French Polynesia travel stories
Part 13: AND IN THE END THE AROHA YOU TAKE IS EQUAL TO THE AROHA YOU MAKE The Last Resort: Hilton Hotel Tahiti Standing on the balcony of the last “port-of-call” on my sensational voyage from Alcatraz to Pitcairn and the isles in between and beyond, from the sumptuous...
Part 12: MAGNIFICENT MOOREA The Garden of Earthly Delights After a delicious, filling beachside breakfast at Moorea Island Beach Hotel I’m promptly picked up at by Pierre Gitton, Enjoy Moorea’s owner and guide extraordinaire. I board Pierre’s 4X4 pickup truck and he...
Part 11: THE ROAD TO TAHITI: AUKENA AND HIKUERU From Hikueru to Eternity “Aranui” can be translated as “the Big Highway” and Aranui 5 is on the road back to Tahiti. Since we shove off from Pitcairn Island, a UK overseas territory, and arrive the next day at Mangareva,...
Part 10: PITCAIRN ISLAND Bounty Hunter on Pitcairn Island Residents of the planet’s tiniest inhabited island and smallest self-governing political entity are extremely unique, as is their 2-mile-long by 1-mile-wide tropical realm. The progeny of the Polynesian women...
Part 9: PITCAIRN ISLAND Picaresque and Picturesque Pitcairn Upon arriving at Bounty Bay, all Aranui 5 passengers are given tokens, not unlike those straphangers previously dropped into turnstiles to gain egress to New York City’s subway. Pitcairn Island, too, has mass...
Part 8: PITCAIRN ISLAND So Close, Yet So Far? After departing Mangareva, everyone aboard Aranui 5 – from passengers to crew – must submit to the voyage’s second obligatory covid test, no exceptions. The first swab for the swabbies, of course, had been taken a day...
Part 7: PITCAIRN ISLAND Mutiny on the Bounty It’s full steam ahead aboard Aranui 5 to the raison d’etre of this far-flung voyage through French Polynesia’s remotest isles and atolls as we near way off the beaten track Pitcairn. The legacy of and lore surrounding this...
Part 6: THE GAMBIER: MANGAREVA Remembering Rikitea After visiting flat atolls of the Tuamotus and then a day out at sea, the appearance on the horizon of the Gambier group, with its high islands, emerges as a sharp vertical contract to the previous days’ horizontal...
Part 5: THE TUAMOTUS: AMANU Amanu Atoll, South Seas Serenity Our voyage to Pitcairn Island continues as Aranui 5 sets sail from Anaa for Amanu, another one of the far-flung 80 atolls spread out across the world’s largest archipelago, the Tuamotus, a vast expanse of...
Part 4: THE TUAMOTUS: ANAA For Whom the Atoll Tolls Our voyage to Pitcairn Island commences as Aranui 5 shoves off from Papeete harbor and glides past magnificent Moorea. This is actually the fourth incarnation of the Compagnie Polynesienne de Transport Maritime’s...
Part 3: TAHITI Paradise Lost – and Found At San Francisco Airport I enjoy a filling lunch at the comfy United Club lounge. Relaxed, I then board a United Airlines nonstop direct flight for my 15th visit to Tahiti since the 1970s. I luckily have an entire aisle to...
Part 2: THE ROCK The Big Lockup After Ranger Benny’s presentation about Alcatraz’s political prisoners, I climb uphill (trams are available) past cannons, barb wire and beneath a water tower to the main facility where audio equipment for “Doing Time: The Alcatraz...
