Hiva Oa Yacht Charter

Hiva Oa is where the Marquesas exert their pull most obviously. Both Paul Gauguin and Jacques Brel came here at the end of their lives, and both lie in the small cemetery on the hillside above Atuona, looking down over the bay and out into the Pacific. It takes very little time on the island to understand why neither of them left.

The landscape is vertical and saturated. Ridges of red-black basalt run down to the sea, the valleys are choked with mango, breadfruit and coconut, and cloud sits low on the peaks for much of the day. The anchorage is at Tahauku, just around the point from town, sheltered but subject to swell, which is characteristic of the archipelago.

Hiva Oa also holds the most important archaeological sites in French Polynesia. At Puamau, along the north coast, the site of Iipona has the largest stone tiki in the Pacific outside Rapa Nui, including the great figure of Takaii and a rare reclining form carved face down into the rock. These are not reconstructions. They stand where they were raised, among the trees, with almost no one else there.

Atuona itself is small and dignified, with a reconstruction of Gauguin’s Maison du Jouir and a museum of his work. Carvers work in rosewood and tou throughout the valleys, and the standard is exceptional. Horses graze the ridges above the town, and the whole island smells of wet earth, tiare and woodsmoke.

For guests willing to trade lagoons for depth of place, Hiva Oa is the most rewarding island in the Marquesas.