When we now have decided to leave the Marquesan archipelago and move on to Tuamotus, we need to stock up the boat with as much fresh produce as we may. We cannot expect to find anything else locally besides coconuts, potatoes and onions over the next few months.
So, we did the short hop from our anchorage at the island of Tahuata, over to the largest of the inhabited Southern Marquesan islands, Hiva Oa.
There is one main anchorage in the biggest village, Atuona. It is infamous for being a tricky anchorage, as it is tiny. If you are lucky and get a spot inside the breakwater, you will be fairly protected from the swells that come from the Pacific coming straight in on this side of the island. If there are more than 15 boats there, you will probably be forced to move outside the breakwater, which is normally extremely rolly.
There were 15 boats in the bay when we arrived. As we do not draw very deep, we were able to sneak our way close to shore. The boats were anchored quite close to one another, and we are 8 meters wide, so it was a little tight, but we managed to squeeze through.
We were very efficient, and got all the shopping and refueling done the same day.
We only spent one night at the Atuona anchorage. We were lucky that is was a Friday, as there was a food truck that set up its restaurant on the docks at 18:00. We joined a Canadian couple we had met earlier in the day for dinner.
Hiva Oa definitely is a beautiful island, but not as dramatic as Nuku Hiva, where we spent plenty of time exploring. We left at the break of dawn after only one night at the anchorage, and were hoping to make a quick pit stop by the last of the six inhabited Marquesan islands, Fatu Hiva.
Fatu Hiva supposedly has the most beautiful anchorage in the Marquesas. One is surrounded by steep mountains, that are towering over you. However, it is also a very tricky anchorage, as it is very deep and with bad holding. This means many boats drag on their anchor there.
Considering that we were expecting two weeks of high winds, we decided it would be too risky to make the pit stop in Fatu Hiva. We therefore decided to sail directly towards the Tuamotus archipelago, to ensure we arrived before the high winds were scheduled to hit the islands.