The last three weeks we have been on the small island Tahuata, just a few miles from Hiva-Oa.
First we went into the sandy bay of Hana-Moe-Noa at the north-west tip of the island, where Steven is living alone on the beach.
Actually he is not all alone, as he is raising a baby boar and is happy to welcome yachties passing by.
When we arrived only one boat was in the bay, “Pegase” with Dominique and Marie-Edith, who had invited Steven aboard for lunch.
When we left after one week the community had grown to “Funambule” (Frank and Laurence with kids Marion and Quentin), “Taoha” (Patrick and Francoise), “Equinoxe” (Jean-Jacques and Muriel). Every day we were having a huge meal on the beach, cooked with local recipies on the open fire under the palm trees. One day it was a thuna fished by Patrick, another day fish and octopus spearfished by the whole gang, than again we ate the results of a raid on “Pencil” urchins with needles thick as pencils and and the beautyful “Porcelaine” shells. The dish was always completed by breadfruit cooked in the open fire.
And the kids were playing on the beach and with the little boar all the time,
We had a fantastic time!
The next days we staid in the village/bay of Vaitahu where we found the small but well sorted shop of Jose which also offers internet. In the village we were offered fruit by several people and participated to a weekend “KERMESSE” with Petanque competition for the men, Bingo for the ladies and football for the kids.
Within days every kid in the village new ours by their firstname and in one football game the local kid Va-u-tete even claimed Paul to be the captain of his team.
We also were invited to look at the rehearsal of a local dance performance, which was amazing as most of the participants seemed complete beginners, but everybody having huge fun. After this day we saw them training several times and suppose they will represent their v7llage by a great joyfull performance in Papeete.
Another high point in this bay were the frequent visits of a flock of dolphins jumping joyfully into the sky. We went into the water, but only Paul and myself got a glimpse from the far on them.
Unfortunately in the Vaitahu bay the wind thunders down the mountain slopes with gusts easily doubling the force on the windward side and the anchorage was often quite incomfortable, so we moved on to the next bay.
Hapatoni
Hapatoni is a very small village, but with a beautyful old church and graveyard, a unique cobblestone-road along the shoreline with huge old Kava trees hanging beautyfully over the breaking waves (The fruit of these trees having a kiwi-taste).
Here all the gang from Hana-Moe-Noa reunited reinforced by Bernard and from”FreeVol”, who delivered us an unexpected schoolbook, we had ordered at Amazon towards the Atuona Post office, but with Amazon having cancelled the order as undeliverable. The parcel had been handed over to them in the post office when they declared knowing us…
In Hapatoni virtually everybody is a wood and bone carver producing jewellery on top of their normal business of collecting Copra, the Coconut-flesh. We visited several proud artists and saw really beautyful artwork.
The first sunday we staid in Hapatoni, Gilles and Rose were preparing a a goat and a litle boar in the traditional “Marquesian stove”, which means burried for one night in a groove filled with a cole fire and heatstoring stones. The meat was put in nice little palmleaf-bags, Rose had woven for the occasion and then protected by a layer of banana-leafs, before the final layer of earth was placed.
The long, low temperature cooking was giving a wonderful tender meat and Rose had prepared a huge variety of side dishes based on bread-fruit and maniok in several different preparations.
Gilles, family members and friends got out guitars of all sorts and we had a musical afternoon.
It was a great feast, and as several of the girls showed interest to learn how to produce the palmleaf-bags, Rose was giving a webbing attelier on two afternoons in the folowing week.
The rest of the time was occupied by hiking up the road to the hill pass towards the windward side of the island, another hike towards Vaitahu, visits by the dolphins and for those who are scuba divers a tour to the submarine caves nearby.
The kidds plaid with the gang of local kids like in Vaitahu.
Every family in Hapatoni have their pig in the garden and these three pig babies were actually running free through the village. Big fun for our kids.
Now we are back to Atuona where three packages with schoolbooks and other stuff waited for us.