Tahuata: Vaitahu
This is the smallest of the Marquesas inhabited islands and was the first to trade with Europeans. Captain Cook named the island’s Resolution Bay after landing here in 1774. The huge church, built by the Vatican in the 1970s, is worth seeing for its wood carvings and stained-glass windows. The island is also famed for its bone carving and you will find plenty of bone jewellery among the handicrafts for sale here. While the Marquesans would once have carved objects from the bones of their ancestors, you will be relieved to find they now use the bones of cows, whales and pigs rather than humans! For lunch we head to Kokuu Beach, one of the most beautiful in the Marquesas, for a barbecue picnic followed by a relaxed afternoon spent swimming or lying in the shade of the pandanus trees.