My Tahitiis land hops
Gloriously remote atolls await on this exotic and luxury Polynesian cruise, says Jo Knowsley
WHEN the French postimpressionist Paul Gauguin fled a life of poverty in France for Tahiti in 1895, he discovered dramatic volcanic landscapes and an ancient way of life that was to inspire his greatest work.
enraptured by the beautiful women (he had left his wife and five children back in europe and married a local girl aged just 14), he created paintings of verve and brilliance.
Tahiti, most famous for Fletcher Christian’s Mutiny On The Bounty (Marlon Brando, who portrayed the rebel, was so smitten he ended up buying an atoll) has become popular for pearl fishing and as a starting point for cruises.
But on the tiny flat atolls, and inland on lush, verdant islands such as Moorea, Nuku Hiva, Bora Bora and Huahine — volcanic beauties made up of lagoons and cloud-covered peaks — islanders hunt, fish and live in a way that has altered little for centuries.
All this lay ahead of us, as my partner Oscar and I boarded the Oceania Cruises ship, Marina, on Tahiti, to join 1,200 other guests on its Pure Polynesia cruise of seven remote islands.
After taking two long haul flights to get there (London to Los Angeles, then another to Tahiti’s capital Papeete), we were desperate for sunshine. And we got it, together with balmy temperatures of about 27c. The Marina has seven restaurants, including a French, and Italian, and the prestigious, La Reserve, where groups can savour seven degustation courses. We spent one evening there alongside 12 others and lively local dances (think Maori haka) proved a blissful interruption to the endless food.
On the ninth foor of this 15storey behemoth (considered a medium sized ship) our verandah stateroom was a sanctuary — and the personal service incredible.
I even had a sandal, with a freshly split sole, repaired by staff who arrived, in minutes, with a silver tray holding a tube of glue. With such on-board luxury (one guest was so enamoured with the Lalique staircase he had it copied for his home) there was no need to leave the ship — and some guests never did. Older couples — the women often with that slightly surgical, windblown look — were often content to do the on-board cooking courses, walk the deck, or relax in the spa. One American woman I met (most of the guests were from the U. S.) had been on this trip five times and preferred to stay aboard with her