We were up at 5am today, and on the open decks for a beautiful sunrise. We cruised south along the western coast of the island of Taha'a and through narrow Pai Pai Pass, which has become my favorite passage through the reef to the town of Uturoa on the northern coast of Raiatea. It was exciting to see the Windsurf Wind Spirit just ahead of us, sailing through Pai Pai Pass to anchor off the coast of Taha'a today. It was quite a picture with its tall masts reflected in the mirror-smooth sea.
We docked in Uturoa at 7am, and grabbed a very quick breakfast in the Panorama Buffet. We were meeting our tour operator in the visitors center at 8:15am to complete paperwork, and by 8:30am were on a motorized outrigger with Tyronne, our boat captain from September who had taken us up the only navigable River in French Polynesia in Raiatea. We had made an arrangement at that time for a transfer to/from the neighboring island of Taha'a 2.5 miles away and a car rental for the day on the island. Today was the chosen date because we weren't sailing tonight until 9pm.
Tyronne's boat holds 12 people, so, with just the two of us, we were able to move around and take photos of that beautiful lagoon. It was only a 12-minute ride to the southern point of Taha'a, where Tyronne and his dad own a dock. We met his dad and his young son and he walked us to a nearly new little manual drive Fiat. Armed with a map of the island (really, there are just two coastal roads in a figure 8) we set out, heading first counterclockwise around the northern part of the island.
Along the way we stopped several times for photo ops, and then at a wonderful vanilla farm where we received a personal tour (while the large ship's tour was in a different group about 10 minutes ahead of us). The entire vanilla bean production process is extremely labor intensive (it is an orchid plant that must be manually fertilized) and takes as long as two years from rooting to drying the beans. We also saw the process of extracting oil from Tamanu nuts, used for its medicinal topical properties
The man who owns this vanilla farm, called Vallee de La Vanille, was a Dane who had served in the French Foreign Legion in French Polynesia and the retired to Taha'a before the age of 40. On his farm, he has planted all sorts of fruit and nut trees and flowers, but his vanilla plants are grown in the traditional way, where the vines are trained to grow up trees and the leaves of the trees provide the shade the plants need, and their roots are mulched with piles of coconut husks.
We continued along the coast, stopping many times for photos. There are over 60 motus located off the coast of Taha'a, and most of these are off the eastern and northern coasts. Eventually the island of Bora Bora came into view as we rounded the northern end of Taha'a and provided even more photo ops. We stopped at a pearl farm where we received yet another education about the cultivation of Tahitian black pearls. I am in the market for a pair of earrings to go with the bracelet and necklace I purchased last year on Moorea and Bora Bora, respectively, but G wants them to be blueish-green to match my eyes...and I want them to be cheap. We didn't find any that satisfied both requirements, so we moved on.
Off the western coast of Taha'a is a motu that is home to one of French Polynesia's most exotic resorts, Le Taha'a Island Resort and Spa. Since Taha'a doesn't have an airport, it is only reachable by boat transfer from the Raiatea airport...or private helicopter transfer.
By the time we completed the northern circuit of the figure 8 coastal road, it was after 1pm. I directed G to go counter clockwise around the southern circuit, but, while the road on the northern portion was in perfect condition, there were some spurs off the southern road that were in very bad shape. I was trying to get us to a place that Tyronne had marked on the map with an X, thinking it was something we needed to see, but after trying to navigate lots of rocks and ruts, G pointed out that the X meant we should stay off that road. Moving on...
Fellow passenger Peggy from Sydney, who is on this cruise with her husband David and son Justin, has read my blog, and knew that G misses his salty snacks when he cruises. She was so sweet to bring us two bags of Australian potato chips, and one of them was especially intriguing: hot dog flavored potato chips. We had packed it in our bag this morning, and stopped at a tiny store on Taha'a to get water and juice and had a great time eating those potato chips as we drove around the island. It was a good thing we had taken the chips, because we didn't see any open restaurants today where we could stop for lunch.
The entire island is only home to 2500 people and, especially on a Sunday, very much struck us as 'Mayberry goes Polynesian.' We stopped outside a church to listen to the beautiful (really spectacular) singing that was taking place inside during the service. Families were walking home from church with the woman and girls dress in traditional Tahitian attire, covered neck to wrist to almost the ankle in a homemade floral dress with a straw Minnie Pearl-type hat with a crown of flowers. We saw groups walking home singing along to one person playing a ukulele. Later in the day, large family groups were gathering along the water to have BBQs and play volleyball and lawn bowling and sing. Tyronne had told us that Taha'a was like Moorea was 50 years ago, and I've heard it said Moorea is like Hawaii 50 years ago, so I guess that means Taha'a is like Hawaii 100 years ago. We loved it.
Very common scenes in French Polynesia:
That's a French bread box, not a mail box in front of the house
The entire island of Taha'a is one coastal road and then steep mountainsides in the center of the island. There are eight very small villages dotting the coast (our favorite village name was Patio, closely followed by Hamane, which we nicknamed Ham and Eggs) We saw several copra (coconut) drying sheds all around the island, several family graves in front yards, as is typical everywhere in Polynesia, and vanilla beans grown on trellises enclosed in screened cages, which we were told is a trial sponsored by the government to find a more efficient way to grow the beans.
Though not nearly as developed as Rarotonga or even Rapa Nui (really!), we saw lots of similarities among the islands in terms of many roosters, hens, dogs, cows, and even some goats. There is no industry of any kind, and very limited tourism. Most people work at subsistence farming and fishing.
We eventually changed drivers, and, since we had some time left, I drove around the southern coast road first one direction and then the other, having fun with shifting that little car on the few hills and many curves. Tyronne picked us up around 4:45pm, and it was after 5pm by the time we got back to the ship. We were hungry, tired and in need of showers, and skipped tonight's on board folkloric shows to go directly to the Club Restaurant for dinner and then right to bed.
We have another full day excursion tomorrow in Huahine (help us!) and then that wonderful sea day to keep us going for two more port days on this cruise. We know we will have just one more day on most of these islands, and are trying to squeeze everything in at the end. I can promise you one thing...you will not hear me complain one bit about our ten sea days back to Los Angeles in just over a month. We may order breakfast in bed for every one of them!