Day 221, Year 1: Arrival in Ua Pou
Date: Friday, May 26, 2006
Weather: Blustery Northeast Winds Overnight; Continued Wind, Sunny Daytime
Latitude: 09 degrees 22 minutes S
Longitude: 140 degrees 03 minutes W
Location: Hakatau Bay, Ua Pou Island (pronounced wapoo), Marquesas
The “Class of 2006” is a big one, as witnessed by the number of boats in this tiny little anchorage. Tom on Quantum Leap refers to those of us beginning our circumnavigation by going through the Panama Canal early in 2006 as the “Class of 2006.” And there really are a lot of us. There are probably 20 boats in Hakatau Bay tonight, and someone said there were 30 just a week ago. We are learning to share the beauty with others and actually enjoy getting to meet so many new people as well as keep up with friends we have made to date. Quantum Leap is here, as is Savoir Livre, and Minaret. There are many other boats that we have seen along the way but who we have not met. Maybe we will meet them here.
We sailed to Ua Pou overnight and it was a blustery, dark night. Once we got started, we had winds of 20 to 25 knots, with gusts to 30 plus. But the wind was behind us and not really a problem for Windbird. We sailed with the full main up all night and sometimes we had a reefed headsail out. Windbird truly takes care of us even in the most blustery of conditions. We hit a few squalls last night with driving rain, but we had put in some of the plastic cockpit side curtains early in the evening so that we would be dry. They didn’t take care of everything, but we were fine. Aqua Magic, who was sailing along with us, did not have a good passage. They got waves in the cockpit and even Margaret’s hair was wet. Aqua Magic is not a center cockpit like Windbird, and maybe that made the difference. Anyway, we arrived early this morning, found a safe place to anchor, fixed a hearty breakfast, and then headed to the village. This was after taking a look around at the beautiful anchorage. There are volcanic plugs, which I would call spires, that punctuate the landscape. It is really beautiful here.
The village is really what you would refer to as a rural town in the United States-very much like small towns in Central Florida. It appears that there are no traditional villages left in French Polynesia. The French government heavily subsidizes living here and that has standardized the way of life-color TV, 4-wheel drive vehicle, prefab home, European and American style clothing. In each place we have stopped so far, the Catholic Church is obviously the center of village life. Each church has elaborate wooden sculptures. We will talk more about the carvings in future logs. The road maintenance equipment is all brand new and kept in excellent condition. The roads aren’t great, but the mountainous terrain makes that difficult. The scenery is spectacular and the children are happy. Sounds like Lake Wobegone. Hakahau is no exception. We landed our dinghy and started the walk into town. We came to a traditional looking hut and saw a guy waving us toward him. There was a sign indicating that this was a place where local arts and crafts are sold, so we walked over to take a look. The man who had waved to us looks like a Rastafarian in the Pacific. He took us into the shop and showed us the jewelry made here. There was also a Marquesian drum. I loved it and asked the price and he wrote out with his finger 90,000 francs. That is about $900 American. I can’t afford to buy the drum, but he did play it for us and started singing. The drum and his voice range went from falsetto to bass and it was delightful.
We walked along the waterfront and then headed up a side street. Streets here are always paved with concrete in town. We came to a business complex with a bank, post office, and Mairie (town hall). We walked a little further and found the Gendarmerie, but it was closed. More about checking in later. We turned around and headed back to the waterfront and then took another side street through town. This time we passed the College of Ua Pou, a grocery store that is better stocked than most small stores in the US, a restaurant, a boutique, and an elementary school. We then made a right turn and found the road maintenance site, the Catholic church, a local musee (museum), three more grocery stores, and another clothing boutique. The one grocery store that was open was absolutely amazing. They have a whole wall of freezers containing everything from frozen artichokes AND artichoke bottoms to ice cream to large pieces of beef. The shelves in the store are lined with canned and boxed food as well as tri-color bowtie pasta, couscous, taboule mix, chocolate cake mixes, and even the cones for the ice cream in the freezers. You can also buy clothing, dishes, hardware, and about anything else you can think of in this little neighborhood grocery. I was impressed.
We returned to Gendarmerie’s office two more times during the afternoon, but we never found him in. Checking into French Polynesia has not been an easy task for us. We have decided to use the agent to secure our bond and get duty-free fuel for us, but we will do our own check-ins and outs. Someone in the town hall indicated that the Gendarme will be in tomorrow, so we will try again then.
Tomorrow night there is a big festival on the beach. It will cost us $25 American each to attend the affair, but it will include traditional food, dancing, and music. And Miss Ua Pou will be crowned!
A truly wonderful thing happened today as we were coming into port here. We were on the radio asking people for advice on entering the harbor and where to anchor, when all of a sudden our friend Randy from Procyon hailed us on the channel. He is doing great and is back on the boat in Nuka Hiva, the next island about 23 miles north of here. We will see Randy and Sheri when we go to Nuka Hiva next week. We were so happy to hear his voice and to finally know that he is back onboard and doing great.
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| 060526 Day 221 Marquesas, Ua Pou–Arrival and Walk Through Hakahau |
