Nuku Hiva in the Morning

Saturday 13 December – Nuku Hiva, Marqueses Islands, French Polynesia

 

We dropped the Mariner’s sizable anchor at 6:30 am in the ancient volcanic crater that forms the harbor of Taiohae, at 2,100 the largest town in the very isolated Marqueses Island group of French Polynesia. These islands are 1,000 miles from Tahiti, and Tahiti is about half way of the 7,500 miles from New Zealand to Los Angeles. We are even further from a decent pastrami sandwich, not counting Sid and Al’s in Beverly Hills which does have pretty good deli. But I digress.   

 

The early tender ride in marked arrival at country number 124, but who’s counting. Would have been #125 had we actually stopped at Rarotonga last week, but who’s counting. The early rising ship’s passengers enjoyed a local folkloric dance after I had my picture taken with a statue at a “Sacred Marae” who was clearly happy to sea me, after which we had a buried pig roast meal. A few days ago, one fellow guest complained that she wasn’t planning to attend the event as she couldn’t think of having eating roast pig so early in the morning. I politely pointed out that she was having ham and eggs at the time. (An elderly couple on the ride back to the ship told me that they didn’t participate in the food since, “We had that in Hawaii.” I suggested that this might have been a new pig and that this was thousands of miles from Hawaii and a different culture. Guess they really weren’t hungry.)

 

Nuku Hiva is a beautiful volcanic island, quite large and near—more or less—a couple of other similarly large and beautiful in the Marqueses Islands group. Because of the isolation, there is a small guest house type hotel but no resorts. Tourism comprises a minor income for the local people, mostly from the few cruise ships on Pacific crossings and the Paul Gauguin and Tahitian Princess more frequent visits as these two ships stay more or less in Polynesia year round. The rest of the economy appears to be driven by government employment. We had two or three gendarmes guarding our group. Wonder what their side arms were for? I would imagine that very little car theft happens here, for example. There are a great deal of mangy stray dogs, no doubt an homage to Paul Gaugin whose pictures often included mangy stray dogs among the topless natives. 50% isn’t bad.

 

We were underway from this last landfall on the cruise at 11 am as scheduled, circled around Southeaster end of the island and took a 30.0 degree heading for the 7 day NE transit to Los Angeles. At 2 pm (GMT -9.5 hours) we are making 17.67 knots. Good thing since we must maintain an average of 17.34 knots based on my somewhat crude—I used a rhumline rather than great circle route—to arrive at the Los Angeles Harbor in San Pedro next Saturday as scheduled at 10:00 am (GMT -8.0 hours). Above is a picture of the asymmetrical wake due to the sick azipod on the port side. I noted earlier that only the starboard stabilizer is deployed to compensate for the tendency of the ship to yaw to port. Many of us (well, a few of us onboard) are already discussing the disastrous effects of headwinds on our speed which appears to be just adequate for us to make our early afternoon flights from LAX in a week! But, who’s worrying.

 

I came down to my suite to upload GPS tracks and document this last port of call report. I looking forward to the next week. Suddenly, this leg of the trip feels like the beginning of what seems like yet again another new cruise. I know it will be marked by good company, good food, and lots of reading on my verandah. Oh well. Somehow has to do it. Discussions of azipods and stabilizers will punctuate the dinner discussions no doubt along with reports of passing ships and the occasional whale or dolphin. Check back for comments and some ocean and shipboard pictures as I do plan to add a comment or two to this journal along the way. Speed is now 17.72 knots. Oh boy, we’re speeding up. But who’s obsessing.

 

Au revoir for now.