Nuku Hiva, French Polynesia

We were up for sunrise and the sail-in to Nuku Hiva. We were here in 2015, so link to that adventure page to see what we did that year.

We thought this set of volcano remnants looked like a Richard Nixon profile.

 
An interesting set of mineral stripes in this seaside cliff and an orchard of some kind up from the shoreline.

 
The tender line was on the Lido Pool area. We were early in the line.

 
We were on the first tender, but one of the engines shut off during the boarding process. Henk, the hands-on hotel manager (on the left), had called an engineer, who tried to start the engine. No luck, so we all got back on the ship, and then boarded a different one. We've heard reports that the Amsterdam will be getting 4 new tenders after the world cruise when she goes into dry dock. Much needed!

  
Nuku Hiva provides a very nice welcome.

 
The welcome songs and shell-blowing were accompanied by these drums. After the welcome, we walked along the shoreline for a while. We loved all the tikis there, which we photographed in 2015, so be sure to go to that page to see them.

  
We'd started walking up the 7 mile road with Jack & Sandy. A woman picked mangoes with a long pole and her child retrieved the fruit from the picking basket.

 
Several homesteads on the hill up and over the island had livestock of one type or other.

We stopped at an overlook.

 
This cow was tethered to a bulldozer next to the road.

 
A load of bamboo went by as we stopped to admire this knob in front of us.

 
We admired the balance and agility of the dog on top of this load.

 
Jack and Sandy continued up the road, but we stopped on the back side of that knob which had a ridge out to it. Looking over the side, white birds were soaring on the updrafts. Beautiful.

 
At the end of the ridge was a stop sign and a horse jaw bone to scare us off.

 
We settled down for lunch under the shade of a citrus tree. The ground was steep, so we placed the water bottles in my shoes to keep them from rolling down the hill. The view was nice from this vantage point.

 
A group of white cats was inside the fence farther down the hill. One came to investigate the strangers who had invaded their space. Our visitor had one blue eye and one green eye.

 
The citrus tree was a very astringent lime. It might have been good in a gin & tonic, but too strong for direct consumption.

The acacias trees give a light and airy feel to the canopy.

 
As we walked back along the ridge, we saw that this area was cleared because there had been an inn or resort there. Later we found an inn with the same name down by the water. We opened a noni fruit and discovered why it's also called the cheese fruit—it smells like strong blue cheese.

 
A lonely bull watched as we walked by. This bunch of citrus fruit looked like some type of grapefruit.

 
Dean was invited to take a family portrait. We love moments like this.

 
This was some type of inn that we passed by as we got closer to town. We liked the varying textures of the siding.

 
Back at the shoreline, preparations were underway for a big celebration. A fire pit was dug and rocks to lay on the fire were in place. In Polynesian culture, this is a common way to cook whole hogs for big feasts.

 
It felt good to take our shoes off and walk along the beach.

 
Our walk along the beach included some nice family celebrations and a nearby cemetery.

 
Some basket weaving was part of the preparations for the upcoming festival. This guy wanted to be part of the photo, so the woman sitting on the red stool tossed over the basket that she wove so he could hold something for our photo.

Thatching the roof for the celebration

 
We stopped at the store across from the beach for a beer. It was just the thing after a hot hiking day. Hibiscus flowers littered the ground.

 
A native rode a horse out to the beach. How cool.


 
This guy was playing his 8-string ukulele.

 
Our last stop was a hill near the tender dock, which now has a large tiki and other sculptures on top of it. At the base, a truck imitated the stone arch at the top of the hill.

 
The big attraction is this large tiki with a warrior emerging from her back. Note the people standing on the pedestals for scale.

 
There was also an octopus sculpture,which represents Polynesia with its tentacles wrapping around each group of islands.

After 12 miles for the day, we were tired puppies and took the tender back to the ship, took showers, and then headed up to the Lido pool area to put up our feet while refreshing ourselves with iced tea!

Dean's log on Nuku Hiva. We have one sea day before our next French Polynesian island, Rangiroa.