Bora Bora, blue lagoons and bird dances await those using the Aranui 5 to explore these captivating islands, writes
Nikki Macdonald.
All aboard
With distances of up to 1400 kilometres and expensive flights, the most efficient and economical way to see French Polynesia is by sea. The combined passenger/cargo ship Aranui 5 provides a good taster, visiting the coral atolls and blue lagoons of the Tuamotus, stopping in at celebrity favourite Bora Bora and exploring six of the dramatic and remote Marquesas Islands, with their volcanic towers and coastlines scalloped with hidden coves.
Bird dance
As the Marquesan culture has undergone a renaissance, two dances have re-emerged – the bird dance and the pig dance. The bird dance is a delicate, sinuous celebration of tropic bird flight, whereas the pig dance is violent and performed to the rhythm of drums and a guttural cry of ‘‘Ho, He’’. It’s particularly impressive under a 500-year-old banyan tree at an archaeological site.
Copra
The ubiquitous coconut palm doesn’t just provide juicy nuts and coconut cream. The crop is also critical to the islanders’ livelihood – the coconut flesh is dried, bagged and sold as copra, which is turned into lucrative coconut oil. It’s exported for food manufacturing and, locally, is turned into silken ‘‘manoi’’ for skincare.
Diving
French Polynesia’s coral-fringed lagoons are a diver’s delight. There’s great drift-diving riding the currents in passes that connect the protected lagoons with the open sea.
Eating
With wine and three-course meals at lunch and dinner, you’ll never go hungry. Food on board ranges from pasta and lamb racks to traditional Polynesian raw fish salad and goat with coconut cream.
Fakarava
Fakarava, in the Tuamotu island group, is famous for the concentration of grey sharks in its southern pass. Resident Mariana is obsessed with the deep, which she says is like the world above, without the construction. But the sharks are too numerous, and dangerous. She wants a reversal of the 2006 ban on fishing them. There are whales, too, from September and she sings to call them.
Gauguin
Troubled painter Paul Gauguin spent his last years at Atuona, on the Marquesan island of Hiva Oa. He bought land from the bishop and erected his famous ‘‘Maison du Jouir’’ – the house of pleasure – where he painted young girls and plied them with alcohol. The house is a replica and the museum on the site is bizarrely filled with copies of his paintings. Gauguin did not endear himself to the church and even today when locals place flowers on the graves in the hilltop cemetery they leave his unadorned.
Hiva Oa
Hiva Oa is home to the archaeological site of Ta’a Oa, where the ship’s entertainment director Nahau goes to reconnect with his ancestors. He calls it plugging in to recharge his energy. At the entrance, he lays out his flower lei as a gift to his tupuna.
Island Time
It might be lazy island time ashore, but the Aranui 5 runs to clockwork and the schedule is no holiday. You’re often ashore by 8am, having got up at 6.30am to watch the ship glide into its newest destination.
Jewels
Black pearls have been farmed in Tahiti and her islands for more than 50 years. Actually a more lustrous purple than black, they’re priced on size, colour and being blemish-free.
Ka Oha:
In Tahiti, locals greet you with a smiling Ia Orana, but in Marquesan the greeting is Ka Oha, reinforcing the culture’s similar roots to Maori.
Lagoons
Polynesia’s still, picture-postcard lagoons are found in the older Society and Tuamotu Island groups, which have been eroded down to low atolls. The younger, higher Marquesas are not encircled by coral reefs.
Mai Tais
Mai Tai means good in Tahitian so what better name for the national cocktail? But beware – they like these rum-fruit juice blends strong!
Nono
Like every fabled paradise, the Marquesas have their downside. Nonos are small biting insects, like sandflies. Also watch out for day-time mosquitoes, which seem to like archaeological sites.
Ori Tahiti
For the joiners of the world, there are daily Tahitian dance classes on board, culminating in a performance at the Polynesian evening.
Prison, island style
The jail on Nuku Hiva is reportedly