Wednesday May 30, 2007 We pulled into the Bay of Virgins on Fatu Hiva, Marquesas, French Polynesia, at 8:30. As promised, it is beautiful. Fatu Hiva gets the most rain, and is thus the most lush. The original name for the bay the Marquesans gave it was Bay of the Phalli, because there are several rock formations that do resemble penises of various shapes and sizes. Rumor has it the missionaries were unhappy with that name (Baie des Verges in French) and changed it to the Bay of Virgins (Baie des Vierges just added an “I”).

Like Anaho, Fatu Hiva is extremely difficult for tourists to get to without a private boat. There is no airport and no regular ferry to take tourists to and from here. There are two towns connected by a road that is mostly dirt. There are a little over 500 people on the island. Like Nuka Hiva, steep mountains just shoot out of the water with little flat ground.

There are a 18 boats here and it is a small anchorage. It is also really deep, which makes us a little nervous. We dinghied into shore and walked through the town, called Hanavave. It is another town that you would miss if you blinked while driving. A church, a market, a tiny clinic, a handful of homes. We heard there was a neat waterfall that was a short hike, so we decided to go to the waterfall.

We made the first turn off the main road, which turned out to be a wrong turn. The road took us up a hill with a pretty view of the bay and the rock formations surrounding the bay. We backtracked to the main road. Fortunately, at the second turn off there was a couple on their way back from the waterfall that affirmed this was the right turn off, told us it was a little difficult to see the trail but follow the rock markers, and that it was worth the hike.

When we first turned off, we were on a small road. The road gave way to a foot path that became rocks that needed to be scrambled over. The trail was hard to see. Richard was leading the way, blazing the trail. The hike was longer and a more vigorous than we had originally anticipated, but it was definitely worth it. The hike itself was pretty and the waterfall is beautiful. It is a majestic 200 feet tall. We sat there for a long while, enjoying the cool mist from the fall, then headed back.

As we passed through town, a woman beckoned us to come in and look at art. Fatu Hiva is the only island where they still make a cloth made out of tree bark. She had a couple pieces of art on this cloth and a few other things up for sale, but nothing interested us. As we were leaving, she asked if we had men’s sunglasses to trade. We did have a pair of cheapies on board in case of emergency. She gave us 4 pampelmousse in exchange right then, trusting us to come back with the glasses. She asked if I had any perfume. I told her I would check.

BTW, Pampelmousse is a large grapefruit. The meat of the grapefruit is lime green, and it is incredibly sweet and delicious. It doesn’t taste anything at all like grapefruit at home. It is in season right now and grows in abundance. Dean Richard gave us three the day we were on the tour. Our barterer, Theresa, had a ton of them in the back of a pick up truck.

Back at the boat we made lunch and took a nap. I dug out a big bottle of knock off perfume, grabbed the cheap sunglasses, and we headed back in. We had been told that here on the small islands they preferred to barter over cash, which is the only reason we had the perfume at all. Theresa’s eyes popped out of her head when she saw how big the bottle was. She gave us 2 very long baguettes, 2 onions and another pampelmousse in exchange. She asked us to come back the next day with wine to trade more.

We are terrible barterers. We traded $30 worth of stuff for $10 worth of food. We definitely need to work on our bartering skills. We are going to try to make some of our loss up tomorrow. We are taking in two buck chuck.

We enjoyed a glorious sunset, made dinner, and then we sat outside for a while and enjoyed the view of the bay in the bright moonlight. The full moon isn’t until Friday, but it looks pretty full now. The light is so bright we were joking about putting sunscreen on before going out.