TAHUATA

After Fatu Hiva and Hiva Oa, it was time to visit the 3^rdof the Southern Marquesas islands: Tahuata.  As promised to Taute Pascal, we would collect him and Helene (the midwife) at Motopu Bay on the east coast where they had a Clinic, and would take them to Vaitahu on the west coast to the main dispensary.  Little did we understand the adventures of a traveling doctor.

Motopu is a bay exposed to the elements.  Henri is the only local water taxi who endeavors docking there.  Most of the time, he gets close enough to the dock and tosses the packages to waiting hands ashore.  The passengers either swim to shore or are collected  by outrigger canoes.  When we found out, we were wondering how we were to collect Dr. Pascal and his sidekick, midwife Helene, and all their equipment.  But!  Who shows up on a panga, if not Henri and the docs.  We’re inside the bay and heaving terribly.  Henry’s panga is heaving to our side, our phases in total disconcert, Henry up, Domino down, and there’s no way we’ll manage to transfer passengers.  No matter!  Henri and his crew toss over our side rail backpacks, bags of medical supplies, ultrasound, probes, and other expensive equipment, which we stow delicately.  Meanwhile, Pascal and Helene have stripped down to their briefs, jumped over the side of the panga, and are swimming toward our swim-ladder.   Hey, you docs in your cozy practices, suits and ties, would you do THAT to take care of your patients?  A rinse, a towel, a hot coffee, and Pascal had 2 fishing lines out as we trolled the Canal du Bordelais and the west coast of Tahuata.  

The fish wasn’t there, but the vistas were.  Once more, vertigineous cliffs jutted straight from the surface of the ocean, cut by occasional verdant valleys planted with coconuts.  Here and there, a palm-thatched roof appeared, flanked with the white snowball of a tiarè or tipanier. 

In the morning, JP took Pascal and Helene to work, the medical dispensary in the center of the village.  But they had not such a bright idea.  The Aranui was in town and the dock crowded with dozens of people loading their sacks of copra, bananas, pamplemousse and lemons for delivery to the Tuamotus.  Not much room for our dinghy to dock.  The alternative was to drop the team at the mouth of the river, right in front of the dispensary.  Bad idea!  Dinghy and crew were soon pushed by the surf, swamped, and trapped over boulders that made for a very wet and “rocky” beaching.  Once more, kudos to the island docs who entered their morning clinic with wet shorts but managed to keep their supplies dry.

Vaitahu is a lovely village.  The cliff road offers plunging vistas on the bay, but better climb early in the morning: the steep road paved with black lava rock becomes an oven as soon as the sun hits the stones.  Not to be missed is the new church.  Its stainglass windows of breadfruit trees and flowers only add charm to the splendid woodcraft of the edifice. 

After a too-scrumptious lunch at Pension Marguerite it was time for a swim.  A typical Marquisean “Kai-Kai” includes “Poisson cru” (raw fish salad in coconut milk), chicken baked in its own fat, goat stew in coconut milk, breadfruit baked on wood fire, a platter of bananas (whole, fried, in beignet), pitchers of sweet lemonade to which Marguerite had added a dish of potatoes-au-gratin and a dessert of enormous mangoes that – I swear – are the absolute best ever, fleshy, sweet, with a vanilla after-taste.  We crawled back to the boat, loaded with a sack of mangoes and a banana stalk, took a nap and at last tried to burn a few calories with a snorkel trip.  Better to favor the northern side of the bay, the visibility is better there: octopus scamper on the rocky bottom, thousands of green pencil-urchin quills litter the sea floor, and a few colorful fish dart through the rocks.  Not a terrific sight, but a much-needed swim!

If Fatu Hiva is the island of tappas, Hiva Oa the island of tattoo artists and wood carvers, Tahuata is the island of bone carvers.  We were soon to find out in Hapatoni, THE village for bone carving purchases.  Rather than drop anchor in front of the village itself, we favored the Northern end of the bay and dropped the hook in 7 meters of water under the protection of the headland at Hanatefau Bay.  Another wildly splendid sight!  Green and steep everywhere.  From the only house at the base of the mountain emanated the unmistakable smell of roasting pig.  All of a sudden, we were hungry again! 

But time for a dive.  If the Manta rays were not at the rendez-vous, at least 200 small dolphins were expecting us.  The bay is a reproduction site for dolphins and a nursery.  We wasted no time to don our snorkeling gear and spent the rest of the afternoon cavorting in the water with the curious creatures.

From Hanatefau, it’s only a short dinghy ride to the well-protected small-boat harbor and dock in Hapatoni.  There, we were greeted by Cyril, one of the carvers, who you can recognize easily: half of his body is tattooed; the other half is not.  “Will you go to the Matava festival?” he asks… well, of course, we’ll have to go.  It seems that everyone will be there!

Don’t expect to find a shop or a souvenir store.  We asked Cyril where we could find some carvings and he sent us to his cousin’s house.  Kalineau opened his home and his treasure box… and I left with a Tiki around my neck, a dolphin for protection, fish hook for good fishing.  One hopes!