Day 10 · Ua Huka: Vaipaee, Hokatu, and Hane · 16 April 2007
The Aranui’s arrival in Vaipaee looked like something a ship should not be able to do.
Which, naturally, made it fascinating.
Around 6:00 in the morning, we entered a narrow harbour with sheer cliffs on both sides. The channel was barely wider than the ship seemed comfortable with. The crew dropped anchor, rotated the Aranui 180 degrees, sent whaleboats to carry ropes ashore, and tied the ship to both sides of the canyon.
It was maritime parallel parking.
Except the vehicle was a cargo ship.
And the parking spot was a cliff-lined slot in the Pacific.
Horses Everywhere
Ua Huka felt dry and barren compared to some of the greener islands. There were about 600 people and far more horses, grazing almost everywhere.
Modern trucks were slowly replacing horses, just as electricity and vehicles had brought changes in recent decades. The first vehicles arrived only in the early 1970s, and electricity in the late 1980s.
At the quay, locals were busy with cargo and food stalls. We piled into flower-decorated pickup trucks. Our driver was one of only two gendarmes on the island.
He described his job as quiet.
On an island of 580 people, I believed him.
Museum, Trees, and Mosquitoes With Ambition
At the town hall, local “Mamas” performed music and dance. Then we visited a small museum packed with carvings, stilts, fishing hooks, shells, tikis, and miniature homestead displays.
It was the best museum we had seen in the Marquesas.
Next came the arboretum, with trees from around the world: roseapples, pamplemousse, starfruit, bamboo, mangoes, lemons, and banyans.
It was relaxing except for the mosquitoes.
They were determined.
Even strong DEET only slowed them down. These mosquitoes were not discouraged by chemistry.
Roads Above the Sea
The drive from Hane to Hokatu was my favourite part of the day.
Our family rode in the back of the pickup truck along a road that hugged cliffs above deep blue water. Mountains rose on one side, the ocean dropped away on the other, and horses dotted the slopes.
The road was narrow and winding, so speeds stayed slow, which was good because the scenery deserved attention and also because I preferred not to become part of it.
In Hokatu, the handicraft centre had the best woodcarving selection we had seen: manta rays, drums, masks, tikis, hair picks, bowls, and platters.
When we asked a local boy to play one of the drums for us, he pointed to an older man peeking through a window. The man played both drums so we could compare the tones.
Then we learned he had carved them.
That made the sound even better.
Beach Boarding and Bird Islands
After lunch at Chez Celine Fournier, Kirsten took Alyssa and Jaeden on a hike to a viewpoint while I took Dailin and Orin back toward shore. Eli stayed aboard with the children’s activity leader, Mila, to avoid the mosquitoes.
Orin and I swam at the black sand beach, where the thick wet sand swallowed our feet and small waves rolled in.
Getting back onto the whaleboat was the most adventurous boarding yet. There was no dock. Crew members carried children and even elderly passengers into the boat while others held it steady against the waves.
By 4:30, we were all aboard for a sail past Bird Islands.
Thousands and thousands of birds rose from the flat motus, swarming in the air. From a distance we heard them before we saw them. Up close, they filled the sky like a living cloud.
The children loved it.
So did I.
Ua Huka had given us horses, cliffs, carvings, mosquitoes, black sand, and birds beyond counting.
A strong day.
