Today, a day of tracking on the island of Nuku Hiva, Marquesas. With the time difference (- 12.30 compared to Paris), I woke up at 4:00 in the morning ... I dropped our two divers (Denis and Pascal) in the center of Xavier curvata, then we went exploring on Island to the identification of a few sites before the arrival of the ground team Friday. L'Homme has drove the 4 × 4, and it was a good idea as I love driving all the slippery slopes are not my forte ...
On Nuku Hiva there is a main road that circles the island, joining the small villages nestled in the hollow magnificent bays and accusing sometimes on a gradient of 40% ... Better to have a vehicle worthy of the name, the brakes are maintained. From Taiohe we're headed towards Taipivei, beautiful gorge that penetrates the mountains, then to the Bay Haiteheu (photo above). En route we stopped many times to take photos of both the road (half cement, half dirt) that landscapes with sharp edges, multiple waterfalls (pictured below) and heavy vegetation.
We also explored an archaeological site updated and restored by Peter Ottino, an archaeologist specializing in the Marquesas, where we saw moving to petroglyphs, rock carvings dating back to early Maori: drawings of turtles, fish, men, on huge mossy stones, like a comic book telling the story of the first inhabitants. Arriving at Haiteheu is a young man on horseback who showed us the path of the local restaurant (photo below). Marquesan horses are famous: small size, they are mounted bareback by Marquesan who use every day to cross the small streams and go from one village to another.
While we enjoy a delicious typical lunch (stewed goat curry coconut) along the huge wild beach Haiteheu, rain began to fall violently ... We retreated after huge shot freshwater eels of a similar size to some eels. Since we do not drive at night, we made our way back and although we took: with the tropical rain that had befallen one hour earlier, a portion of the road had turned into a slide and our 4 × 4 has been slowly slipping crab on the layer of clay that could not stop! ... Man has come to regain control of the vehicle and we are unharmed.
Back to Taiohae, I rushed to the cyber shop that offers three computers with connection speeds ... And I spent an hour to two poor little notes in line with two poor little pictures ... I could not even whether the second picture had been loaded, definitely too slow!
At dinner, we chatted happily with our divers have managed the feat, with difficult conditions at sea, filming dolphins Peponocephala (pygmy killer whales concentrated around Nuku Hiva) when suddenly a tall, gangly sitting at the table adjacent to ours turns to us, saying "it is you Gideon? ...". Besides the fact that Gedeon Programmes is the name of our production company (and it can not be one of four people), we were surprised by the sudden intervention and somewhat cavalier. It was our cook, who should carry us through the days we will spend at sea, effective Saturday morning. Very talkative, disorganized in his remarks, he was sitting with four companions, who obviously benefited from the cellar of the board. And he has struggled to attract the attention of the captain of the catamaran, who is in charge of our lives, and encourage us to acknowledge: a glaucous eyes turned us and we were treated to a light nod with a smile drunken ...
I understand that after a week at sea to sail from Nuku Hiva Raiatea, these metropolitan them want to party around a table. But a witness in the evening we had already warned that the crew of our catamaran had landed early in the afternoon, pretty soaked. What is scary when one intends to do in the night from Friday to Saturday, the crossing between two islands, to Ua Pou. We will then navigate with them for a few days.
What I liked even less is the look of lewd cook who told us the blue and staring at me: "we have four cabins on board, then who sleeps with whom? ....
Cretin.
