Mehalah's Voyages: Giant Eels, The Lost Boys and Cannibals

Date: Sunday 14th May 2023.

Location: Daniel's Bay Anchorage.

Inside Daniel's Bay

This is where we are anchored today. Daniel's Bay on the main Marquesan island of Nuku Hiva, just a few miles from the town anchorage of Taiohae (they do like their vowels here).

We've been here for several days. The entrance is pretty intimidating as you appear to drive into a sheer cliff but once in it is sheltered, stunningly beautiful and NOT ROLLY. Not rolly is good. It allows you to walk around without holding on to things and most of the rocking boat noises cease. Bliss.

Spot the entrance.

We finally feel more rested after the long passage from Galapagos, most things are hopefully fixed and we are starting to prepare for the next four day passage to the second of the French Polynesian island groups - the low lying Tuamotu coral atolls. A world away from the spiky and very impressive Marquesas we are a bit daunted by the tricky passes into and out of these atolls.

The valley here is amazing. Now only a dozen or so people live here but before the arrival of westerners there were around 20,000! Walking up the valley there are coconut trees (with anti mice aluminium bands tacked on), mangoes, limes and pampelmouses (grapefruits) everywhere. Higher up the river wends its way upwards surrounded by lush vegetation and the remains of numerous abandoned buildings some with carved tikis outside. Two river crossings revealed huge eels well over 1m long and 15cms across slithering around. Luckily they avoided us as we waded through the streams thigh high. We wondered too at a cleared area with pits and a large horizontal stone. We learned yesterday that they were for storing and then decapitating their enemies prior to cooking them for dinner! But now they earn their living by taking people on valley hikes and providing tuna meals and fresh fruit mostly to cruising boats like us.

Nuku Hiva's waterfall.

On the way there.

Eel River!

These islands are well known for their tattoos. Most local people have them. Beautiful and telling stories about themselves they wear them with pride. Many of our friends have thought about getting one themselves and some have. If I was to have one anywhere in the world it would be here but I think it is unlikely partly because my physique is a little bit too weedy!

Since returning to Hiva Oa we've moved around the other Marquesa islands meeting up with other boats new and old. Most non EU boats only have a 90 day visa for French Polynesia so we all tend to be moving at roughly similar speeds. Several boats set off for the more southerly Tuamotus 10 days ago with an uncertain forecast. They got hit really hard whilst anchored behind one of the atol reef islands. 70 knot gusts, anchors dragging, lightening strikes and dinghies flipped. Not nice and glad we stayed here to recharge.

One of the inter island sails involved an overnight passage for us. With flukey winds and rolling seas it was most uncomfortable. Gill again found the night sailing not to her liking so we are still unsure what our next move will be. We know we want to be back in the UK for Christmas so four possibilities are appearing. Go to Australia, go to New Zealand, leave Mehalah in Fiji or more radically sell her somewhere. Let's see how the journey to the Tuamotus goes first. Interestingly it's not only us that found the Pacific passage hard. Linda on Escape Velocity wants nothing more to do with sailing, Meraki have still not fully recovered and the majority of people say it has been their hardest passage to date.

Every island has its hikes and for most cruisers stretching their legs on one or more is a must do. On Oa Pou island we finally met up with Meraki 2 again. We arrived after our nasty night passage early in the morning when Kevin came out in his dinghy to show us to a good (ie less rolly) anchorage spot. Then over to M2 for a quick catch up and muffins before heading off with them, their daughter's family who had sailed independently from Mexico and a couple of other kids' boats. 18 of us climbed up the valley in a broad track for 3km or so until we came to the home of the crazy German chocolate maker. He's lived there with his wife and dogs now for 27 years. 70 years old and a bit creepy he grows fruit, coffee, cocao, soursop, lemons - everything you can imagine.

Oa Pou anchorage.

Chocolate Man Farm - Cocao

The Chocolate Factory.

Crazy Chocolate Man

Chocolate Man Farm - more pampelmouses.

Chocolate Man Farm - roasting coffee beans.

Coffee Man Farm - fresh coffee beans.

Coffee Man Farm - unidentified fruit

We spent a couple of hours with the chocolate man before buying some of his famous chocolate and making our way to the waterfall. Initially just the four of us we were soon joined by a mass of the kids scrambling down the rocks like The Lost Boys of Peter Pan or a troupe of monkeys skittering to the waterfall. The best yet. Clear and cool it was a welcome break after a hot walk. And the chocolate is indeed superb!

Oa Pou Waterfall.

Arrival of The Lost Boys.

A big talking point here at present is Starlink that I mentioned previously. I would say the majority of cruising boats now have the natty little oblong receiver mounted somewhere on their boat and most people use the RV (Recreational Vehicle) subscription. However that is not really supposed to be used at sea. In fact only in the country in which it was purchased (and those costs vary enormously depending on the country of purchase but let's say 400 USD). It then costs around 200 USD per month for unlimited fast data everywhere. Now, what Elon Musk has said is that around a week ago he was going to geofence his system so that it wouldnt work offshore or outside the country of registration. And to make it work you would need the new marine subscription at enormously higher costs per month! So far though it hasn't happened but every time they switch on their dishes they expect to see it fail.

The other thing is provisioning here. Lots of things you can only get the day after the supply ship arrives. Then for a short period, if you are lucky, you can get fuel, cheese, potatoes, even tomatoes maybe. The locals know where to get stuff and often pre order it. We scrabble around once the grapevine posts the new location on one of the WhatsApp groups. Bread, for example, or bagettes actually as we are in France. The bakers seem to make enough each day to satisfy around 30% of the demand. So you must either pre order it or get to the bakery by 6.30am. Otherwise it is sold out. The question we all ask is "why not bake more each day". No one has an answer.

The other day in Nuku Hiva Gill was sitting in the dinghy at the fuel dock whilst I clambered up the ladder to get diesel and petrol. It is a horrid swelly location and as the fortnightly supply ship had just delivered new fuel three other dinghies were tied up there too. As each big swell came in the raft of dinghies got thrown against the dock and pushed several metres from side to side. Gill got talking to Donna one of the other wives waiting in the dinghies for the jerry cans to be lowered on a string. Poor Donna had broken her ribs. At 3am entering the cockpit to start her watch she slipped and fell. What did she slip on? A dead flying fish that must have flown into the cockpit earlier that night!

Nuku Hiva main anchorage - a Marquesas check in destination.

And finally, your favourite 'what wildlife have we seen?' Top of the list must be the dozen or so manta rays that swam around us and right up to the boat in Taiohea anchorage. These things are beautiful and MASSIVE. Maybe 2m+ across with mouths 0.5m across they glid past us repeatedly looking like something out of Star Wars. Then there were those big eels and last night as we paddled back in the dark to Mehalah after dinner on Midnight Breeze something enormous jumped out of the water beside me hitting my paddle hard before sinking back below the surface Possibly another ray or a shark it left me quite shaken up. Here there are craggy cliffs all around us. High up circling and gliding amongst the cliffs are some unidentified white birds about the size of a gull. Jen, your task is to identify them for us. Also some martins of some sort. We caught an unidentified fish coming here too. A bit like a longer thinner barracuda with an incredibly long thin fine snout lined with mean looking teeth. We put him back. That one's yours to identify Stu. Frigate birds everywhere of course and plenty of small bait fish together with smaller jumping rays. Not a bad haul though we finally seem to have left those crazy pelicans behind.