Omoa, Fatu Hiva

Our last day in the Marquesas Islands. Our visit to Oma, Fatu Hiva was originally supposed to be longer, but because it was moved to the last day, it got cut short so we can sail to the next stop. There were originally two instances of a 4-wheel drive tour of the island, but the afternoon one was cancelled due to needing to leave earlier in the day.

Fatu Hiva has a double caldera, there was a second eruption inside the first caldera. Oma is in the valley between the two calderas. There is another village on the other side. There are 650 people on the island between the two villages.

The ship arrived at 7:30 am, first tender at 9 am was pretty rough, it took a while to load people waiting to find a time when the tender wasn’t moving up and down three feet. One couple in line decided they would not go ashore after seeing that for five minutes. Some villagers were singing and dancing when we arrived.

There was an outrigger canoe near the dock. I suspect that every village has a racing team.

We visited the local crafts market, bought a Marquesas cross Tapa. Tapa is painting on cloth made from wood bark, traditionally the banyan or mulberry tree. It looks like they are using wood veneers these days, that is all we saw.

Every island village has a Catholic church.

There is a clam shell for holy water.

You still see phone booths on the islands, I had cell service with data on all the islands.

We walked up to the petroglyphs. The person giving the port talk claimed you needed a car to get to the petroglyphs as it was too far. It is about a mile.

After coming down to the main road there was still more time, so we continued up the valley away from the beach looked for birds.

Got back to ship by 1pm. Last tender at 1:30pm.

The sea was pretty calm as we sailed away. I sat in hot tub on the bow deck after sailing away. Chatted with the Polynesian cultural presenter on board. Her 13-year old son is into birds and nature right now instead of school. I told her about Merlin Bird ID and iNaturalist.

I worked on bird photos and worked on puzzle before supper.

Tomorrow is a sea day as we sail from the Marquesas Islands to Tuamotu Island of Rangiroa.