Anchorage.

September 28, 2001 - Wallis - Showing Respect to the King

In some respects, Wallis' remoteness and diminutive size has ensured that the society has retained its Polynesian cultural structures and practices. The king still reigns supreme and we attended a festival where each village presented the king with fattened pigs--about 100--killed, part cooked, and stood upside down in rows before the King's house. The villages each put on a display of dancing and singing which lasted from early morning until late afternoon, when the King "gives" the pigs back to his people to eat. The people live in thatched fales and each village has its own chief. They love the fruit and vegetables that they grow communally, fish from the lagoon and of course the occasional pig roast.

Pigs before the king.

On the other hand, Wallis is a French territory and has a French Commissioner and French administration: a gendarmerie, customs officials and education staff. The Wallisians seem to get on with life in their own way and we wonder to whom the French administrators administered, other than themselves and the handful of expats living there. The main advantage for us in the French influence is the availability of French bread and the very expensive supermarket stocking European food flown in from France via Tahiti or New Caledonia, the like of which we hadn't seen since New Zealand.

Wallis has no tourism, flights arrive infrequently from Tahiti or New Caledonia and there is no tourist accommodation, no taxis and no services. We had to hitch a ride when we wanted to go anywhere but never had to wait more than a few minutes.

Although there are numerous bays, it seems strange that there aren't many well protected anchorages. The main town, Matu Utu, is on the windward side with a 2.5-mile fetch from the barrier reef; at high water with the trades blowing it gets very bumpy anchored off the town. The lagoon is 100 feet deep, so yachts either anchor in deep water, or try to find small sand ledges tucked up against the reef.

When strong winds and rain were forecast, we and the other 3 yachts in residence tucked ourselves close behind a reef. If the wind had changed direction, we would have had to move.