan thanked me many times as I left and I thanked her back. I would have never found the baguette truck by myself, all the fruit smells wonderful, and I now own some beautiful tapa art.
An hour later, Giorgio came to our boat and said he dropped our very useful suction cup handle that he'd borrowed to help him clean his boat bottom. It was sitting on the ocean floor in 9 meters of water and he couldn't get it. Sean thought he said 9 feet of water. He smiled. He could dive to 9 feet. This was his chance to show Giorgio what a great swimmer he was. He'd swim down and effortlessly scoop up the handle. He'd be a hero. Snapping out of his day dream, Sean grabbed his mask and flippers and jumped in Giorgio's dinghy. He came back a few minutes later. He was in agony. A string of pearls jelly fish had wrapped around his shoulder and side of his face. I quickly poured vinegar on the welts as he explained that the handle was in 9 meters, not 9 feet, of water. His dreams of being the hero of the day had been crushed and the jelly fish sting just added insult to injury. But Giorgio was waiting for him in his dinghy, so Sean put on his lycra swim shirt to fend off the jelly fish and went with Giorgio. Sean dove for the handle once and nearly popped his eardrums. It was beyond his limits. Giorgio switched gears from a physical solution to and mental one. He worked for 30 minutes with his dinghy anchor and finally snagged the handle and pulled it out of the water. Sean came back to Adventure with mixed feelings; he was glad to have his suction handle, but sad that he wasn't the one who had saved the day.
Mon, June 16 Weather: Sunny with large, fluffy clouds; no rain Meal: Roast beef and cheese pannini School: Full day of school Movie: Myth Busters Other: When we awoke, the anchorage was clearing out and we ended up being the only boat left at anchor. Sean and I headed to town to fill our jerry jugs with water and then go for a hike to the water fall. We stopped by the village's store, which was clean, but very small. It had dry goods on shelves that lined about 20 feet of wall space, meat in one small freezer, and soda and a few tubs of butter in two residential-sized refrigerators. We were hoping to buy cheese and crackers for our hike, but had to settle for two "Picnic" candy bars and one Coke. We walked by Maudlan's house so I could introduce her to Sean. We told her we were going to L'Cascade (waterfall) and she gave us directions in French, which we didn't understand. Luckily, Sean had gone to the waterfall two days before. When we got to the trail head, we decided to hike to the top of the mountain that overlooks the anchorage. Up, up, up, we went on unending switch-backs along the face of the mountain. The village below us became smaller and smaller as we ascended, until we finally were able to see Adventure. We took photos and then started the climb down. My knees immediately rebelled. Ever since our hike up and down the volcano in Guatemala, my knees haven't been the same and our month-long trip over the ocean to get here didn't help with keeping them exercised. We took out time descending and by the time we got back to the waterfall trailhead, I decided to suck it up and hike to the waterfall too. The up-hill part didn't hurt, but I knew the down-hill would kill. A 45-minute walk later, we found the cascade and jumped into the pool at the bottom. The water was very cold, but felt great after our humid walk through the jungle. We were the only two people within a couple of miles around the falls, and it was peaceful to lazily float in the water.
As we hiked back to town, I stopped at a lemon tree and picked a few citrons. I wanted Sean to pick a bunch of bananas, but he couldn't reach high enough to grab them. In town, we were greeted by a chubby, 8-year-old boy holding a rooster. He asked for bonbons (candy) and we told him we'd bring some to town tomorrow. He was very interested in our hand-held VHF radio, which Sean handed to him to look at. I walked on as Sean worked on getting his radio back from the boy, who wasn't willing to part with it just yet. Finally, an older boy came down the street and made the other kid give Sean his radio back. When we got back to Adventure, the girls had had a good day of school, reading, and drawing. We were too tired to go to the village dance this evening and opted for a Myth Busters instead.
Tue, June 17 Weather: Sunny with large, fluffy clouds; sprinkles at night Meal: Cheese Tortellini with Olive Garden fettuccine sauce and green beans School: No school Movie: Monk Other: It was laundry day. Normally we would haul our two large duffle backpacks full of dirty clothes to the lavanderia and pay someone to wash, dry, and fold them. But in Fatu Hiva, there isn't a laundry place and even if there was, it would be way too expensive. So Casey and I sat in the cockpit and washed all our clothes and a bunch of towels. Sean and Tara were going to wash theirs next, but we ran out of dock water and wanted to go to the village so the girls could buy some tapa wall hangings. Since I knew the designs that Maudlan had shown me previously, I wanted to see if one of her neighbors had anything different. We asked a 7-month pregnant lady that spoke a bit of English where we could get tapa. She told us how to get to her mother's house. Her mother just had large tapas, so we gave her 4 year old granddaughter a sucker and a pair of little kid sunglasses. As we left, the little girl's mother chased after us and gave us some lemons. She was enamored with Tara's pink toe polish and asked if we had any with us. She asked for another pair of the kid sunglasses, which we gave her. Any barrettes? We didn't have nail polish or barrettes. We said, "au revoir" and continued down the street. Sean and Casey didn't have it in them to find out if anyone else had tapa and asked that I just take them to Maudlan's home. As we walked, I pulled out a large bag of suckers to hand to the kids that we met on the way. But school had just let out and we nearly caused a riot. I handed out suckers as kids crowed around me yelling, "Merci Madame! Merci!" After the kids got suckers, I looked around and saw two men standing close to me. One was on a bicycle and another had a hat on that read "POLICE". I walked to them and handed them both a sucker, which they gladly took and began eating. The man on the bicycle pointed to the policeman and said, "He says you can stay here for 5 months if you like."
We hit a few more waves of kids on the way to Maudlan's home. Once we got there, I yelled her name and she came out with her grandson. We gave him a sucker and I introduced my girls. I told Maudlan they wanted to see the tapas. The girls picked out 3 tapas they liked and Maudlan knocked 500 cfp off the price of each one. Casey bought one with of a tiki (1,000cfp) and one of a sun with a tiki face (500cfp) and Tara bought one with a tattooed horse (1,000cfp). 5 more kids came up to us for suckers, but we had only one. I didn't know what to do, so Maudlan told me to give it to her-which I did. Oh, the wisdom of the old. I dug in my backpack for pencils and notebooks to give the kids, but a man standing next to Maudlan said, "You should give those to the school teacher so he can distribute them best to the kids." I said, "Yes, you're right. But who is the school teacher?" He smiled and said, "Me."
He spoke English very well and we found out that he was Maudlan's nephew and one of the school teachers in the village. I dug in my backpack for something else for the 5 kids, but all I had left were the kid sunglasses. I pulled them out and the bigger kids giggled and shook their heads, but the two smaller kids excitedly took one. After the kids left, I pulled out 25 notebooks and pencils (which Tara and Casey had gotten a blisters on their fingers from sharpening) and gave them to Louis, the teacher. He was very happy. Maudlan asked if we needed more bananas and I said yes, green ones. We still had ripe ones left from the ones she gave me a few days ago. Maudlan's older daughter came to us and asked if we had any extra buoys. We asked a few questions and found out they needed two fenders for their boat so it could rest against the concrete pier without getting scrapped. Sean said we might have one and would check when we got back to Adventure. She then asked if we were interested in woodwork. She led us to her home up the street, seated us at her dinning table, and brought 10 or 15 beautiful wood sculptures to show us. Manta rays, tikis, geckos, tiki masks, and a really neat spiral dagger with a carved bone handle. All the pieces she showed us were rather large, so we explained that we were limited in space on our boat and we needed something smaller. The tourists had bought all her small carving she said. Sean really wanted the dagger, but it cost 15,000cfp ($200). He looked at me pleadingly. I asked her if she would take part of the money in trade. "Perfume?" I asked. I had half a bottle of Ralph Lauren left and hadn't used a drop in 19 months we'd been on our sailing trip. No, she had lots of perfume. I thought that maybe we could work something out with the fenders.
We walked back past Maudlan's house and she went to work gathering oranges, lemons, ripe bananas, and island apples. She started toward the pamplemousse tree and I said we had enough. Then she grabbed a large bunch of 50 green bananas, still on the stem, and handed them to us. Louis said he would walk to the dock with us and the woodworking daughter and her husband joined us, along with an 11 year old boy, who Louis said was the oldest kid in school. After 11, the kids who want to continue their education must go to school in Hiva Oa and live in a dormitory. The woodworker's 15 year old son was now living in Hiva Oa for school.
So we strolled to the dock with a bunch of Marquesans, arm-loads of fruit, and the kids yelling nice things to us as they played an informal game of soccer.
But the best was yet to come.Louis was trying to arrange a time to see the fenders and, forgetting that in our dinghy we had 3 jerry cans full of water and a 5 gallon bucked full of clean towels we had rinsed at the dock, I said, "why don't you just come now to our boat." He decided this was a good idea. The woodworker guy was average size, but Louis was a big guy. The boy decided to come too. Another really big guy in yellow shorts and holding a huge, loud boom box walked toward our dinghy as we loaded into it. Louis said something to him and then told us with great authority, "I told him he can't come with us." The boom box guy jumped into the dinghy as Louis shook his head. We putted away from the dock with the top of our dinghy tube about an inch out of the water.
We showed the woodworker the two used fenders Sean was willing to give up. He decided that they would work for what he needed and wanted to know what we wanted for trade. We passed out the last of our Cokes to everyone and I rushed up from below as I heard Sean mumbling about the wooden dagger with the bone handle (no, it wasn't a human bone). I was not willing to part with our cash and felt that we could make it a pure trade. Sean stepped aside to let me handle negotiations and I asked them if they would trade the two fenders for the dagger. Louis translated to woodworker dude, who seemed really happy with the trade. Sean said, "Look, I want us to both feel like we're getting a good deal." Louis said, "Yes, yes, he's very happy about the trade." I looked at Sean and could tell he wanted to give them money too, which I was not willing to part with. I knew the islanders were happy, now I just needed to make Sean happy.
I asked if woodworker had an older relative on the island that needed reading glasses, but Louis said he didn't have relatives here. But Louis had a mother in the other village and she needed some so she could read her bible. I dug in my backpack and pulled out 5 pair of different strengths and told him he should have her try on each pair to see which worked best for her. He said his brother needed some too, so I told him to keep all 5 pair and make sure they were given to those who need them most. He said, "I feel like God has sent you here. You don't know how much this will mean to them." He said he knew I had given Maudlan a pair of the glasses the other day and thanked me for that too. I had bought 25 or 30 inexpensive reading glasses in Mexico to give to islanders, but it's been difficult to know who to give them to. Walking up to someone and asking if they need reading glasses when you don't speak the same language is a bit tricky.
Since Tara's nail polish seemed to impress the one lady we met, I asked Tara to get some to throw into the trade along with a new flyswatter (which they said they used for mosquitoes), 4 new decks of playing cards, and a pink ladies shirt. I looked at Sean and he seemed to be satisfied about the trade now. The guys came below and checked out our boat and then sat at the table so we could ask Louis a bunch of questions. Among other things, Louis told us that woodworker dude use to be the bread baker in town, but his oven blew up. The other guys looked really board because they didn't speak English. We were invited to see the village practice their Bastille day's celebration dance that night, but didn't end up going