Nuku Hiva overview
An overview of somewhere new. Getting ready to explore Nuku Hiva, Marquesas, French Polynesia.
Do you see the road down there?
An overview of somewhere new. Getting ready to explore Nuku Hiva, Marquesas, French Polynesia.
Do you see the road down there?
Preparation means packing. I’m away from home five months per year, and I’m still terrible at packing. Especially when I’ve spent the last three years working in the Arctic and now … heat!! I have agonized over sunscreen (reef safe), sun hats (tourist alert), rash guards (new for me), and bathing suits (ugh). I’ve finally…
I saw the Marquesas for the first time from the deck of a ship. The hillsides, captured above by photographer Eric Guth, foretold the natural beauty we would experience in this archipelago. One of our first stops, from that ship, was in Hatihe’u, where a group of local performers welcomed us at one of their…
These islands, the Tuamotus, lie so low and shine so bright. Each one makes a hoop on the ocean — circular from above, but long and linear from water level. So beautiful and so harsh. A perch from which to return to the ocean.
Teamwork was key to our time in the Marquesas. While I was mostly finding people to talk to, like Nicolas Haiti and his son Naura inside their coconut oven in Taipivai, Nuku Hiva, Eric Guth (photographer) and Matt Mastrantuono (filmmaker) were never far away. I’ll admit it: I don’t like drones. From beeping…
Everything in Aakapa, on the island of Nuku Hiva, is steep: the hillsides, the shore line, all the roads and driveways. The dried coconut industry, called copra, is important all across French Polynesia, and this village of 120 people is no exception. The municipality of Aakapa invested in a coconut drying oven in 2018 to…
Since we first visited French Polynesia and the Marquesas Islands in 2018, we’ve been working on a series of films to share some of the personal stories that people shared with us. The series is taking shape, so here’s a summary of the episodes we are working on … Overview: This series delves into Marquesan…