Day 3 - Friday, Oct. 18 - Tahuata Island

I was warned that everything in Las Marquesas is different from Tahiti.  Already, on landing, we were told to set our watches back... half (!) an hour.  And the winds here are mostly from the north.  The terrain is all ups and downs worthy of the dahu, a mythical French goat-like animal with two short right legs and two long left ones (or vice-versa), so it can graze on hillsides.  So yes, it’s different here.
       Judging by the crowing at dawn - and even during the night (chicken dreams?) - there are a plethora of roosters on this island of Hiva Oa.
       Breakfast in the main building by the pool is a huge buffet.  I try the local fruits - mango and papaya - with some squeeze-it-yourself local grapefruit you drop into a very noisy but effective juicer.  My new friends Catherine and Philippe join me halfway through.  We’re almost finished when the skies open up and a torrent of rain falls, watering the lush vegetation... and perhaps washing out some of the steep terrain.  We wonder if our boat trip to Tahuata Island will be cancelled.  Or maybe there’ll be a rainbow, which local legend says is the route the gods used to descend to Earth.

       Our guide Henri (really Heimana, or Hei for short) drives us down to the tiny port of Atuona, where Brel arrived.  His boat is still here but being refitted.  We board our tunafishing-cum-tourism boat and head out past Mt. Feani, still with its head in the clouds, past Anakee Island (meaning natural monument) and into the open sea for a 50-minute ride to Tahuata Island, the smallest of the inhabited Marquesas (the name means sunrise).  There’s quite a swell but I still have the sea legs I acquired as a child on my dad’s sailboat, so I’m fine.

       We land first at the town of Vaitahu, where Hei walks us all around town.  There are 56 children in the school, which does pre-kindergarten and primary classes, with two years grouped together.  After that the students go to Hiva Oa for junior high and then on to Tahiti for high school, which doesn’t please the islanders much.  Papeete is a big evil city for a teenager alone.  The island parents want their own high school in the Marquesas... and that appears to be happening.
       The church, made of local stone, is open to the elements with a protective overhanging roof that soars like a bird’s wing.  It has only one stained glass window but it’s huge.  The door is sandalwood and completely sculpted.

       Hei walks us through the entire town, all one street of it.  In the shade pigs are tied up to a tree, its roots emerging from the soil and almost forming a pen.  (On the way back, the little girl in our group scratches the pink pig’s belly, as if it were a dog; the other pig is sleeping.)  We visit two artisanal “shops” where you can pick from among wooden statues and knickknacks or jewelry carved mostly from bone, or even some musical instruments, one of which is the Polynesian version of an Alpenhorn.

       Back to the boat, past a dugout canoe one of Hei's relatives has painted with local motifs in vivid colors.  En route to another beach farther north, Hei plays a ukulele and sings traditional songs.  The boar tusks of his necklace and the Maori-like grunts add to the show.
       We either swim or paddle from the boat to the beach at Koku’u.  Nothing to do here but enjoy the ocean - in it or from the beach - while Hei and his team barbecue lunch:  chicken, fish, pasta (brought from home) and breadfruit harvested off the tree back in Vaitahu.  It takes little time and is all delicious, cooked over an open fire.  (Happy to report there were no nonos - which I think are sand fleas.)

     After eating, a bit more of a swim while the crew cleans up and Hei and his cousin go diving for octopus amid the rocks off-shore.  Then a mad dash home; only 40 minutes but it gets pretty violent at times with a big swell.  Just off Hiva Oa we get a dolphin escort racing our boat to the harbor.
       In spite of the sunscreen and the seeking out of shade, I’ve “taken on colors” the hotel manager tells me.  But only one color really:  red.  (And I’ll keep the tan marks until Christmas!)  While we had sun on Tahuata, back here it has rained off and on all day.
       Just time for a shower to wash off the saltwater - and wash my clothes - and it’s time for dinner with Catherine and Philippe.  Then downhill to Bungalow 2... and bed.