Travel around Tahiti   Sunday, 20/08/2023

All has been going well! I hired a small car from Hertz on Friday morning and had it for two days, giving me plenty of time to travel around the island. In fact I drove around twice – the coast road goes right around, over a distance of 72 miles (114 km). This was mainly due to weather – I wanted to visit the highlands of southeastern Tahiti but low cloud came in on Friday lunchtime, so I postponed that to Saturday morning.

In effect, Tahiti is two round islands, one (Tahiti Nui) larger, and the other, to the southeast (Tahiti Iti) is smaller. They are joined by the isthmus of Taravao. In total, the island is 400 square miles (1,000 square kilometres). Almost everything is on a narrow strip around the coast – the centre of Tahiti Nui is mountainous and largely inaccessible except for a few 4×4-only tracks. The centrepiece is Mont Orohena, which is 2,241 metres (7,352 feet) high. 

It’s beautiful. Great beaches and inland all forested. Yesterday I visited the Water Gardens, which is basically a botanical garden. Even better, it has a couple of trails going up the very steep hillside through forest. I took the shorter one, about an hour’s walk up as high as 190 metres. What was interesting was that at about 110 metres above sea level the trees changed from tropical to pine forest. A beautiful view from up there. 

There are numerous waterfalls coming down. On Friday I was at Fa’aruma’i Waterfalls – three falls, each on different streams, very close together. There was a decent amount of water coming down, even though August is the driest month – with an average of only 48mm of rain, while January is the wettest with 340mm. They must be huge in the wet season.

One place I visited was an old house, now a museum to the American James Norman Hall who co-wrote The Mutiny on the Bounty, which was then turned into the very successful 1962 film starring Marlon Brando, Trevor Howard and Richard Harris. The house was not large, but was interesting partly for the fact that a film crew were setting up to film something, and for the lady in charge. She was a real character – early 60’s, chain smoking roll-up cigarettes, half-Polynesian but speaking with a Home Counties English accent because she had been sent to school there…

There is a wonderful beach down the west coast called Plage Vaiava. It stands out because it is a white sand beach; most Tahitian beaches are black sand (volcanic). The beach is shallow far out because of an outlying reef giving it shelter. There is fantastic snorkelling to be had in a depth of 5 to 7 feet, with an absolute maze of coral outgrowths. Swimming through them is like being in a  series of passages and rooms. A huge number and variety of fish. I liked it so much on Friday that I returned late afternoon on Saturday. At one point a young French boy called to me “Monsieur, Monsieur!” – I swam over to him and he gestured below: and there 5 feet below us was a massive serpent! In reality a moray eel, a good 5 feet (1.5 metres) long and at least 6 inches thick. Its body was draped under some rocks and it was just looking up at us, opening and closing its mouth. It seemed perfectly fine with us being there. I looked online last night and discovered that yes, moray eels aren’t aggressive and won’t attack humans. However, they have ferocious teeth and a few people have had fingers bitten right off because they’ve interfered with them, trying to get too close to take an underwater photo or whatever. So basic common sense applies, as with most animals – don’t get too close, and certainly don’t make the creature feel threatened, and all is fine. (Great White sharks and certain snakes are exceptions to this rule!).

Aside from travelling around, I’ve been having quite a sociable time in the marina. A neighbouring boat has three great people: Keven, an American pelvic surgeon, his daughter Abi, a marine biologist, who grew up in the US and New Zealand and is now living in the UK, and the young New Zealander Jordan who I mentioned in my previous post, who is a public librarian. Great people, full of life and active interest in everything. I had drinks with them on Friday night and have had multiple conversations with each of them over the past days. Unfortunately Keven and Abi are leaving this evening, going back to their respective jobs in Oregon and the UK, but Jordan is staying on and his girlfriend is arriving tonight.

One advantage of having a car was the ability to really stock up on food and other essentials (e.g. beer!) at a large out of town supermarket. This means that I am now well-provisioned for onward travel, which will be very useful in small, lightly-populated islands. I intend to leave here on Friday, making a short overnight trip 127 nautical miles northwestwards to Raiatea, which like Tahiti is one of the Society Islands. So hopefully I will have something entirely new to report in about a week’s time.