The Eastern Pacific - Pacific Crossing Notes: A Sailor's Guide to the Coconut Milk Run - page 242

Great Reads
Three thousand miles of open ocean makes for a lot of reading hours! Each of these books
describes the Marquesas from the point of view of sailors of past generations. Topping off
the list is Thor Heyerdahl's Fatu Hiva , in which the Norwegian explorer struggles to find
equilibrium living with nature and natives in the 1940s. His poetic descriptions of the is-
land as he found it seventy years ago show today's sailors what has changed, and what
hasn't.
Herman Melville's Typee is a semi-autobiographical account of his time spent among can-
nibals on the eastern end of Nuku Hiva. It's an entertaining read as much for its quaint re-
ports of local scenes (“The varied dances of the Marquesan girls are beautiful in the ex-
treme, but there is an abandoned voluptuousness in their character which I dare not de-
scribe”) as for his detailed reporting on the Marquesan way of life. Following in Melville's
wake was Jack London, who brilliantly captures his voyage from Hawaii to Nuku Hiva
(and beyond) in the entertaining Cruise of the Snark . Hilarious passages discussing the
mysteries of celestial navigation lead in to beautiful descriptions of Nuku Hiva.