a big fundraiser, for the local school. The entire community turned out for this very home-town affair, so we got to experience a glimpse of the island life, here on Hiva Oa. We actually come from a small island ourselves, back home in BC, and it felt rather familiar-only everyone was really brown and covered in tattoos.
Folks turned out in a mix of modern and traditional festive wear-the MC who greeted us (one of the teachers) was a large man, tattoos all over his neck and arms, wearing a massive red feather in his long, black hair, a bone earring and a string of giant, wooden beads the size of golf balls. The women wore sequin dresses and sarongs, flowers behind their ears or traditional Polynesian wreaths on their heads. Mothers laughed and gossiped with each other and their children. Fathers sat at the heads of pre-bought tables, handsome, proud and serious looking men, sitting straight as pokers, hands resting on their knees, observing the room. The men here all carry themselves like chiefs, but they're also quick to smile and the universal Polynesian-male outfit of board shorts, flip-flops and button up batik shirts-makes them slightly less intimidating then the amazing ink they all have all over their bodies.
The school gym was transformed into a dining/room disco, festooned with garlands of flowers and leaves, there was a pay bar and a raffle...teenagers made eyes at each other and the little kids had a special room with a video playing Madagascar-in French.
The buffet dinner (an entire wild boar, several goats, tons of plantains, breadfruit and sweet potatoes) was all cooked in a giant UMU -- a large underground oven, made by digging a giant pit in the ground, filling it with coals and thence covering it all in palm fronds...There was also traditional music and singing, a king and queen were crowned and danced a traditional dance...some pretty spectacular hip shaking by the lady and the dude was equally impressive in his tribal get-down.
Our shy Kai nearly had a seizure at the beginning of the evening, because as we walked up the hill to the school, a group of boys his own age greeted us in island custom. They sang us what sounded like a war chant, including much foot stomping, chest-pounding, eye-rolling, with a few added 'hisses" and some tongue sticking-outing. It was really cool but also fairly daunting. Poor Kai wasn't sure if he should flee or say "thank you", until the boys broke into wide smiles and said "Bon Soir!" and waved us in.
Hunter ditched us the second we got inside-prefering to hang out in the kids room with all the local children-not one of which spoke any English. When she returned to us at the end of the evening, she was surrounded by beautiful doting Polynesian princesses and her French was twice as good as before she got there.
We had a great time and were given a ride home by a lovely French boy from Paris who has been living on the island for three years working as a guidance counselor...
The funny thing is, the whole evening made us a little homesick for our own special island back home, and we spent the rest of the night reminiscing with each other about all things Bowen.
The next morning, we were up at dawn and into in the complicated process of bringing up our two anchors (in the wind and current), from amongst the tangle of boats that cram into the little bay. Jon is a wizard, and we did it with no chaos-which cannot be said about every captain here in the past week. The other day, we were all enjoying a little quiet reading-time inside Pura Vida, when suddenly, we felt the boat lurch to one side-we all sprang up on deck to discover that a boat near us was leaving and when they brought up their bow hook , they did not retrieve it all they way from the water. They motored past our stern a bit too closely and managed to snag their dangling anchor on our stern anchor-rode. They were very quickly dragging us right into them! The amazing thing was, the captain actually yelled at US!
"Look!" he shrieked and pointed. "You have caught your line on my anchor!".
Um....we were anchored here for like six days, you just drove over our stern line...but okay?
Luckily, he managed to throw his boat into reverse and free himself before our boats collided.
When all was clearly well and no damage was done, he gave us a jolly wave and a thumbs up.
"Au revoir" he shouted, driving away.
Once out of the bay ourselves, we waved good bye to Hiva Oa and set off for the island of Tehuata...only 11 miles away but reputed to have the best bay for swimming.
The channel between the two islands is deep, so we set out our fishing lines and waited. It was a beautiful two hours of motoring on flat seas with no wind- but there were no strikes on the line until Jon literally said "come on, fishy fishy fishy..."
then, ZING! we had a hit.
A moment later, we were not so sure if we wanted it...
we had hooked up a large Marlin-our first.
This should have been really cool, except that we were also towing our dingy.
We had been hoping for something manageable, like a yellow fun tuna but we were now, suddenly dragging a thrashing, desperate, very large, fish that looks rather like a sea-dragon with a giant sword stuck on the end of its face... towards our irreplaceable, inflatable boat. It dawned on us that this was, um, not something we had thought through entirely.
Jon worked the line forward on Pura Vida (and away from the dink) as we debated how best to get this monster off the line. Luckily for us, the fish figured it out himself and we were all really excited to have seen him and his large sail-fin, flapping at the surface...but even happier that he swam away unharmed-and we even kept our lure! A minute later, we approached the bay of Hanamoeanoa, fish-less but gobsmacked by the beauty awaiting us.
The island of Tehuata is lower and grassier than Hiva Oa, with wide, sloping hills of light green grass that run all the way down to the palm tree fringed, pure white beach. The water is an absolutely stunning, turquoise, and clear to thirty feet. There were a few boats anchored in the bay, so I climbed the mast steps to get a better view and look for obstructions. As soon as I was about fifteen feet off the deck, I spotted two giant black and white shapes in the water just off our starboard bow-
MANTA'S!!!!!!
They were about 12 feet from wing tip to wing tip. They glided past us, as we stared in google-eyed wonder. We dropped anchor in twenty feet of gin-clear water, over white sand, and in about five seconds, we were all in the drink with our masks and snorkels. Fears of murderous sharks lurking everywhere dissolved in an instant and the kids dove down, down, squealing with delight at the warmth, the visibility and all the new creatures that came immediately into view.
Kai spotted a huge octopus. He was not shy, not hiding at all (the octopus, not Kai) and a beautiful but highly venomous, lion-fish in a small hunk of coral under the boat. We spent the next few hours free-diving down to observe them--of course, Jon and I kept a wary eye out for any "visitors"--but the bay was empty except for all the stunning reef fish that clustered near the lumps of coral on the bottom.
That afternoon, we had a big pow-wow over our new South Pacific fish identification book-which is ENORMOUS- learning the names of all the new species we had to ID. Dinner was the Thai green curry I hadn't made the night before and the sun set by 6:30 so we spent the rest of the night lying on deck in clear, 80* weather, staring at the milky way, talking about dreams.
We told the kids about Carl Jung and talked about Carl Sagan.
I asked Hunter if she believed in life on other planets she said;
"Nope".
I asked her if she believed in God.
"Sometimes...like when I get scared. I say, I know I don't normally believe in you... but right now I need you to help me with something."
Then she asked me if this was bad.
I told her not at all.
This is how God works for most people.
"...but i'm not so sure about the tooth fairy..." she said, throwing me a sideways-look, a wry smirk on her little face.
Pause.
"When I lost that tooth out at sea, it took the tooth fairy like two days to come and when she finally did, she gave me the exact same brand of gum that we bought in La Paz."
I was at a loss. I looked to the stars for help.
They shrugged their shiny shoulders.
"You're the tooth fairy aren't you?" asked my eight year-old, trying to sound brave.
"Sometimes," I confessed.
"...but not Santa Claus, right??"
Less sure. More anxiety.
"Never", I assured her.
"I knew it." said Hunter smugly, completely satisfied and relieved.
We tucked the kids in and by eight-thirty they were sound asleep, leaving Jon and I the perfect night to ourselves.
Land breezes, smelling of sun-warmed grass, floated down off the starlit hills...
Pura Vida rolled gently on the ocean swell...
This is the first anchorage we have ever been in, where we hear the sounds of proper breaking waves,
the surf, gently grinding the shoreline into a fine, powdered, sand.
It's true that, in order to be anchored in the bay of Hanamoeanoa...
one must muster a bit of gumption and cross a LARGE chunk of a VERY large ocean,
but I can promise you this,
you will never ask yourself...
if it was worth it.
This is rapidly becoming . . . my favourite book.
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