March 27, 2019

We woke up in Papeete, Tahiti, having arrived later last evening. It was a short jaunt from Mo’orea. There was a birthday card in the mail slot from Captain John Scott and crew. The morning temperature was 26°C, no wind and less cloud than yesterday. Before breakfast, we walked a few circuits around Deck 3 to see the port in daylight. The vendors in the open market were already for business at 7 a.m. We watched tugboats assist a container cargo ship dock and the fast ferry leave for Mo’orea.

As we left the ship, women in colourful Tahitian dresses, carrying baskets of tiare flowers, gave a blossom to each person as they descended the gangway. There were three buses loading passengers for the Tahiti: Around the Island excursion. Iza was our guide. The 43 seat Hyundai buses were air conditioned and equipped with seatbelts.

Our guide, Iza, gave us lots of information about Tahiti and its history during the 3.5 hour, 100 kilometer, route. Schools and businesses open at 7 a.m. during the week. Schools are finished at 2 p.m. and most businesses close about 4 p.m. The name Papeete means basket with water. French Polynesia consists of five archipelagoes – Society Islands, some of which we have visited this week; Austral Islands; Gambier Islands; Tuamotu Islands, where we visit Fararava tomorrow and Marquesas Islands, where we will visit Nuku Hiva in three days.

The first European to “discover” western Polynesia was a Spaniard in 1595, who found the southern Marquesas Islands, but his discovery was not pursued as there were no resources to plunder. The next European sailor in the area was Captain Wallis from England in 1767, then a year later, French navigator, Louis Bougainville arrived claiming the island for France. The flowering plant, bougainvillia, is named after him. When Bougainville published the journal of his voyage to Tahiti, it became a best seller and was translated into many European languages and started the myth of the South Pacific paradise. Captain James Cook learned of Tahiti when he was sent to observe the 1769 transit of Venus.

Tahiti has two parts – the larger island, Tahiti Nui and the smaller island, Tahiti Iti - which are joined by the 1.6-kilometer long, Isthmus of Taravaro. Tahiti Iti is mostly a farming community with no road which encircles it. On the tour we saw two McDonalds restaurants. Papeete’s population is about 30,000. It is the capital of French Polynesia which has a population of about 270,000 over all the islands and atolls. The languages of the Polynesia Triangle have roots in the Austral-Asian language that goes as far west as Madagascar and Taiwan, pre-Chinese, and extends to New Zealand, Easter Island and Hawaii probably originating in the Samoa and Tonga islands.

During the early 1800s British protestant missionaries brought Christianity to the islands, but some islanders resisted the new religion. Ten years later the French sent Roman Catholic missionaries and the Marquesas islands were annexed by France. By 1880 Tahiti had become a French colony. The island homes on the east coast are squeezed on the narrow strip of flat land between the beaches and the mountains.

The first stop of our island tour was the former location of Queen Pomare IV’s palace, where today stands the French Polynesian Government Assembly headquarters built in the early 1960s. The old wooden palace was demolished since it was too infested with termites to save. A new City Hall was built using the old palace’s design, but on a slightly smaller scale. Its private garden includes a pond and trees and plants that grow on the island. We saw an ornamental white ginger and a guava bush. The hibiscus flower is yellow in the morning and turns its red orange colour in the afternoon. The north and east Tahitian coasts are not protected by coral reefs.

We proceeded out of Papeete passing the rebuilt Hotel Tiare Tahiti. The painter Matisse painted several scenes of the harbour from his hotel room there.

Then we proceeded along the north coast to the James Norman Hall Museum. James Norman Hall was an American who settled in Tahiti after World War 1. During the war, he served in the British army, but was released after his false Canadian identity was discovered and later joined the American army air corps flying in Germany, where his plane was shot down. He wrote the trilogy of The HMS Bounty and its crew. The first book was “Mutiny on the Bounty” written in 1932 and was made into a black and white movie in 1935 starring Clark Gable. The 1962 colour movie starred Marlon Brando, who lived in Tahtiti. Another movie was made in the early 1980s with Mel Gibson. That scene play kept the closest to the actual events. William Bligh, the captain of the Bounty, had been a navigator on some James Cook’s voyages.

Next stop was the scenic lookout – Belvédère de Tahara’a. Here we looked over Matavai Bay to see the distant city of Papeete and our ship. We had a good view of Mo’orea, where we visited yesterday, a cross the Sea of the Moon.

Our next stop, Venus Point at Tetauroa, was further along the coast. It was here in 1769, that James Cook and astronomers and scientists waited two months for the transit of Venus. They built a small fort to enclose their scientific equipment to protect it from curious Tahitians. Today there are several monuments to historical events and people can surf, snorkel and swim from the black sand beaches. Also located here is the only lighthouse on Tahiti.

Continuing along the east coast we passed the Mahina Church with a cemetery. It is in the region called Papenoo and here the surfing is good all year. We saw a few dozen chickens in a farm yard and nearby in a field we saw a small herd of goats. The bus passed through a light mist as we drove to the Restaurant of Gaugin Museum for lunch. The Paul Gaugin Museum is no longer open due to lack of funds to operate it. The Restaurant was an airy structure with its windows wide open to allow the sea breeze to naturally cool the place. We were served a buffet lunch – marinated raw tuna in lime juice, barbecued chicken, barbecued fish, pasta salad, fresh taro, cooked beans and carrots, steamed white rice, boiled half eggs, pieces of breadfruit, pieces of starfruit, coconut cake, chocolate pie and apple pie. The tables held 4 or 6 guests. On the water side of the restaurant was a fenced off body of water with up to meter long fish, some black and some a light blue swimming in the shallow water. There was a nice garden and pond on the property. Steps 10,109

Next, we travelled to the water Gardens of Vaipahi. Iza took the group through, explaining the different plants. We saw the orange red flowers of the pagoda plane in their cone shape; pandani trees, the leaves of which are used in thatching roofs; avocado trees; the ornamental white George ginger plant; red flowered ginger plants; a pink laurel flower; tall bamboo; red palm or lip stick plant; a rubber tree that resembles a banyan tree and other tropical plants. There was a waterfall into a pond with lilies and other ponds where there were two white birds swimming in the water.

The Fern Grotto Caves of Maraa where Captain Cook visited and Paul Gaugin mentioned in his book Noa Noa, were not included in the tour as originally presented.

On the ride along the west coast back to Papeete, Iza explained about the pearl industry and how to tell the quality of the black pearls, which are not truly black, but charcoal with hues of blue, grey and green. Flaws are graded from A 1 or 2 flaws to D with many flaws. Lustre is determined as how shiny the pearl looks. The larger the pearl the more expensive it can be, with 8 to 10 mm being the average size. Some shapes are more desirable than others. Round is most common, with teardrop being less desired.

We returned to the ship with 30 minutes left before the open market a block away would close. The ground floor has an assortment of stalls with fruit, vegetables, bouquets of flowers, meat and cheese and jewelry. The second level has more jewelry and pareo (cloth wraps or saorngs) shops with a great variety of patterns and colours to choose.

Sail away was 5 p.m. to travel to Fakarava overnight. We followed a familiar evening of dinner with Susan, Jeff, Carol and Dennis, the six of us playing Trivia – we scored 11 and then climbing to Deck 11 to the almost empty Crow’s Nest Lounge to play Five Crowns. Carol won again. The entertainment at 8 was the BBC documentary Plant Earth part 2, with the ship’s band accompanying the show, we all passed on the show.

Larry and I went out on deck to look at the stars of the Southern Hemisphere and could see bright stars and even some faint stars, but did not know where to look to find the Southern Cross. The temperature was a warm 28°C. When we returned to the stateroom there was a tray with something under a silver cover. It was a 4-inch square of chocolate birthday cake with fluffy light white frosting and a chocolate strip with Happy Birthday written on it. Also provided were two bread plates, napkins and forks and knives. It was a nice end to the evening.

Steps 15,268