Tradition of transgenders! Ecology report, leaving for remote islands, landing in Tahiti

Nuka Hiva, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia S 8d 55' 01", W 140d 05' 43"

One thing we've noticed here is how many women have Adam's apples!  It turns out that the early Marquesan cannibals only ate men, so most families, would raise one of their sons to be a woman so that at least one son would be sure to survive any raids by other cannibals.  That son was free to marry or not, but maintained life as a woman.  Perhaps as a result of that, gay and transgender men who become women are considered a normal part of the culture.  Many of them work in the hospitality industry and restaurant owners say how nice it is since they don't have the social restrictions that women do, they can work late without worrying about going home alone at night for example.  We had a lovely woman, about 6'2" with a high falsetto voice and an Adam's Apple  wait on us for dinner last night.  She was a delight.

On our way over the mountain, we also learned that they recycle only glass here and all the rest of the garbage is burned, including plastic.  The local dump is quite small and folks report that the tourists have much more trash than the locals who make good use of everything they can. We were careful to take our little bit of plastic trash with us.

We saw some incredibly beautiful flowers. This one is called the spider lily.

Tomorrow, we go to our local Internet cafe, Chez Joseph, which is basically a series of car port tarps on the cement dock.

They will have the weekly farmers market, and we will have a chance to stock up on fresh fish, fruits and veggies.  We will set sail in the afternoon for the Tuamotos and expect to arrive there in about five days, depending on wind.  We checked our mileage from San Diego to here and we covered about 3540 miles and used 31 galloms of fuel, including going through the doldrums!

April 22, 2015'. S 16d 3' 38", W 145d 37' 16"

Rotoava, Fakarava, Tuamotos, French Polynesia

It took five days to sail here, but we could easily have made it in four, except that the only safe way to enter this lagoon, is at slack tide, in daylight with the sun at an angle allowing the boater to see coral heads and reefs.  We got within the Tuamotos archipelago early in the evening of the fourth day after a steady strong wind of 25 kts. or more. We were heavily heeled over in heavy winds, making daily activities like cooking or sleeping very difficult.  Arriving to the mouth of the entrance pass, we did a maneuver called hove to, where the sails are set in opposition to each other, causing the boat to sit almost still in the water, and waited for the dawn.  

Rotoava is the largest village on the atoll of Fakarava.  The atoll is rectangular, about 25 miles long and ten miles wide.  It consists of thin strips of palm trees and sandy shore, surrounding the large blue lagoon.  I measured the width of the strip of land at about 400 Ginny paces (the only form of measurement available at the time).  The inner shore is sandy, and quiet, windy, but waveless.  The outer shore is wind swept and pounded by waves.  Chunks of coral and bits of plastic cover the outer beach, the inner beach is smooth sand, raked and kept clean.

Only one black pearl farm is still working after what once was a thriving business.  The pearls are seeded, then take several years to make it to maturity.  They must be kept protected from predators and periodically cleaned from parasites, then are harvested.

And the pearls removed.

Some think the global loss of a strong middle class is the reason for the downfall of the pearl market.  There are fewer people to buy them.

We took a walk into town this morning and bought some ice cream at the store.  We find that ice cream is appropriate at any time of day in this heat. As the only store in the village, it carries whatever it can. Below is a pic of one of the six aisles of the store, this one is the liquor store, hardware store, plumbing supplies, children's toys, jewelry, housewares and produce department consisting of two empty bins and one filled with some beautiful garlic.

The main street in town is paved and includes the elementary school, post office, medical clinic and general store.  Many modest houses line the street and while some have windows, others have only strong wooden shutters for storm protection.  The top elevation seems to be about 42 inches and storms can easily cause a wash over everything.  Climate change is likely to make their home and underwater reef in a matter of decades and an entire archipelago will likely disappear.  Today I saw no gardens and we were told in the Marquesas that folks would appreciate any fruit we could bring as coconut is the only fruit available here.  It is a stark contrast with the Marquesas where the soil was rich and a broad variety of fruits seemed to grow wild everywhere. We didn't appreciate how rare it was to have all the bananas, guava, papaya, limes, grapefruit, star fruit, avocado, watermelon and more.  

We sailed on to Tuao, the next atoll in the chain.  

Only one extended family lives here.  The husband had recently lost his dark glasses and the wife was hoping we had something for her chronic headaches.  We were able to leave behind both items and a bag of limes as well.

Soon we leave for the big city, Papeete on Tahiti. It is the largest city of French Polynesia, the center of all these divergent cultures, and, being mountainous, likely the first place for the climate refugees to turn.