Soaking it inward.

I dropped the throttle down to idle and turned forward, my left hand gripping the mizzen shroud and my right on the boom. My eyes strained, open wide with an adrenaline rush, a stoic alertness as we coasted forward on a black sea. The sea, though, was flecked with the reflections of stars, the waves just illuminated. It was ahead lay true darkness, an empty expanse capped with the silhouettes of the jagged crags that enveloped in shadows the lee side of Fatu Hiva. I went to the nav station and checked the plotter; the radar was painting the cliffs and bits in the anchorage. We were about a mile away. I could see some masthead lights and some lights ashore. Though many would have already turned their vhf off for the night, I hailed a securite warning of our approach and asking unlit boats to make themselves visible. It was disconcerting to coast from night under the intergalactic sky into the shadows of volcanic cliffs weathered sharp and steep, casting a new degree of dark.

We approached very slowly. I was ready to cut it and turn back to the safety of the sea, but the approach was deep and simple, no reefs, no rocks, so we continued in with utmost caution. I pulled the trigger on the spotlight and lit up the black rock walls. We had been told of this anchorage by a number of others, both of its magnificence and of its navigational features. Without the latter, a night approach would have been out of the question. Even then, it was highly undesirable. The radar helped- I could pick out catamarans and monohulls well before we were among the anchored boats. There were more cruisers there than I had expected. I decided to hug the starboard side, go around the fleet to buy time to find a spot; in any case, laying Ardea on the rocks is better than into somebody's floating city. Chittick was on the bow; he lit the cliffs with his flashlight and called back to me. I agreed. They were close.

A Polish guy spoke up, trying to direct us. We had heard about this singlehander, knew him by the weird flags he flew in his rigging. Evidently he had made landfall in Hiva Oa with his steering wheel cover zipped on as he steered from the bow using remote control of his autopilot. According to the lore, he drove around the anchorage for an hour trying to anchor bow and stern before finally condescending to unsheathe the old steering wheel. I'd warn about the potential for gossip had he not just then recommended that we anchor directly astern of him, where 200 feet aft there lay a sizable catamaran. Used to errors of understanding related to the abundance of languages, I thought I'd misheard. He confirmed though, right there to his stern in forty-five feet of water on a rocky bottom with a half-million dollar catamaran tickling my mizzen boom with its hokey bowsprit. I didn't have time for this. I stopped listening to him at once and went back to getting the boat put away safely. We chugged forward and to port of the Polish guy and found a good spot in 30 or so feet of water (the anchor-weighted plumb line in use here, as the depth sounder has been out of action since I asked Dana how many triple-a's it took and he said a nine-volt). We set her down though and got a good grab, though rocky. Wind funneled through this canyon; we had been warned it was strong and we soon felt forty knot gusts. But we were clear astern. If we lost our hold we'd drift slowly to the ocean's soft embrace. I pulled the kill switch on the diesel and my heart rate let up as the pistons gave their last report and I indulged in the serene and beautiful silence that follows very briefly the sound of the cut engine. There's a very calming effect with that process for me. A conditioned response, perhaps.

Hanavave Bay, Fatu Hiva.

We had dared the forty-five mile upwind passage from Tahuata though we weren't emotionally ready for it. We had 18 knots on the nose and a nasty short swell. It was uncomfortable. We hadn't gone upwind in a long time. And, Ardea doesn't like pointing; Ardea tends to get her way, so I suppose it's more accurate to say that she just doesn't point at all, no matter how nice you treat her. So we got knocked west by the current and ended up 10 miles off land when we crossed into the lee of this mystifying place. It was a lot of extra ground to cover and we didn't get the hook down until almost eight in the evening. I slept in the v-berth to the sound of the anchor chain scraping along rocks as we swung with the wicked gusts. But when we awoke and looked around us, we felt the magic of the place. Sheer walls tabling then climbing again; black rock streaked and mottled with white and brown. Different shades of green corresponding to different grades and aspects of cliff and valley. Most surreal, these massive volcanic spires- giant rounded rock shapes stacked like cairns a thousand feet tall. The Europeans had first called this place Baie des Verges, Bay of Phalli, while the Marquesans knew it as Hanavave, strong surf, both equally fitting names. The surroundings were unreal, captivating to the eye and the mind. It inspired the imagination to see these ridges and cliffs, desolate but not forlorn, and this lush green valley going for miles and miles but with only a few modest buildings and the plumes of a few cooking fires. Fatu Hiva was remote like nothing I had experienced, as raw a place as I'll ever know. Gazing at the surroundings in Hanavave it felt like witnessing geological witchcraft, yet there was a piercing tranquility- the kind that only the hands of nature can conjure.

We went to shore and set out to hike to the waterfall foretold by the cruisers who had stopped at Fatu Hiva before checking in at Hiva Oa. Still unable to divert our attention from the jaw-dropping stone features all around, we sauntered along the trail eyes agape. The waterfall was no less fantastic. The water was cool and we joyfully swam in the pool beneath the falls for hours. We clambered up the rocky cliffs and lept into the pool, mesmerized by the sound of the crashing water and the brisk stream that flowed toward the sea. The whole afternoon we passed, eating pomplemousse and swimming. It had been a long time since we'd had a swim in fresh water.

When we finally made it back to the anchorage, it was nearing dusk. Dana and I decided to try our hand with a casting rod from the dinghy. Dana putted the old Johnson over to the rocks and I threw out some casts with a little spinner on Dana's reel. After a few minutes thinking I was hooked up on a rock, I pulled in a nice red rockfish. Without taking it off the hook we sped over to a Marquesan fishing boat where we'd seen some locals sitting earlier. They saw us approach and when I pulled the fish up to show them, they immediately gave a thumbs up, ?No Ciguatera!? and, of course, the familiar ?Mange!?. Hooray for dinner. We baked it with lots of lime and it was delicious.

There was little else in Hanavave. A very small store with mainly canned goods (there was more fresh fruit growing all about than the small population could eat) sat near the small church by the quay, but otherwise it was a small village and a fruit laden valley and sheer, uninhabitable cliffs. This was no problem for us. The waterfall was enough reason to come, as was the view of the stone spires. We soaked it up as night fell and we could hear goats calling from the cliffs by the water. It was a very strange place. It's isolation was a pervasive characteristic and it was of a form unique enough to befit that isolation well. A strangely satisfying place, really, even if there was almost nothing in the way of amenities (by boat is the only way to Fatu Hiva, be it for people or supplies).

We had little time, though, for we wanted to catch our friends in Nuku Hiva before they began to trickle toward the Tuamotus. We split the next afternoon. We had a passage of 105 nautical miles to the north side of Ua Pou, an island just south of Nuku Hiva. We pulled the anchor and pointed West, leaving the bay, when we passed another cruiser who reported that the weather prediction was for calms. Weather predictions? Right. We look at those. Well, we left anyway and had 15 knots abaft the beam and a decent swell carrying us past our old friends in Tahuata and Hiva Oa. Just 10 miles northwest of Fatu Hiva, we hooked a 33 inch mahi-mahi that was the toughest fish I've fought on the trip. We put it in a fine marinade and baked it that evening. I should take this time to sing an ode to mahi-mahi, which is one of the finest fish in many regards. It is nearly ubiquitous in its distribution, including in the open sea, where hungry sailors roam dreaming of those prized pelagic pescado. It is a beautiful, strong fish and will fight with incredible ferocity given its weight; this makes the hunt sporting, which I don't feel guilty enjoying since there's a perfectly decent chance I'll lose the battle. It is a long flat fish, pragmatically shaped from the standpoint of the angler and his fillet knife, and the skin peels off the meat with ease. It can be prepared using any number of equally phenomenal methods and its light yet rich flesh is said to bring long life to those who eat it (I made that up).

Battling a little monster.

At sunrise we were nearing the anchorage. I started watch at 0400 and steered wing-on-wing to a hundred yards shy of the breakwall before I hassled the others awake. It was good to be doing it right- landing in the morning- after our little nocturnal escapade a few nights before, though, in hindsight, it had been a fitting place for the nerve and mystery of a vessel underway at night.

We anchored in Ua Pou after only twenty hours- good time for Ardea- knowing our stay there would be equally short. We went ashore and were reminded that we had finally made it to the western Marquesas. The stores were better supplied and the peopled donned more of the artifacts of outside cultures. The difference was noticeable, but not that significant. I had been up for a while by the time we got to shore and was ready to eat. We wandered around and found a market to get baguettes and snacks. Following what seems an invariable pattern, we were soon befriended by a young Marquesan, Adam, and, as would be expected, we ended up returning to the store for beers. Yes it was early, but we had done a night passage so early and late and time were all sort of trivialized anyway.

We sat by the beach sipping beers and enjoying the always cumbersome process of semi-verbal communication. I laughed as Adam, palm conformed to his forehead and face abeam with the hilarity of it, muttered to himself in French, ?I regret not studying English more in school.? We hung out for hours and so often when one was trying to describe something to the other needing more language than he had, Adam would laugh- ?Je regret...? I told him I felt the same with French, but we both agreed it was impressive what could be communicated in spite of the language barrier. I also noted that we sailors were learning some of the language, no doubt improving in our understanding at least. Speaking French is another matter.

Ua Pou

We finished our beers and bid what was now a small gathering of friends goodbye. We had noticed a basketball court right on the waterfront and were told that people would meet to play around five that evening. So we returned to the boat and relaxed for a few hours; we ate marinated mahi-mahi sandwiches on our fresh baguettes that were fantastic. We were entertained for a while by the arrival of an impossibly huge transport ship at the small quay. The subsequent frantic loading and unloading, at least when observed from a reclined position in a small boat two hundred feet away, looked like a colony of ants, never stopping for a break, always moving, always working. It was amazing how much stuff they could turn over from ship and shore. It was a little hectic though, so I let my eyes rest there in the cockpit for a while.

How could it possibly fit?

That evening we played basketball with the locals, many of whom were very athletic but almost none of whom were fundamentally sound basketball players. It was the ideal situation, for we lack talent. We're also, as we soon discovered in a full court barefoot game, sorely out of shape. We had a great time though and played through until dark before retiring to the boat. We were conflicted, but still compelled to carry on the next afternoon. Ua Pou was a wonderful place; its landscape was different, lighter colored, more sparsely vegetated, with gradually sloped plains leading to a centralized few of the familiar black cliffs and spires. One of my crew, I don't recall which, put it well in an analogy: if Fatu Hiva and the eastern Marquesas were to southern mainland Mexico, then Ua Pou would be to the hot dry desert of southern Baja California. It was beautiful and with an abundance of good people. Still though, we yearned to meet our companions lest we fall too far behind in the collective jaunt to the western Pacific.

We sailed for Nuku Hiva with a true island attitude. Though we could easily have carried more canvas on the 25 mile reach, we sailed without the mizzen for the sake of comfort knowing our velocity made good would get us there well before dark. It was an enjoyable sail, as was that from Fatu Hiva. We're residents of the tradewinds now and though the South Pacific Convergence Zone, way over by New Zealand, can send fronts through to the south, the weather is consistent, the wind is reliable and the swell is small, if a bit mixed at times.

Tough sailing out of Ua Pou.

We anchored in Taiohae Bay with dozens of other boats. It was the biggest anchorage we had been in and at the biggest town in the Marquesas. This was the stopover that attracted megayachts and massive catamarans in addition to the lowly salts. We set the hook and saw Desolina, Blackdog, Slick, Evergreen, Bombalero, Off Tempo- all these boats we knew and many we hadn't before seen. As we were settling Ardea into her new space, I looked to shore and saw a little Lapworth with yellow sail covers and no name on the back. I knew that boat. It took a second but finally I realized it was Clover, Shane's boat. We hadn't seen him since La Paz, where he had pushed off singlehanded, except for Bear, his boat kitty. Knowing he made the crossing with only sheet-to-tiller steering aside from his own hands, we were excited to catch up. Indeed we spent the next several days hanging with him and others, learning of most recent exploits and enjoying well-stocked stores and even a few reasonable eateries.

There we all were, sort of displeased with the roll in the anchorage and a little worn out by the city life (mind you, though the biggest, the town at Taiohae was still quite small), but hesitant to leave, for the Marquesas had grown dear to us. We would sort of discuss plans for the Tuamotus, but it seemed we all hadn't done any planning yet. We weren't ready. Even so, the ghastly limitations imposed by the civilized world were looming and we knew to stay would be to cut our time elsewhere short. Slowly, boats started to trickle away, for a time disappearing into the distance, but, experience tells, soon to be seen bobbing at some knew paradisaical place, a reunion all but inevitable in spite of the endless horizons of the Pacific.

[Posted via radio, so I'll add pictures when we get internet again]