Tourist for a Day

We literally passed out after the anchor debacle and sleep soundly through the night.  We took most of the morning cleaning up the mess from anchor mud and then took a short trip into the village. Ua Pou is well known for it’s great dingy dock, but the entire port complex was torn up as they were building a new ship pier so the dingy dock was unavailable. We decided to just row our dingy the short distance into shore and pull it up on the beach. The bay shallows up quite fast and we found ourselves pulling the dingy in foot-deep water and then up the sandy beach. Each year older we get the dingy seems to get that much heavier.

A mountain of delicious fresh baguettes.

The Artisan Center had a good selection of local carved bowls and tikis, along with women's necklaces and other jewelry.

We had a nice walk around the village, shopping at three different grocery stores (magasins) and a nice bakery with a table piled high with fresh baguettes. We found out that the Aranui 5 cruise/freighter ship would be in port the next day so we decided to visit the Artisan Center to see if we could find a nice carved bowl before the screaming hoards of tourists descended. Ironically we found the exact bowl I was looking for, carved by a local named Petero out of Pacific rosewood. The bowls aren't cheap, but Ua Pou is famous for the quality of its carvers so it seemed like a deal to me. We also arranged with a local Frenchman named Jerome to take a tour of the island in two days, as he would be full up with the Aranui passengers the next day.

When we got back to the dingy it was low tide and we had a very long tug to get it back into the water since the beach has very little slope. We had to figure out a new dingy strategy for the next day.

Everyday the kids would come down to the beach to practice in the racing pirogues. These kids could really paddle!

One nice thing about Ua Pou is how active all the islanders are on the beach. One guy was exercising his horse, bounding through the small surf line while young kids were out playing in the surf or swimming. A large group of kids came down and took out a 12-person training pirogue, while others were in 6-man and single racing pirogues.  We had a front row seat to the various craft racing around the bay for the next few hours.

I almost forgot to mention the view! Ua Pou has one of the most spectacular harbors, with several needle-like spires raising up in the surrounding mountains. This time of year the hills are a rich green color; it’s almost like you are in a National Park rather than an island with over 2300 residents.

We sat in the cockpit with our sundowners and just enjoyed the spectacle of it all.

The huge Aranui 5 shoehorned in between the breakwater and the new cruise ship dock.

After a fitful night’s sleep we awoke at 6:15 am to a cacophony of noise as the huge Aranui 5 pulled into the dock. Adding to the confusion was the fact a new dock was under construction, so fitting the Aranui into the narrow space took a couple of big workboats pushing hard again the port bow of the ship to shoehorn it into the space.

We tried taking the dingy into the construction dock to tie up but it was being used to shuttle workers to the ship, so back to the beach. This time we tried Plan B by dropping an anchor attached to a loop of 100 ft. of line. We landed the dingy in foot-deep water and then pulled it back out to its anchor. It’s a kind of cool system taught to us by Dave on Maluhia that they use in Mexico. We then ran the line up to a palm tree and secured it with the dingy happily bobbing in the water about 50 ft. away.

The locals put on quite the welcome for the Aranui passengers. Here is a long buffet line featuring "A Taste of Ua Pou."

We went to the community center that was packed with Aranui tourists having a pre-lunch buffet of local fruits and other foods. We had heard the thing to do on for the Aranui crowd. Rosalie said she had room and the price was about US$23, a little pricy for us but it seemed like a plan at the time.

An Ua Pou dancer with a tapa loincloth and the requisite boar's tusk necklace.

We then walked down the street to a pae pae where local dancers were set to preform for the Aranui’s (my generic term for cruise ship passengers).  It was a good performance, especially the male dancers, but once you’d seen the big dance troupes at the Hiva Oa Festival you are kind of jaded. It was however, very fun to watch the Aranui crowd, a mixture of about 75% French, 10% Aussie and British, and a smattering of others, many of whom looked like they were on their death bed (but were probably our age).

We then went up to Rosalie’s and took some time trying to find a table with English speakers. We sat next to a nice British couple that traveled extensively around the world and had some interesting tales to tell. The food was OK, but we were there for the experience more than anything.

After lunch we took a short walk up to the magasin to do some more shopping, coming home with four heavy bags full of food. We always forget the long walk to the dingy when we stock up on food, and always regret buying heavy canned foods about one-way through the walk. Back on the beach we could see our dingy high and dry on the beach with a Frenchman in his black Speedo sitting on the bow. We were then horrified to see the entire dingy full of saltwater and sand. The waves had broken over the dingy and filled it to the brim. It took another 15 minutes to get enough water out so we could drag it down to the water. The recalcitrant Frenchman finally got off but didn’t think to help us lug the heavy dingy down to the water.

Back at the boat Meryl put the food away while I spent another 30 minutes trying to get all the sand out of the dingy. Our under seat storage bag had been immersed in the saltwater and I had to remove all the emergency equipment, which although it was sealed in plastic bags, was soaked all the way through, leading to another three hours of cleaning, oiling, and repackaging everything. 

I think Ua Pou is trying to tell us something.