SOUTH PACIFIC ADVENTURE – PART V

The first time we heard French spoken by the locals on this trip was in Luganville, Vanuatu. French is the second language in that country, a holdover from colonial times when the islands, then called the New Hebrides, were jointly governed by England and France. We had no difficulty finding people who spoke French in Vanuatu. As the Amsterdam docked in Luganville, a band played vaguely familiar tunes on instruments you’d see in the Ozarks: banjo, guitar, mandolin, and wash-tub base. The tunes sounded like a mixture of Hillbilly and Cajun; lively, and music to my ears. I wished I’d had the time to inquire and learn where the music came from, and why it sounded familiar.

Not surprisingly, people here in French Polynesia speak French as their first or second language, making us feel very much at home wherever we went. The day we visited Moorea, we took a tour of the island accompanied by our guide and driver, Mami, a sixty-something local who looked like she’d led an interesting life. Of course, I spoke to her in French and then it hit me: her accent sounds like the Cajuns of Louisiana! Of course, I have no explanation for these two observations but it does raise a question. How could it be that accents and music sound alike halfway around the world? Coincidence? Or something else…

The island of Moorea lies eighteen kilometers north of Tahiti. High school students and workers travel back and forth from Pape’ete by ferry every day. The view from the ship was spectacular. From the pier, Mami drove us to the belvedere, a high point of land that offered a spectacular view of Opunohu Bay and its neighbour, Cooks Bay. In the photo, our ship is on the left and the Paul Gaugin is on the right. We could see pineapple fields on the lower slopes of the mountain in the center. We stopped briefly at an agriculture trade school (lycée agricole) and this beautiful young lady served us fresh pineapple juice.

Moorea is definitely first-world. There are high-end resorts on the island, like the one shown in the photo below, and tourism is the most important industry. The coastal road is brand new and features nice cycling lanes on both sides. It’s a place we’d come back to visit; every bit as nice as Hawai’i.

Just before our round-the-island tour ended, a fellow passenger asked Mami if people of Chinese origin lived on Moorea. “Yes”, she replied. “And they own many of the small businesses.” Without missing a beat, Mami said: “For us Polynesians, family is everything. We are never alone. You won’t find any nursing homes here because families look after their parents. In the old days, we even buried our relatives in the front yard (dans la cour). For the Chinese, it’s different. Even if they have only one friend, they’re happy. As long as they have money.” Maybe not a politically correct answer, but a very informative one. It wasn’t the first time on this trip that we’d felt the culture clash between native and non-native.

Our next stop, Rangiroa, is a very large atoll, looking from above like a necklace of coral islands surrounding a central lagoon. The lagoon measures roughly 60 by 30 kilometers while the islands themselves are only about 500 meters across. Some 2,700 people live on the island in two villages on either side of the main channel between the ocean and the lagoon. The principal activities for tourists are scuba diving and snorkeling. I don’t do scuba and Elva doesn’t much like the water. Besides, having snorkeled on four of the top reefs in the world—off Belize, the Galapagos Islands, and Australia’s Great Barrier and Ningaloo Reefs—I was not likely to be impressed.

We chose to walk from the pier along the main road to the public beach where I had a dip. We stopped at a nice resort to see if we could get wifi in exchange for something from the restaurant. They told us politely to get lost! So, we asked at a small pension and were welcomed like long-lost family. The lady there offered us a large bottle of water and refused to accept anything in payment. Which one do you think we’d recommend? Some business practices remain a mystery to me.

The Amsterdam could not anchor in the Rangiroa lagoon as the water was too deep. Instead, the Captain punched in longitude and latitude and her engines and propellers kept her in the same spot all day, against changes in wind and currents. When the time came to leave for our next port of call, she turned and slipped out of the very narrow channel just as slick as could be. We watched from the Crow’s Nest Bar on Deck 9 as she shot through the gap, a pod of dolphins frolicking just off her bow.

Fakarava, the second-largest atoll in Polynesia and the administrative center of the Tuamotu-Gambier group of islands, was our next port of call. We found wifi at the local tourist information center and learned that our brother-in-law, Greg Pritchard, husband of Elva’s sister, Rose, had passed away the day before. It was not unexpected news as Greg had been fighting a long battle with cancer.

We walked through the village to the pretty Catholic church to attend Mass. The interior is brightly painted and decorated with shells and coral. We watched it fill as people came in, most of them in family groups, many of them greeting one another with a kiss on the cheek or forehead.

Mass was celebrated by laypersons, une Messe blanche, in both the local language and in French. The music was incredible; no need for a choir since everyone sang and the sound of their beautiful voices filled the little church. People were so joyful and we found the whole experience very moving. Our thoughts were of course with the Pritchard family. We wished Greg fair winds and calm seas on his journey and, for Rose and her family, good memories and the strength to carry on without him.

Back in the center of the village of Rotoava where most islanders live, I rented the best bike I could find: a ladies’ coaster-brake type with a seat broad enough for a brood mare and a grocery basket on the front. Elva was battling a bad cold and decided against the ride. With a temperature of 30 degrees C and a humidity above 80%, it was wedgie weather.

I headed North toward the Passe Garuae, the opening in the atoll through which our ship had entered the sheltered lagoon earlier that morning. I pedaled past the airport on a rough cement road and, when it ended, kept going on the coral track. The track ended at the Passe, at about the 10-km mark. I turned around and headed back, straight into a wall of water as the heavens opened. Jesus, did it pour! Looking like a drowned rat, I returned the clunker and paid the owner with a soaked 1,000-franc bill. She laughed at my misfortune and so did I.

Life is for the living and, on many days, it’s the simple things that make it interesting. While I didn’t join the many who snorkeled and saw coral, fish and sharks in the UNESCO Natural Biosphere Reserve around Fakarava, I had my own unique experiences. Two of them in fact! Adventures like these make travel memorable and me a very lucky guy!

Our last port of call on this voyage was the small town of Taiohae on the island of Nuka Hiva, largest of the Marquesas Islands. The twelve islands that make up this most isolated group in French Polynesia are home to about 10,000 people, and Taiohae is the administrative center. There were many reminders that we were very much in France: La Poste, Le Bureau du Haut commissaire, La Mairie, Le Lycée agricole, etc. Residents are French citizens, they vote in the French presidential election, and French Polynesia has two representatives in the Sénat. Quite a contrast with the citizens of American Samoa who have none of these rights.

We spent the day wandering around the pretty town, enjoyed excellent wifi and incredible views at the Pearl Lodge, and took advantage of our last few hours on solid ground before seven days at sea. Elva and I have learned through experience that getting to know a place on foot can be just as interesting as driving around an island, listening to a guide drone on in an accent you can barely understand, spouting trivia you’ll never remember. Nuku Hiva is known for its carvings, wood and stone. Some of the best are found in the church (shown in the first photo), and on a promontory overlooking the harbour stands the eight-meter monstrosity shown in the second photo. She looks like she means business, in both senses of the word!

Just before returning to the ship, I stood in front of a restaurant to see if I could connect to wifi. An employee came out the driveway, rolled down her window and, as we say on my island, put the run to me! They don’t like people stealing their signal. The people in the photo below had been doing the same earlier in the day. It’s what Elva calls “La chasse au wifi”.

The last seven days onboard the Amsterdam went by quickly. After breakfast on a sea day, we usually attended a lecture to learn about this part of the world. Some of what I learned in those lectures I’ve written about in this blog. I now know the difference between Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia, and a bit of the history and culture of the people who live there.

These people live with one foot on land and one in the sea. While we may see the Pacific Ocean as menacing and impenetrable, they see it as a highway, just as their ancestors did. In Taiohae, we spoke to a couple of guys at their boat club and they explained all about their pirogues, racing outriggers that hold two, three or four paddlers. At several ports, we watched guys in outrigger canoes race to catch a tender and, if their timing was right, coast on its wake all the way to the pier.

This has been an incredible voyage to a part of the world we knew very little about. We’ve enjoyed the people, the sights, the ocean and, of course, the weather. The highlights have been Hawai’i and French Polynesia. They are the two destinations we’d return to for a second visit. Fifty-one days may sound like a long time to be on a ship but it goes by in a flash. There’s always something to do, you meet interesting people, and you spend quality time together. In fact, one day for each of the fifty-one years Elva and I have been best friends!

As I take one last look at the Amsterdam docked in San Diego, it seems she’s sitting a bit lower in the water than when we boarded on October 28. And I think I know why. We’ve all put on weight! They should have weighed all passengers when we boarded, totaled the result, and did the same when we got off. Time to get back on the bike…