RAIATEA and TAHA'A

Raiatea and Taha'a (easy for them to say)

After a short overnight transit, we arrived at Raiatea…you can actually make out Bora Bora from here in the haze on the distant horizon. Raiatea and its smaller companion island Taha’a are enclosed by a singular barrier reef. Therefore, both islands can be circumnavigated without leaving the enclosed lagoon. We opted today (again through our Cruise Critic connections) for an all day adventure with Bruno who accommodates 12 people on his motorized outrigger boat. Raiatea has nowhere near the beauty and charm of Moorea or Bora Bora; but, the day as it developed it turned into another one of those OMG days because of what we experienced.

Bruno took us the couple of miles over to Taha’a where we visited a Pearl Farm; you know, those beautiful black (or near black) Tahitian pearls. We were given a demonstration on how the oysters are seeded, selected for color, pampered by washing every few weeks, and finally how the pearls are harvested and ultimately set into jewelry. It’s no wonder these things are priced so high; then again maybe it’s that French thing and the value of the dollar. Very impressive in any event (we didn't buy any).

After our encounter with the pearl business, Bruno headed up to the north side of Taha’a and beached our craft on a long stretched motu (rather than one of those small clumpy ones). There we went up on the beach and hiked maybe about a third of a mile along the motu where Bruno had us enter the shallow water. It turns out we entered into what is known as a “coral garden.” We’d seen these on TV before but really couldn’t fathom what they actually looked like. Rather than having the coral on a reef wall like we more typically have seen, this garden consists of acres upon acres of all types, sizes, and shades of coral spread out on a sandy bottom in maybe no more than 40-60 inches of water depth. For those of you who may have done this regularly, this probably sounds like no big deal to you. We did what we have come to learn is called “drift snorkeling”…you get in the water, mask and snorkel firmly in place, and then you take a couple of little strokes or frog kicks and proceed to drift with the current down through this magnificent coral garden for a few hundred yards. Tropical fishes of all shapes and sizes, magnificent coral heads, anemones, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, a Moray eel, those giant clams that used to trap divers in those Saturday matinee thriller serials…just a spectacular display of underwater nature in Bombay Gin clear water.

This time, although we don’t have our own underwater camera, I was able to download some pictures of the sights down there from another one of our tour participants, Karen, who had a wonderful Olympus small digital camera. There are so many good photos, I haven’t decided how many to attach to this journal. What I plan to do is finish this entry with the rest of what we did during the day. I have quite a few underwater shots from Karen, so I’ll select maybe twenty for posting and then make a separate journal entry for just some of those pictures.

Again, this was a big deal for both of us. We had never imagined what we were about to see. We were “flying” in and out around the floral formations, seeing flashes of color, brilliant vegetation, and iridescent fish. At times we had to stop and stand up to maneuver our way around some of the coral heads. The sensation of effortless soaring across the sea floor landscape was other-worldly and something we cannot get out of our minds. What this island lacked in its relative intrinsic beauty, this part of our day was spectacular.

After our snorkel adventure, Bruno headed down the east side of Taha’a to a small motu that had a small restaurant (I guess that’s what you’d call it) for lunch that was included. We were provided with Rum punch, wine and great coffee of some sort. For food we had poisson cru, grilled jack fish, all sorts of tropical vegetables, bananas, mangoes, and fish fritters, etc., etc. Attached to this restaurant was a “lagoonarium” … kind of a zoo for marine creatures in pens along the shoreline. Bruno jumped in and grabbed a few of the denizens for display. There were turtles, jack fish, sting rays, reef sharks, a stonefish, a puffer fish, and some other fish I never heard of. He even fished out a giant conch and a large whelk to show us the sea snails that crawl out of the shells when out of the water.

Then we went back to the Taha’a main island to visit a vanilla plantation and get a demonstration of how the plants are propagated, cultivated, harvested, dried, and then prepared for consumption. Fascinating…the pictures cannot do it justice. We bought a couple of fistfuls of beans and some vanilla powder to take home (assuming we can get it into the U.S. past that agriculture beagle that sniffs out all your luggage).

Finally as the day came to an end, we motored back to Raiatea, back to the ship’s pier and bid a fond farewell to French Polynesia as we began our two day journey to Rarotonga, in the Cook Islands. No more French Polynesian francs and the high prices that go with them. The Cook Islands are a protectorate of New Zealand and we expect better deals all around. - RBM

Oct 13, 2009

Show all 32 photos