Commodore
June 4, 2023

Sunday 4 June – a drive around the whole island

We had a very early start to the day as we were told the farmers market which has genuine farmer’s produce, starts at 5:30am and runs out by 9am. We managed to get there by 7am which was pretty impressive, we think the early call was pretty unnecessary as there was still plenty of fresh produce. We stocked up of fruit and veg and Rowan got some delicious pork that he had to queue for a while to get as it was so popular. We took it all back to PolePole and had a delicious cooked breakfast with the pork.

We headed out of town in our hire car to a of Marquesian artisan craft fair. We bought a lovely wooden bowl and a few pieces to decorate the boat. We then went to check out a restaurant that we wanted to book to celebrate Rowan’s birthday with our friends Jan and Greg, who took us to an extremely fancy restaurant Nobu, on the island Barbuda in the Caribbean, a couple of years ago. The restaurant is called Belvedere, and landed up being a half hour drive up a tiny road to an amazing look out. It must be the highest road on the island and pretty hair raising even in our tiny hire car. Sadly they only open Thursday to Sunday, so out of the question for Rowan’s birthday. The food looked so good and there was such a buzz as it was Polynesian Mother’s day that we decided to stay and have lunch. All the women were wearing floral head dresses, which we had seen being sold everywhere in town. We had a very good meal and rolled out after our big breakfast and then big lunch!

We had planned to do a big hike up to a waterfall but it was a 5 hour walk and we had left it too late. We decided to drive around the island instead, there is only one road around the perimeter and no roads into the interior. We started on the windward side of the island, which was mainly black volcanic beaches, with loads of people out for Sunday picnics and surfing, all locals on this side of the islands, no resorts that we could see. We went out to the peninsular where there is a famous surfer’s wave. The road runs out, there is a pedestrian bridge across the little river to the beach nearest to the wave, and quite a community of houses there with no cars. The big wave is quite far out beyond the reef, it looked big even from where we were.

It was a slow drive back in Sunday traffic and an accident to negotiate around, it was 6pm by the time we got back to PolePole. We were so ready to put our feet up and relax when we got a message from our friends Jan and Greg to say they would be at the marina by 9pm, they have gone much faster than expected, they had told us it would be Monday morning before they arrived. We were able to guide them in and Rowan found a berth for them in the dark which they were very grateful for. We caught their lines for them and got them settled. We first met them in the Caribbean, where we saw quite a bit of them, saw them briefly in Colombia and our paths haven’t crossed since. We knew they would be tired from their overnight passage from the Tuamotus, so we gave them some chocolate and invited them to breakfast for a catch up.