After a few rainy days in Taiohae Bay, we pulled anchor Saturday morning and sailed over to Taipivai, the famous valley Herman Melville visited in 1842 and later wrote about in "Typee." Tropical precipitation continued to fall, but we were determined to get off Namaste. We dinghyed in and walked into the beautiful village. Chris has been here three times before and befriended a local, Mahina, and we went to visit him at his "kohe ha'e" - bamboo house. He recognized him immediately and proudly pointed to the windsurfing board Chris gave him on his last visit. It's displayed in the front part of his snack shack.
We visited briefly, with plans to return, and then took off in search of some local historical sites. It was insanely hot and humid for me, and brought back memories of my preseason, triple day training at University of Texas. But I armed myself with about a gallon of bug repellent, to fight off mosquitos and the infamous no-no's, and sunscreen to combat the intensity.
We found Site Melville the old-fashion way - by following the "X" on a tree near the road! "Te Ivi o Hou", the tohua or ceremonial site, is located in a remote part of the valley. We snaked down to the river and enjoyed some coconut milk after Chris opened one up with the machete he brought, a must on any Marquesan adventure. We cooled off our heels in the river, which was a "balmy" 75 degrees.
We also checked out the monuments at Pa'eke. Luckily, a local saw us wandering around in search of the trail, and hailed us over to show where it began. It's an incredibly powerful site, constructed around 1700 AD and consisting of 11 tikis, which they believe represent the ancestral gods of the Taipi sub-tribes. It was a gathering place for the warriors and chiefs.
On our walk back to the dinghy, we picked some limes, bananas and mangos. When we stopped by Mahina's, his wife Maeva loaded us up with grapefruits, fresh bread and more mangos. It's a tropical feast on this island, and food is in abundance everywhere!
We cooled off on the foredeck last night and watched the supermoon (it was the closest it's been to earth in 18 years) fade in and out of the clouds.
We woke up this morning to more rain, but the temperature was cooler and refreshing. The skies broke and we went for a dinghy ride to check out the two other small inlets in this bay.
After rounding a point, I spotted a familiar sight - manta wingtips on the surface near the point. All of a sudden, we realized we were surrounded by them. There were around 20 gentle giants feeding! We hopped in with our snorkeling gear and were witness to something I've only read about in books. The manta's were swimming in a circular motion, working together, to corral the zooplankton for efficient feeding. They were swimming so close to us, with their mouths wide open and we could actually look inside and see their gills filtering. It was phenomenal! They seemed completely unperturbed by our presence, constantly swimming close to make eye contact and let us stroke them, and we spent a half-hour watching the manta parade as we free-dove and played with them.
The only thing that got us out of the water was a lunch date on shore with Mahina and his friends and family. We were late, because we forgot to ask what time to come, but as they say "aita pe'ape'a" - no worries. It was fun to fumble through our French and Marquesan and they seemed happy to oblige. Mahina and his buddy entertained us for hours with music, as we feasted on cold red wine, breadfruit, cooked bananas, salad, rice and a bit of savory chicken and pig. They laughed at us being vegetarians, and told me I need to eat meat to "get strong."
It was an awesome day all the way around.
Not sure what our plan is yet. Maybe we'll move to Anaho Bay tomorrow, but we'll let you know.
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