Tuesday morning we went ashore again and managed a little more finesse this time with the dinghy landing. We wanted to explore the bays west of our bay this time, and particularly Invisible Bay and the main town in Ua Huka, Vaipaee. It’s ten miles away so we stuck out our thumbs and got a ride, Jack and I in one vehicle, Mark and Cheryl in another.
We only got as far as the airport, about halfway, but we saw the ceremonial site built for the all-Marquesas festival that was held here in 1913. There were performance spaces and tons of tikis created by island artists.
When we were ready to move on we again got a ride, this time in a van that could accommodate all of us, and the nice driver took us all the way to Vaipaee where we visited the small museum.
We were all curious about Invisible Bay which our nautical charts represent as a long tight squeeze in from the ocean. It didn’t look like that from land but still, we all agreed we’d rather be in our bay than this one.
On the way back we visited the pretty little church with carved everything, and the lectern is a ceremonial drum.
Back at Baie d’Hane the tide had gone way out, but we gracefully launched the dinghy and got back aboard our boats a little better than the day before and made plans to sail to the big city the next day. Prepare for culture shock.
Prepare for Carrefour and Leader Price? 😉
Ha! Don’t we wish. We’re still in the outback.