Around the Marquesas aboard “Aranui 3” 30/1 to 14/2/2010 by Francis Frost

 Around the Marquesas aboard “Aranui 3”   30/1 to 14/2/2010

By Francis Frost

An unusual ship takes us to exotic destinations in the Marquesa Islands (“Te Fenua Enata” – “The Land of Man”) 

Aranui 3, ( PHOTO 1 ) built in Romania in 2002, is a specialist inter-island passenger/freight supply ship of some 8,500 gross register tons, 3,800 deadweight tons, with two 25-ton Liebherr heavy-lift cranes and accommodation for 65 crew and 210 passengers (but only carrying 87   pax on this trip). Her compact 5,000 h.p. MAK 8-cylinder in-line turbo-charged engine runs on diesel or heated heavy oil at a constant 600 r.p.m, driving a variable-pitch constant-speed propeller through a 3:1 gearbox. She has a powerful bow-thruster. She makes 50 tons of fresh water every day by modern German and American osmosis technology. The ship’s name means “The Way Forward”.

A predicted cyclone having changed course at the last moment, we sailed from Papeete, the capital of Tahiti, on schedule on the morning of Saturday, 30^th January 2010.

From dinner the previous evening through the next 24 hours a dozen nationalities and a wide choice of preferred languages were mapped out. 

It soon became apparent how much the rest of the world despises the Brits for participating in the invasion of Iraq. When conversation bracketed the war in Afghanistan in light banter, a helpful Frenchman proposed that politics, conflicts and religion should be classified as taboo subjects for the rest of the voyage. Gallipoli, Waterloo, George W. Bush, the Falklands, El Alamein, the fall of Singapore and the sixty Japanese bombing raids on Darwin had already featured at random alongside Sebrenica, Maggie Thatcher’s frailty in old age and the increasingly grotty state of London. 

Day 2 Sunday Fakarava

At 8 a.m. we anchored off the little port of Rotoava in the middle the 60-km long horseshoe-shaped atoll of Fakarava in the Tuamotu Archipelago. Our two-hour stop would allow time for a little snorkelling and perhaps a chance to buy the high-quality deeply-coloured cultured pearls. Mass would be celebrated in the little church of St Jean de la Croix near the waterfront.

Mother Nature intervened. For exactly two hours from 8.05 a.m., a force- 10 squall drove frigate birds to ground, steep waves ashore and enormous volumes of rain horizontally across forty of us sitting stoically in an open landing craft. We hurled into the wind a few jokes about the rain being warmer in Vancouver. Visibility was down to twenty yards.

Once ashore, we found shelter as best we could on the narrow veranda of the UNESCO heritage office. There was a lively, though unresolved, debate as to whether it would be better to wear our small beach towels over our backs and heads (wringing them out copiously every few minutes) or to keep them dry for use later after we had got thoroughly soaked.  We got drenched either way as we ambled along to a shop offering pearls at amazingly exorbitant prices. When we had first looked into the church two rather good guitarists were trying out their melodies ten minutes before the Mass was due to start. On our way back, we tip-toed in again but, instead of the fine singing for which this region is noted, we hit the sermon, being delivered in the local language. I only caught one word, “heroin” (albeit three times in as many sentences). It was time to move on. 

At 10.00 a.m., just as the ship weighed anchor to head towards the open ocean, the rain stopped and, at least for a while, there was blue sky and sunshine ( PHOTO 2 ). 

The voyage north-east to the Marquesas would take some 46 hours at 12.5 knots into a headwind. Though the ship’s computerised roll-compensating ballast tank system worked well and the weather did not exceed Beaufort force 8, a gale is bound to be uncomfortable. It came as a welcome diversion to hear Peter Crawford introduce the first instalment of the excellent film series “Nomads of the Wind”, which he made for the BBC in 1994. We liked the narration, but the French characterised it as “terne”, by which they meant bland or uninspiring, without flair. More widely, it was clear that this impression is often given by the English in general (not only on the rugby field). Que faire?

The first European adventurer to anchor in Marquesan waters was the Spanish conquistador Don Alvaro de Mendaña in 1595. It was brave of the islanders of Nuku Hiva to paddle out to his ship to greet and welcome him and his fellows, the first white men they had ever seen. Tragically, when they showed curiosity as to the Spaniards’ guns, he gave the order to open fire. The chief and seven other islanders were killed. On the next island, Tahuata, Don Alvaro and his men shot 200 of them there and then, in cold blood. On his return to Peru he named the archipelago after his patron’s wife, the Marquésa de Mendoza.

A couple of centuries later a slaver enticed many of the men of the largest island onto his ship with alcohol, then chained them up while in their drunken stupor. The French government intervened so they were rescued from the Peruvian guano mines. However, they had meanwhile been in contact with smallpox. Hence, through this, measles, leprosy and other afflictions, the population of the islands fell from a happy and prosperous 100,000 or more to a miserable and struggling 1,500 by the census of 1910. It is now up to around 10,000.

The restless long-range flying of the frigate birds; the bounteous versatility and storage quality of bread fruit (when fermented with seawater, pounded and trampled into ma’a dough it can be preserved for months or even years in a stone pit lined with leaves); and above all the amazing courtship display of the white long-tailed tropic bird (which includes flying for a considerable distance backwards) enthralled us.  A girl’s fine dance drew elegantly on the inspiration of the tropic bird’s flight, accompanied by excellent, tightly synchronized, drumming. The aerial footage of the jagged ridges and cliff tops of the mountains emphasised the contrast between these basalt cores of eroded volcanoes which give form to the Marquesas and the flattened and low-lying circumference of a since-collapsed volcano that characterises an atoll of other archipelagos. Hence, the Marquesan shores have no reefs.

Day 3 Monday.  At Sea

Nothing to report. Force 8 gales. The ship does not roll but she pitches. Spray shot off the bows. The swell made the hull tremble. But we had a chance to rest.

Day 4  Tuesday Nuku Hiva

Around 8 a.m. the ship docked at the quay at Taiohae, capital of Nuku Hiva, the largest island with some 3,000 people overall ( PHOTO 3 ). We went in 4x4 vehicles over the 3,000 foot ridge to Hatiheu on the opposite coast ( PHOTOS 4 and 5 ).  A Me’ae Kamuihae tribal meeting place provided a good background to a lively performance of traditional dances and Hakas by a small group of men and girls. Having left their “gimme” caps, wrist watches and mobile phones to one side, they looked good in their fresh palm-frond skirts and head gear. The girls wore bright red and green pareos.

In times past the enormous banyan tree near the altar platform had safeguarded the skulls of ancestors lodged between its deep mass of vertical roots, and pits close by had housed their finger nails and hair so that no-one could interfere with their soul and spirit. 

From the mountain ridge we had enjoyed watching duets and trios of fairy terns far below, flying in close formation above the trees; and were especially privileged now to see tropic birds quite close overhead.

Lunch at the mayor, Yvonne’s famous restaurant near the waterfront at Hatiheu was a splendid affair. Suckling pigs were dug out of a three-metre long “earth oven” pit. This consisted of hot stones below the food that was being steam-roasted and several layers of banana leaves and jute bags separating it from the earth layer above. The meat tasted slightly smoky but was very tender. We also ate excellent cooked fish, bacalao salted cod cakes, and poisson cru before finishing with a pleasantly glutinous tapioca-cake and honey dessert. Throughout the meal a superb quintet comprising a drummer, ukeleles and guitars performed a selection of traditional songs with immense vigour. The last one was the best, a magnificently fervent rendering of an ancient song about Mahina, the girl who embodied the spirit of the moon and who came ashore from the sea to offer her love.

In mid-afternoon we returned to the ship where some twenty passengers joined us, having been delayed for two days by the cyclone which had played havoc with the schedules of Air Tahiti. We heard that during the last 24 hours winds of over 200 km per hour had torn across Bora Bora and Huahine in the Iles Sous-le-Vent west of Tahiti, ripping roofs off houses and wreaking a lot of other damage. Six metre-high waves easily over-top land that is only two metres above sea level. The result will be harsh in the short run but these atolls have higher ground to escape to and sweet water sources 40 metres underground. So life can just about go on. 

Tahiti was on red alert tonight. But such cyclones, which curiously occur every 13 years (probably linked to El Niño events), never trouble the Marquesas, petering out before they come near, because these islands, nearly a thousand miles to the north-east, are surrounded by the cold waters of the Humboldt Current.

We shared our table at dinner with a lactation consultant from a Dutch maternity hospital. My neighbour at lunch had been a lady from Virginia whom four times so far I have confused with a lady from Kentucky. The former is married to Jack who wears a very fetching viridian green sugar-daddy beach shirt and who quipped when we first introduced ourselves “Hi, I’m Jack, but please don’t say Hijack”. He turns out to have had a career designing nuclear power stations. On our first evening, I asked a lady from Montreal what she did. I had perforce to say that I did not catch her answer clearly, to which she replied “Everyone thinks they are the first ever to make that joke”. She is an audiologist.

Meanwhile everyone especially admires Ailsa, the 95 year-old widow of a lawyer from the west of Scotland. Until only five years ago she was happiest crewing ocean yachts across the Atlantic. 

When under sail, Ailsa used especially to enjoy being right in the bow during her time on watch, as she could play her mouth organ which attracted any dolphins in the vicinity. In 2008, she hitch-hiked alone, from the Altiplano of northern Chile to Punta Arenas. She had now come to the Marquesas on her own to see for herself the setting for a book she had read 80 years ago about a young boy who had sailed out here then with his family. It is a world of contrasts and an eclectic passenger list. 

Day 5  Wednesday Ua Pou

Herman Melville and his friend Toby came to Ua Pou in 1842. They had hoped to survive on forest fruit and to live like the indigenous people. Unfortunately the latter turned out to be cannibals. So they felt it prudent to leave after only a few days.

Thieves and other criminals were routinely eaten as there were no prisons. But cannibalism was also a preferred way by which to settle inter-tribal disputes. Battles were frequent in time of famine. They were usually brief, typically lasting a quarter of an hour. The immediate aim was merely to capture the chief or another high-ranking member of the rival tribe. When he was sacrificed, his mana’a or manly spirit was ceded thereby to the winning tribe and only his brain and a few choice morsels needed to be consumed. 

Much more serious cannibalism developed in the 1860s, after white men  had introduced alcohol and drugs. Respect for the vanquished was no longer de rigueur. The victim’s corpse was hung from the banyan tree by a hook through the throat till it dropped off, ripe and elongated into a condition and shape which could be ridiculed by all and sundry.

As a result of the battles, cannibalism and epidemics of smallpox and other diseases, a whole generation was reduced to a few survivors. By the last quarter of the nineteenth century there very few old people or children left in many villages. The lack of traditional dancers and singers thereafter deprived the next generation of a proper chance to learn about their tribe’s history and legend, and also as to the ancient ways of doing many of the things that were essential for every day life. But the Catholic Church moved in and gave help and education. So, at the price of religious conversion and an uneven loyalty to the traditional ways and rites of the people that had been passed down in previous generations, stability and better prospects did at least return to the islands. 

We enjoyed an excellent lunch at Tante Rosalie’s restaurant in Hakahau, before which a group of dancers and musicians from the village put on a splendid performance ( PHOTO 6 ). The centre-piece was a Haka by two very fit and athletic young men. The Haka originated in the Marquesas, where its style has always been as much sexual as a threatening challenge. The six girls added grace and a sinuous style in their dances, which also delighted the many amateur video-makers among the passengers. 

Just before the ship left the quayside in the evening, as the gangway   was being raised immediately below our balcony ( PHOTO 7 ) its lifting hawser snapped. It plunged to the vertical and one of the stevedores, who had been standing on its bottom step, fell in between the ship and the quay wall. Luckily, the heavy rubber fenders were just wide enough to give him a measure of safety, but it seemed an eternity before he was hauled out, and the ship’s side must have loomed fearfully high above his head. The incident showed the frailty of men exposed to danger in port operations. So also had the cargo operations, which had been going on all day. The ship’s draft had been reduced by nearly two metres by the time hatches were closed. So she was ballasted down before we left port.

Day 6 Thursday Hiva Oa

Hiva Oa is forever linked with the last years of Gauguin and of Jacques Brel. 

Gauguin, having found on his second visit to Tahiti that the place had become more stultified by bureaucracy and regulations than he could cope with, set up in Atuona, the capital of Hiva Oa. Here he lived three years until he died. He had for some years been afflicted by a number of illnesses, including syphilis, and had taken heavily to alcohol and drugs. The effects of all this undoubtedly improved the drama and powerful colour contrasts of his pictures and reinforced his emphasis on achieving a new style of painting well removed from what he regarded as the claustrophobia of traditional styles.

When Jacques Brel, the great chain-smoking Belgian cabaret singer, first sailed to the Marquesas in 1975, he found to his enormous relief that absolutely no-one knew who he was. So he could at last escape being constantly plagued by paparazzi and reporters. He bought an elderly twin-engine Beachcraft Bonanza plane, which he named “Jojo,” and used it to carry islanders for free to and from Tahiti and on numerous inter-island flights. His altruism in this and other ways greatly endeared him to them. When, sadly but as predicted, he died of lung cancer after less than three years, his wish to be buried near Gauguin was granted.

Hiva Oa is much more verdant than Nuku Hiva and Ua Pou. It has a delightful small bay into which the ship came alongside the quay soon after dawn. The cranes swung into action, discharging the ship’s forklift trucks first ( PHOTO 8 ). These machines were soon lifting containers and flats low above the heads of bystanders and over cars and pick-ups with which the dockside was jammed. Half a dozen lean and taut French soldiers, in very short shorts and economically-cut sleeveless camouflage vests, supervised the checking of their consignments as each was landed. We learned later that, as there is no prospect of battles here these days and scarcely any drug-running, they are mainly employed in helping local youngsters learn building, carpentry and suchlike, which keeps the teenagers off the streets.

We visited the graves of Gauguin and Brel before walking down to the village to see the Gauguin and Brel museums, both very well done. The former includes a good reconstruction of the Maison des Loisirs into whose airy and spacious upstairs room the painter invited young ladies. The Brel museum, set up in a hangar, houses his sleek little plane, restored to pristine condition with a grant from Dassault. We sat and listened to recordings of his satirical and witty songs in a good acoustic.

We moved on to the post office where, for over an hour, we had no luck at all with either internet or the telephone. So we were ready for lunch at the excellent Restaurant Hoa Nui. La grand’mère dans la cuisine turned out to be a venerable Chinese lady of 85.

Returning to the ship, we heard Peter Crawford introducing the second film of “Nomads of the Wind”. This includes fascinating theories and evidence as to the eastward migrations of Melanesian people from the South China Sea and the Coral Sea, and possibly also from what is now Taiwan, after the end of the last ice age around 6,000 B.C. A clear differentiation is made by anthropologists by way of the rocker jaw of Polynesians (apparent if one sets their jawbone on a desk-top), the ratios of their longer limbs, and narrower skull shapes. There is little clay in Polynesia suitable for making pots, so the limits of discovery of pots from Lapita in New Caledonia are also persuasive as to migration routes and sequences.

We still found it difficult to be clear as to the interface or cusp between Melanesians and Polynesians, despite footage of the finely preserved skeleton of a young woman found in the sand at Sigatoka beach on the south coast of Viti Levu, the largest island in the Fiji group. She, incidentally, had been killed by a single blow of a club to the back of her head, almost certainly because her husband had just died. Widows were honoured by immediate death. Like all of her people, she was buried facing to the west, the direction from which their ancestors had come. In passing, we learned that the strong white teeth of Melanesian and Polynesian people are due to the high fluoride content of the taro root, a staple part of their diet. 

The film, which Peter ran in full after dinner, showed how the Samoans developed their techniques of sailing their twin-hulled “Proa” rafts so that they could use a skill, now known as “shunting”, to transfer the sail (with two booms and shaped like an inverted triangle) and the steering oar from one end of the boat to the other and thereby to tack into the wind.

As the ship turned and headed out of the bay to stand off the island for the night, the crew retrieved a 40-feet by 20-feet flat cargo barge (powered by two 225 h.p. outboards and still with four men standing on it) by deftly and quickly hoisting it on a single crane purchase to its allotted position on the main deck in front of our cabin, next to the large forklifts. They have done this before!

Day 7 Friday Fatu Iva 

This is the smallest and most southerly of the inhabited islands in the Marquesas, 14 km by 6km. It is in the shape of a wide horseshoe, being the eastern half of a concentrically double-ringed caldera, left on its own after the western half was dunked back into the sea by later submarine eruptions. Like most of the islands, it nonetheless rises to over 3,000 feet.

Cannibalism was so relentless than when Guillaume Grelet, after arriving as the French administrator in  1895, walked the short distance across to its east coast, he found only one man left standing; a classic case of the survival of the fittest.

The Bay of Omoa provides a firm anchorage but is exposed to swell such as is even now a handicap to the landing of cargoes there in all but mild weather conditions.

The village people at Omoa sell high-quality wooden bowls and carvings in “rose wood,” actually beech-hyacinth (Mori). The local honey is delicious so we bought some of that too. It looked like tractor oil in an old Fanta bottle. Demonstrations of making Tapa, the traditional bark cloth from straight lengths of mulberry, breadfruit or  banyan branches, and of the “Umuhei” bouquet of fragrant flowers were followed by a tranquil visit to the charming little colonial-style house of Monsieur Grelet. I picked up a couple of neatly-shaped pieces of volcanic rock which will share duty on my desk at home with a flat chunk of the Troodos mountains from Cyprus, perfect for holding a book down flat while I type or read.

Other passengers were meanwhile being told about the technique (only some fifteen years old) of preparing Noni fruit juice, favoured for use in modern pharmaceutical preparations. Sadly, since the Mormons have developed large and efficient plantations of the tree in southern California and Mexico, the Marquesans cannot compete and no longer have a chance to export it economically to world markets.  

In the afternoon, the ship sailed a few kilometres northwards along the west coast of the island and anchored in the narrow bay of Hanavave, a tiny village surrounded by sheer cliffs and backed by a narrow defile between vertical crags and deep green jungle.

There was a superb performance by nine energetic and powerfully rhythmic drummers and a demonstration of the preparation of Monoi, an unguent made by adding ground sandal-wood to the sap of coconut trees. This forms the base of traditional ointments and perfumes when specially selected herbs are steeped in it. There was also an opportunity to see the preparation of “Aeu Pipi”, an exotic and fragrant lotion traditionally given to honeymoon couples by their respective parents.

Over dinner we heard that the Iranians had launched a satellite into space, to the understandable consternation of Israel, the USA and other nations. All that seems to be on a different planet from the Marquesas.

Day 8 Saturday Hiva Oa

Another day; another lush green tropical paradise. Another gentle voyage through the night had taken us to Hiva Oa, another of the islands in the southern group. 

We enjoy the company of John and Marianne, delightfully droll Australians in the next cabin to ours. At breakfast someone asked John “Did you sleep well?”  “Yeah,….Thanks…..Survived another heart attack”. 

From the tiny port at Puamau our 4x4 jeep was the first to arrive at the archaeological site on the mountain-side above. This immediately wrapped us in a deeply enthralling stillness, broken only by the occasional crowing of a cockerel in the forest below and the constant crashing of the surf in the bay. Rain overnight had freshened the tall trees, exotic flowers and neat grass. Here is the 300-year old grave of the last chief of Puamau, beside which stand two fine stone Tiki. He had insisted on these, just in case the promises of Paradise given to him by the protestant missionary failed to materialise.

Then the main group arrived. They were immediately, and understandably, swarming all over the place, jostling for the same photo-spots. No peace now for the Tikis, the soul of the chief or the spirits of the tribal ancestors; but lots of information about who attacked whom and which families were “decimated”. There is a delicate balance between choosing to know less and trying to know it all. The most fragile, precious and ephemeral element is tranquillity. Understanding and atmosphere lie subjectively somewhere in between. One man’s silence is another man’s zoom lens moment.

After walking down to the shore we visited the tiny church. Again we had it to ourselves. Typing that last phrase I smudged “jihad” first time round. How far removed this place of religion is from all that which jihad entails. We need more of the spirit of the former and much less of the latter in the modern world. Beautifully plaited fronds of palm leaves decorated the Stations of the Cross. As elsewhere, a powerful yet slender drum stood waiting for a speaking part in tomorrow’s Mass.

Back on the tiny dock, we watched a JCB lifting consignments of construction materials and drums of diesel ashore from Aranui’s cargo barge. The swell was making this operation one of split-second timing. Close by, lively little black blenny fish hopped about the rocks picking up tiny morsels washed in every few minutes by the larger waves. Their ancestors came from many thousands of miles away to the west. In what form and by what transport?

Over lunch, Marianne related how, fifty years ago, when she returned to Queensland with her young fiancé John, her parents gave a family dinner in their honour. When her father asked her to say Grace, she was overcome by nerves. Desperately trying to recall any of the usual words, she missed the context and came up instead with “Bless me Father, for I have sinned”, to the astonishment of the assembled company.

Aranui sailed westwards along the north coast to Hanaiapa, an even tinier settlement of only 120 souls at the foot of a stretch of especially beautiful paths and glades, rich in tropical flowers and bordered by lush vegetation. Introducing it the evening before in his daily pep-talk, Jœrg from Thuringen had struggled stoically to describe in his endearingly brave but fractured English the romantic opportunities it would offer us, even as transient visitors. “So, you are invited to take your partner or whoever otherwise…..Perhaps you have met a friend on the ship…..you will find happy ways……this place is very beautiful……But there are mosquitoes and the ship will leave at 4.30 p.m...... Good; alors; you see; OK.”

Instead of the romantic idyll, we chose to go swimming. The best place for snorkelling was the area around the little quay, but the swell was swirling around too strongly so we tried out the beach. Even there, the breakers were enough to knock us off our feet but we had a good time. A young man was nearby, with his wife and baby daughter. He had caught twenty fine fish in his pirogue, a boat some 18 feet long with a deep V hull like a lighter version of in-shore fishing boats we had once seen in Madeira. 

We asked his wife about the many feral chickens, a feature of all the islands and a skittish challenge to photographers. It seems that the people do not often find their eggs. So they tend to buy instead at the shops in the larger villages or to rely on the eggs of fairy terns, or of noddy terns (like those we were to see later wheeling above the Bird Islands, off Ua Huka, on Day 10). The chickens are apparently descendants of the jungle fowl of South-east Asia, but many seem to me stockier and in colour resemble more the Penedesancas of Catalunya. Certainly, the cockerels are as decorative as any, very like the fine Austrian Sulmthaler whose crowing we used to enjoy from 4.30 a.m. every day at the Mill House until he mis-timed his late-autumn moult and succumbed to an early snow storm.

We returned on board full of the sheer pleasure of visiting this enchanting island. As we enjoyed our first fine sunset of the voyage the ship set sail south-westwards for Tahuata ( PHOTO 9 ).

Day 9 Sunday Tahuata

This island, separated from Hiva Oha by a narrow strait, is inhabited by only 700 people. It was here that Don Alavaro de Mendaña massacred 200 inhabitants, as mentioned earlier. 

The ship put into the stunningly beautiful bay of Vaitahu just before dawn, so as to discharge some cargo at first light. When still only half-awake I had to open the cabin door because the air conditioning had temporarily failed. To my astonishment I heard the chant of a muezzin. This was not in the script. It turned out to be the cadences of the crane wire gripping on the spool as it was run out, slowed down and brought in, accompanied by melodious calling of the stevedores to each other.

Over breakfast we saw a pod of eight dolphins swimming in synchronised arcs off the port now.

The ship had by then sailed on round towards the settlement of Hapatoni. There we sat outside the little Catholic church and listened to a community service (led by a village elder because there is no priest) being celebrated to the accompaniment of three guitars.

We were then treated to an absolutely enchanting display of dancing, some wonderful syncopated drumming and a ten-minute medley of Hakas which must have demanded immense fitness and stamina. These were followed by excellent ukulele and guitar playing, both as such and as accompaniment to eerily beautiful songs, mostly telling of the sea, absences and love in a lilting and yet deeply committed style. A nearby dog wagged its tail in time to the rhythm. A trio of little girls showed instinctive flair in their dancing and flirted gracefully with spectators in the front row of   benches gathered round.

A little feast of traditional foods was set out nearby and gave us an interesting range of hors d’oeuvre (mainly fruit and coconut) before a generous and delicious barbeque prepared by the local ladies with help from the ship’s galley detachment ( PHOTO 10 ).

The village, with only 160 souls in all, had done us proud, and we were only sorry that the fine decorative bone carvings and wooden artefacts on sale were too expensive for their market ( PHOTOS 11 – 15 ).  I asked one little boy whether a beautifully shaped and carved, but heavy, wooden piece  ( PHOTO 16 ) was a paddle. “Non, monsieur. C’est pour casser la tête”. It was a little too heavy to be dual-purpose. I had imagined that the flat side was for paddling and then the edge for disposing of one’s enemy or competitor. Separate implements were required.

In late afternoon the ship set sail again and we listened to Peter Crawford describing the navigation skills and achievements of the early Polynesians. Starting from the evolution of tacking in the Lau Archipelago, described in my notes on Day 6 above, Peter described how the double-hulled canoe-rafts were navigated. These stone-age people, the most intrepid navigators the world has ever known, had no way of measuring longitude but they recognised latitude and they made their equivalent of charts with criss-crossed bamboos set on tapa sheets. 

They not only used the stars and the moon, but also an acute awareness of the patterns of winds, currents rebounding off land, the flight and feeding routines of sea birds, and the differentiation of light below clouds which could help them to distinguish between reflections off water, blue light from coral atolls and green from high volcanic islands. They often used blind people as navigators because they had the most acutely-tuned awareness of the wind and of vibrations of waves. They even recognised the advantage of a nude man sitting on the deck logs, able to receive vibrations through his sensitive anatomy that were not felt when standing up!

Thor Heyerdahl had concluded that the voyages were from east to west, that is by sailing with the prevailing wind. The wind only blows predominantly from the west in an El Niño year (such as is 2010). Peter Crawford, like most modern authorities, considers that the principal voyages of discovery and colonisation were sailed from west to east into the wind, by tacking. It was always possible to return by running down wind but that, we were told, is more likely to risk overshooting one’s destination.

I may now be in a minority of one but I must say I remain to be entirely convinced. Why tack for two thousand miles when you can run? One can always stop by turning into the wind or taking down sail. In any event, the sweet potato originated in South America, whence many species of fauna and flora also came to Polynesia. There are also scientists who find strong connections between the Haida Indians of British Columbia and Polynesia, especially with Hawaii.

As the sun set we anchored off the north-west tip of Tahuata, opposite a beautiful sandy cove. It has been disappointing that, partly because of swell associated with the cyclone to the west and this time because the crew needed their afternoon off, we have not had many opportunities to bathe safely. There might have been one this morning but the local people warned that there were sharks in the bay and vicious Nono flies on the white sand beach (not a problem with black sand, apparently). A magnificent sunset was some compensation.

Day 10 Monday Ua Huka

At midnight the ship slipped quietly off to the north-west for the 6-hour voyage to Ua Huka. This little island has only 700 inhabitants and over 1,500 horses. Its slopes and a high central plateau have been grazed close by the horses and many times their number of goats.

It is drier than many of the islands and the rock is mainly red. Where the basalt cliffs have been eroded the layers of pumice have suffered most; so the effect is of deeply ribbed stratification ( PHOTO 17 ).

At dawn we entered a tiny channel between high cliffs and then, in a most remarkable manoeuvre, turned 180 degrees round in the ship’s length so as to take up a safe anchorage. There cannot have been more than forty or fifty feet of water either end ( PHOTO 18 ). As the bow-thruster churned up the water and the ship came round onto station, the linesmen leapt ashore from the little whalers. I photographed one in mid-air as he jumped off a rock, over the crashing waves, and back on board the little boat which his crew-mate was holding steady in the most testing conditions ( PHOTOS  19 – 21 ). 

We were taken by road to Vaipaee where another delightful music and dance entertainment was put on, this time by mothers from the village, who were elegant and warm-hearted in presenting their display for us       ( PHOTO 22 ). The museum had excellent collections of shells, wooden artefacts and old photographs ( PHOTO 23 ). It was somewhat chilling to be told that the fine circlets and plaited decoration on a chief’s biceps and ankles were made of human hair. He looked as if he did not often discuss matters amicably, and I am sure the hair had not been obtained by peaceful means.

A visit to the island’s arboretum was an opportunity to taste luscious mandarins and surprisingly sweet grapefruit the size of small footballs. The planting of teak and of many different types of fruit had been led by the previous mayor who had envisaged developing, with the community, a profitable export trade to Tahiti. Sadly, it transpired that it was cheaper to buy in fruit from Australia to Papeete than to transport it from Ua Huka.

Lunch “Chez Céline Fournier” featured roast goat which we found rather stringy, alongside many tastier dishes. We were surprised to hear from the lady from Montreal how so many teenage Canadian boys want to be NHL ice hockey stars. Aspiring fifteen year-olds are put in academies where they are focused almost exclusively on the game. The competition to succeed is fierce. Those who do not make the grade within a couple of years may well have meanwhile lost their friends from home as well as two years of normal schooling and often face major problems of readjustment.

Lou and Lynne from Queensland told us about their 27,000-hectare cattle station which is less than one-tenth the size of some. One of their neighbours has a 25,000-hectare “spelling” ground where he can rest his horses in batches between stints of cattle droving on a station of over 300,000 hectares. They themselves usually have only ten inches of rain per year but each animal grazes on ten hectares. When the conditions will not support even that low density, the animals are rounded up and trucked to rented “agistment”  ( adjustment ?) grazing which may be hundreds of miles away. Santa Gertrudas and Droughtmasters predominate. They had recently visited Argentina, whose estançias and the quality of the red and black Angus herds hugely impressed them.

We then went to the nearby beach of Hane, where at last we enjoyed good swimming, in wonderfully warm water. The bay was too shallow for the usual passenger-transport barges so we had to embark on one of the whalers to return to the ship, by now anchored in the bay. The crew held the whaler bow-on to the surf while we swung aboard, one after the other, over the starboard quarter. Ailsa, who had much enjoyed her swim, told us how the caddy she once hired at the Macnahanish Golf Club had admonished her: “Swing your haunches, lassie. Swing your haunches”. On this occasion she was preparing to do just that when the most heavily tattooed and strongest of the crew members suddenly lifted her up in his arms and, striding through the waves, carried her high over the heads of the passengers already sitting in the whaler to set her down gently amidships. She laughed that she had long yearned to be swept off her feet and gave him a fond kiss.

Towards sunset, the ship left the bay we passed close by the Bird Islands,  ( PHOTOS 24 and 25 ), where there are enormous colonies of noddy terns which have no predators. The people collect some 3,000 eggs every day. The captain gave us a treat which Jœrg had described in his talk the previous evening: “We pull the horn then we have thousands of birds yelling in the sky”.

We had been rather dreading the “Polynesian Evening on Deck”. It was fantastic. The ten lady passengers, who danced under the lead of the absurdly handsome Manari ( PHOTO 26 ), their dance teacher during the last week,  did brilliantly. The three waitresses who followed them were as elegant and sinuous as any dancers we had seen in the villages. The five drummers seemed to shake the ship to its framework. 

An absolutely amazing quartet of very fit men did a dozen fierce Hakas on the trot with every ounce of energy and strength in their bodies. They were decked out in terrifying pa’e haka warriors’ head-dresses, palm-frond tresses, amulets and shin-trusses of sinister black and flashing coral-white, and short black tapa-cloth aprons. Their tattoos glistened as their limbs thrashed and beat in perfect synchronisation. Never mind the Kiwis’ rugby Hakas. This was the real deal. As the warriors came off-stage from the swimming pool fringe into the nearby corridor I caught the first close-up through my lens as he strode towards me through the doorway  ( PHOTO 27 ). I would certainly have surrendered immediately if he had been the champion of the raiding party from a neighbouring village. Like the genial stevedore, another gentle waiter and Manari, it was impossible to recognise him so far removed from his routine duties on board. The expertise and commitment of these delightful people take many forms.

All that, after a perfect buffet under the stars. What an end to another memorable day.

Postscript: I must include Ailsa’s delicious account of a night on a large sailing vessel, on which she had crewed at the mere age of 80 across to the Caribbean. A group of the men-folk had press-ganged her into going clubbing with them in at a port in the Canary Islands. She slipped away after midnight to get some sleep in the cabin she shared with two other women. They were still out at another party in town. She turned out the light. A while later she heard an urgent whisper of “Darling; it’s me, Keith”, as she felt her leg being stroked. She sat slowly up in her bunk in the dark and said, with deliberate insouciance, “How nice, but I didn’t realise this was part of the package”. 

Day 11 Tuesday Nuku Hiva and Ua Pou

The ship had tied up shortly after dark on the quay at Taiohae, the administrative capital of the Marquesas, and the site of its airstrip (PHOTO 28). This had been our first port of call in the archipelago a week ago. It seemed extraordinary how much we had done and seen in so little time. 

We, as usual, chose not to join the energetic daily hiking party, who were on average twenty-five years younger than us and much fitter. By objectively introducing each hike the previous evening as, for example, “a 1,500-metre stretch of grade 7 followed by 10 kilometres between grades 4 and 6 with a steep 2 kilometres of grade 7 to the top of the caldera ridge”, Jœrg had whetted their athletic (perhaps masochistic?) appetites and kept the numbers up. Today the twenty French passengers who had come on board here for the week and had been fortunate in thereby avoiding the rather rough weather of the approach voyage from Tahiti, left for their flight out. They included a couple of very elegant Parisian widows, one of whom had combined considerable stamina with a charming style as she never hiked without her cashmere pullover and her Hermes handbag.

The Japanese fishing party had sped off shortly after dawn in their increasingly determined quest to land a 200-lb tuna and thereby enable one of them, a renowned professional fisherman, to notch up a new national record. We doubted that such a victim would be set free when off the hook  but apparently marlin and other large game fish usually are. Two days ago nine lesser mortals among the passengers had been taken out fishing in one of the passenger barges to try their luck and had done surprisingly well. They dined on the best of their catch in the evening. We were particularly pleased for Larry, a lanky and delightfully laconic Californian whose health is failing. He had held up to the camera a sleek and shiny 6lb bonito which apparently tasted sublime when expertly prepared in the galley and shared out among the party.

Daniel and Melora, both management consultants, have been taking time off to enjoy a 6-month world odyssey on which their favourite locations have been Christmas Island (South of Jakarta) and Myanmar. They have nearly persuaded us to visit the latter next winter instead of Kutch and the historic textile centres of Gujerat, which could wait a year. 

At breakfast Daniel told us of the trip he and Melora had done to Oman, Yemen and Socotra. The marine biology of Socotra is still spectacular and the island relatively safe as the Somali pirate boats keep well off-shore in their quest for ransom victims. Someone else had told us of a journalist friend of his who had seen recently at first hand the huge mansions and fleets of new 4x4 vehicles and shiny limousines in Somalia, which give the lie to the already totally discredited excuses for such piracy and exploitation. I shall have to content myself with memories of sailing round the Horn of Africa on board the ships of the British India Steam Navigation Company (“B.I.”) from Kenya as a small boy.

We watched the cargo being loaded close by, beneath our balcony. Two open-top three-sided containers held horses and cows. They were tethered to its side and probably found the arcing ride up and over to the deck, albeit suspended under the crane hook, less stressful than the road journey down to the port ( PHOTO 29 ).

The last consignments are always the fork lift cargo-handlers; first the two smaller ones and finally the large one. This dwindling sequence reminded me of Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony in which all the players 

( not having been paid for months by their employer) in turn get up, blow out their candles, and leave the stage to the lead violin. 

It would be churlish not to mention again the linesmen. The star is the fellow we photographed in mid-air at Vaipaee, a slight but agile specialist with a fine profile and a wistful goatee beard ( PHOTO 30 ). Last on board, he jumps nimbly onto the gangway as the ship’s bow-thruster pushes her away from the quay.

In mid-morning we sailed off to Ua Pou. Relaxing in the shade, we sat out on our balcony enjoying a crisp bottle of Muscadet accompanied by “Cool Ranch” Doritos and La Sélection Carrefour: Flûtes feuilletées”  from the little stock we had furtively brought on board in Papeete.

For several miles as the land receded, a little black petrel kept pace off the starboard beam. It skimmed low, at most ten inches, over the wave tops like the flying fish we had seen yesterday, showing its white underbelly as it gracefully zig-zagged every twenty metres or so. It touched the water intentionally as it turned and left a little silver wake every time.  Its stamina was remarkable at 12.5 knots. It did not seem to be fishing or drinking, but rather to be just enjoying the company of the great white ship on a fine day.

Lunch on board, an hour or so after we had tied up to the quay at Hakahau, included a dish of grated papaya and ginger, which perfectly complemented roast beef. John quipped that the cows had hardly had time to settle in as cargo on deck before providing the main course. “In Australia we hang them a bit longer”. Later, returning from a lovely swim with Ailsa off the beach opposite the ship, I relayed John’s joke to a French lady. “On no” she responded, “that can’t be right because the cows are over there on the dockside”. Either my French is very bad or I may perhaps have misunderstood hers…….. “Ce n’était qu’une petite blague, madame.” Later I ascertained that she is German and that this is her sixth voyage on Aranui!

We had time to watch the speed with which a heavy orographic shower developed over the steep escarpment and high ridge some three miles away, obliquely behind the little township. In front of us there was only dessicated scrub - brown, lifeless, and suffering from three months without rain like most of this side of the island. 3,000 feet higher, the healthy forest and lush green grass provided evidence of surprisingly localised climatic extremes.

Two visiting French families, whose sleek 45-feet ocean-going catamarans ( PHOTOS 31 and 32  ) were moored in the harbour, went back ashore. We noticed how nimbly the young children jumped on and off their inflatable dinghies. On such an enterprising Pacific cruise there must be plenty of educative and formative experience to be gained while their parents substitute for the formal tuition they have left behind during several months away from their class-rooms…. “Amo, amas, amat etc..”

In late afternoon, when the cargo movements were finished and all the kit had been safely stowed on board again in front of our cabin window, the ship executed a pirouette through 180 degrees and set sail south-west for Rangiroa in the Tuamotu archipelago.

As we cleared the territorial waters of the Marquesas ( PHOTO 33 ), we gently tossed our decorative lei head-circlets of plaited green leaves over the rail of our balcony into the deep blue Pacific ( PHOTO 34 ). This ancient tradition seemed gently fitting. To these wonderful islands and their charming inhabitants, as also to our ship mates, we owe one of the finest holidays we could ever have imagined.

Day 12 Wednesday At Sea

We were nearly half-way to Rangaroa when the ship stopped for three hours to change a seal on the turbocharger casing. Fortunately, the weather was fine and the sea calm. 

Once underway again at dusk, speed was gradually increased to 15 knots to make up some of the lost time.

Day 13 Thursday Rangaroa

As we entered the Tipatu channel through the reef into the lagoon of Rangaroa (an atoll, in the Tuamotu archipelago, that embraces the second-largest lagoon in the world), a pair of 14-feet long dolphins effortlessly surfed the ship’s bow wave, slapping the bulb every now and then as if to emphasise their joy at being close to their friend Aranui again after her three-week absence. 

The crew beached the two passenger-barges expertly on the white sand (no nonos here, to our surprise) in front of a luxury hotel, whose tariff per night is typically, we were told, 500 dollars per person excluding breakfast ( PHOTO 35 ).

We visited the Gauguin pearl farm and watched the skilled craftsmen at work ( PHOTO 36 ).  A 3 mm sphere of mother-of-pearl from a mussel in the Mississippi river is coated in Singapore with a bright yellow anti-bacterial agent. At the farm it is inserted into the incised appendix of a fan-shelled hermaphroditic oyster which flourishes in the Tuamotu Archipelago. A cube of the rind-like membrane edge cut from a similar oyster is wrapped alongside it as a graft. The seeded oysters spend five years growing in colonies in tall cylindrical nets (without whose protection they would fall prey to turtles and fish) in the lagoon before being appraised to see whether they have grown a worthwhile lustrous silver/black pearl. If not, they are served up in the restaurants of the fine hotels around the lagoon. If they are among the 40% that have, and the pearl is good enough, they are immediately re-seeded with a mother-of-pearl sphere a little larger than the pearl they have just produced. No further graft is needed as the oyster will have assimilated the DNA of the first one. Third, fourth and even fifth pearls are occasionally produced in such a sequence from the original oyster. These will typically be 12, 14 or 16 mm in diameter, whereas the first would have been rarely more than 9 mm and the second 10 or 11 mm. The grading is objective and exact. Shape varies from Round through elongated Baroque down to some that are flattened and others that have irregular rings in their shape. Lack of blemishes is graded from A downwards. Lustre earns a +. Colour is the key to the next letter, and size in millimetres is noted last. Thus a good necklace, typically of 34 pearls, might be marked as 34 R B/C 10.5-12. Discarded shells are sent to India to be made into shirt buttons.

Jœrg had assured us that the opal-blue clear and warm water of the lagoon would be safe even though sharks of up to a couple of metres are frequently seen and not all the giant sting rays have had their barbs removed by the local vets. “It is just like winning the Lottery. Alors; you see; OK.” We lingered in a languid swim before enjoying a characteristically delicious barbeque lunch on the beach. 

In late afternoon, Aranui slipped out of the channel through the atoll. She had to sound her horn urgently at a small r.i.b., lying stationary and directly ahead, right in the middle of the channel. Fortunately its outboard engine burst into life while Aranui was still about 100 metres off. Nine dolphins saw the ship out, just as others had welcomed her five hours earlier. We headed into the open Pacific; then turned towards Papeete and the setting sun.

Peter Crawford showed the last film in his series. This stressed the way in which the people of Hawaii and the Maoris of New Zealand originated in Polynesia. It also highlighted the revival of Polynesian cultural awareness epitomised by the Polynesian festivals in the Cook Islands. To these, delegations from the Marquesas provide a pivotal contingent.

As guests for the last dinner of the voyage, some twenty-five crew members (including stevedores, engine room greasers and the massive and heavily tattooed senior crane driver) joined the passengers – a gesture which was much appreciated all round. To start the cabaret, Manari led his troupe of six gallant lady passengers in another hypnotic song and dance routine, which showed how much he had taught them in a very short time. The Hakas were then performed as well as they had been at the “Polynesian Evening” deck party, and even more loudly and skilfully as the four men were confined to a narrow strip of the dining room between the tables. It was up close and very personal ( PHOTOS 37 and 38 ). The quartet of drummers belted out hugely complicated and vigorous backing at full throttle, as if their lives depended on it. In the old days they probably would have.

A portly, but surprisingly agile, passenger, who must have shot more video hours than all the other passengers put together, chose as his vantage point, and the safest place, to curl up under the lip of the central serving table and keep his head down, rather as if it was an Anderson shelter in the London Blitz.  He got good footage but, at his age and at that very close range, the experience must have been really terrifying. As mere spectators, our ears were ringing and we were not far off collapse ourselves. Blimey! It had been a truly amazing send-off.

Lies and I have pondered the future for the extremely fine balance as between the Marquesas and tourism. The single-ship schedule of cargo loading and deliveries round the islands every three weeks seems to be just right and the villagers do not appear to be merely staging charades when they dance and play music for the passengers. But any more frequent visits or more ships would undoubtedly wreck the fragile equilibrium. It is poignant to hear that a new ship is being designed with luxury accommodation, to open up the Chinese and Japanese markets. If she joins Aranui  rather than replacing her, such a step could be a ship too far, and all will be lost. 

Day 14 Friday at Papeete 

 Last evening there was a particularly fine sunset ( PHOTO  39 ). Now that we have landed early in the morning in Tahiti, and are enjoying an early but delicious poolside breakfast at a nearby hotel ( PHOTO 40 ) we feel extremely privileged to have had the opportunity to enjoy such a very special voyage.

……………………………..THE END………………………………….