Nuku Hiva Festival Des Arts

Stella spent a very rewarding three months at her daughters house in the UK helping out with two of her grandchildren: 5 month old Billy and one year old Connor. It was 42 hours of travelling halfway across world to get back home to the boat. But that was not as tiring as expected and that comes in handy.

Not being very tired comes in handy because we walked an hour in the pitch dark new moon along a dessert track from the airport to the bay where the boat was. Such was my introduction to boat life! We even got a bit lost in the trees and the beach looking for the quay. Typical.

The transition from plane to island time was easily made.

Luckily we found some dirty coconut husks which had been cast aside near a fire pit so we frantically scrubbed them clean enough to use. We enjoy raw fish salad soaked in coconut milk, and especially exciting to us warm cooked manioc sweet yellow and juicy. A cooked plantaine and that was it for us although others were enjoying weird and wonderful blobby looking stuff and other meaty delicacies.

The delegations from each Marquesas island put on an impressive sychronised display of dance and song. The connection to nature the islanders evoked brought me to tears more than once. I liked to think they were calling on their spiritual guides to witness and protect us as they sang and stamped in synconised beauty.

The warriors circled the women when they danced . The women seated in an organised way behind the men when they displayed their prowess. These movements were somewhat like forms in martial art. We were lucky to be under the shade of a roof while the people in front of us mainly couldn’t stand the scorching sun constantly moving off in front of us.

While waiting for the tide to rise we forraged one avocado and tried to buy pomplemousse from a house up the hill but she insisted on giving us as much as we could carry. We would have to wait for twelve hours for the next high tide at nine in evening to return. That was fun. Late that evening we watched a video about the islands culture on a huge blow up screen at the festival field. I fell asleep but Stefan assured me it was a good watch.

On our way in we noted it was possible to get stuck in mud banks even at high tide so we rowed the return 500 metres with our hearts in our mouths! It was a few days after the dark moon luckily and dead calm. Emerging into the sea was easy on the out going tide. It was a sweet experience, rowing together up small rivers is something I will be encouraging Stefan to do.

The next day we sailed back and anchored at Taioae bay with a hundred other boats for the last days of the festival.

In anticipation we waited a long time for a small closing ceremony which was attended by a few dozen participants and even less audience . Everybody wilting in the fierce midday heat. The punters off the cruise ship Paul Gauguin who where sitting next to us looked painfully pink.

By the next day all the pop up cafes had been dismantled which was another disappointment since the meal was very good. There was still about a hundred boats anchored in the bay at that stage but gradually it has dwindled to 70 or so . We did not move on as planned as Iit is a calm place with excellent source of fresh veg and fruit: poor Stefan has not had fresh veg for 6 weeks anchored as he was in the remote Anaho bay. He plods on with boat work while I acclimatise myself to the very very hot and sweaty . I m getting a good tan though.