February 16 – Lundi – Manihi

I’m in my hammock. Awake and fighting the urge to jump up for the fourth time to go stroll on the beach and peer in the shallow water of the pass, where the black of the night has allowed the invertebrate fauna to make its weird and wonderful entrance in the crystal clear water. But it is late, this is but the first night on the motu, and the sun will come up soon, so I try to allow the rustling of the palm trees around to lull me to sleep. They sound so much like the patter of rain though that I find myself repeatedly peering from under the rain fly, to find yet again the only cloud in the sky the pale haze of the Milky Way. Reassuring as the clear sky is, I’m still a bit nervous; a couple of nearby passing squalls earlier in the day remind me that my shelter is yet to be really rain tested. And a windy rain test in the dark of night is not really an appealing prospect.

As I said, this is my first night on Motu Moemoe (dream in Tahitian), one of the many small islands forming the atoll of Manihi where I arrived earlier in the day.

[Manihi from the air]

I am here responding to an invitation to stay a few days on this private motu owned by a professional French couple, he retired military and she in the legal profession. I made the contact a couple of years ago through SEA, which this year grew to this invitation I was in a fortunate position to accept. My hosts warn me that a house is only under construction, but since I pack a survival kit of a hammock, a mosquito net and a rain fly, I insist I can rough it on my own if need be. Beyond this I know very little of what I’m about to find as I step out of the Air Tahiti plane and claim my luggage from a small hut constituting the airport. I called my host three days earlier and understand there should be someone with a boat here to pick me up and drive me to the motu. Some 15 passengers disembark with me, and, all save a couple, head to the adjoining pier where they board a few 20-odd foot open boats that roar one after the other out to absurdly green waters of the lagoon. I am soon alone, so I stroll to the small concession hut at the pier and buy a cold beer. This in hand I settle in for a wait in a patch of shade under a coconut tree.

For the record, by the way, this is something you should not do. I heard someplace a statistic that there are more people killed by falling coconuts on the Pacific Islands than there are by lightning strikes. Alas, the coconut fails to command the same respect as a good lightning storm and it's pretty hot in the noonday sun, so I take my chances and stay put. Eventually the beer and my patience run out, and I place a call to my host who apologizes and coordinates another ride for me. A boat arrives, and as we pull away from the dock, I am very aware how much the water connects this place, more so than in Rangiroa where most of the people live on two large motus. Here, the motus are smaller and every one I see has a house or two on it making it appear more developed than Rangiroa (in reality there are only 700 or so people living here). We speed by many examples of the industry that has created this development pattern; Manihi was a major center of pearl production until a precipitous decline in the price of pearls around 2003. Many of the pearl farms, visible by processing huts built on stilted platforms on top of patch reefs inside the lagoon, are now abandoned with their buildings decaying in the humid salty air.

We reach the motu after a twenty-minute fierce, jarring boat ride (one of many that make me fear permanent kidney damage) and I disembark to be greeted by the motu’s three occupants. My host welcomes me in a convivial French manner, and I also meet an American contractor, formerly of San Diego but now an expat in Tahiti, and the Tahitian foreman of the construction crew. We take a whirlwind tour of the motu, and I pick a spot to stretch my hammock in the sole, small group of coconut trees on the island. Afterwards follows a cowboy-style dinner in the one existing small building serving as the canteen, lodgings and storage for the construction effort of the main house.

And so I find myself in the hammock, shortly after sunset, contemplating the coming five days. I really don’t have any contacts here in the fishing community, thus I don’t have many expectations about what I can accomplish with the project. See here’s the thing: so far I have been hosted by maohi, or Polynesian, people. This has given me instant access to the massive family networks and guaranteed equally instant acceptance in the community. Now I am a guest in the house (metaphorically speaking…) of a fraani (French) popaa (white), so I will have to put my social skills to real use and try to make these contacts in a short few days on my own. Because there is this other thing: the French expats tend to have very little to do with the maohi society unless they married into a maohi family. And I have already caught some glimpses of the fact that my host’s relationship with the community here is pretty much commercial. He buys goods and services from people, but that is about it. No real conflict or anything, don’t get me wrong, but I’m afraid that staying on this motu will, by association, paint me with the same brush in the eyes of the good people of Manihi.

I start my campaign by talking to Teva, the Tahitian foreman the next morning. He is up with the sun, as am I, and I have some time to talk with him over breakfast coffee before the others get up. My few halting words of Tahitian make a good impression, and we soon have a rapport. He promises to talk to someone in the building crew who also fishes for a living about an interview, a fishing expedition and further contacts. So far so good!

[Wading a pass]

Later in the day Kenny the contractor invites me to take a walk with him into town, and I readily accept; I think we both yearn for an opportunity to discourse in a truly common language. I take the walk to be a playful reference to a boat ride, but Kenny is good to his word: we are going to wade into town, which is some three miles distant. See there are some four small motus between us and the town, each separated by a break anywhere from some 100 meters to 500 meters wide and about thigh deep. And it is a peculiar, beautiful walk. The passes feature a swiftly flowing current from the ocean side into the lagoon, and wading across them is much like fording a river. But a warm, sunny and altogether very pleasant river with plenty of fish who scatter away from my approaching feet! We chat on the way, and Kenny paints an interesting picture of the expatriate life in Tahiti (that’s where he lives with his Tahitian wife and kids). As in many other places I’ve visited, the expat community tends to hang out together, and I’m getting the sense that Kenny is not really adapting to Tahiti. He has a whole lot of North American expectations about how the world ought to operate that he elected not to check at the airport, but is instead carrying around like extra baggage as a small but constant source of friction for him. He is a very nice open kind of a guy with an easy horsing-around sense of humor, and I feel free to tell him as much in the few days I’m there. The first day, though, I am a mere vessel as Kenny’s floodgates open and he speaks pretty much non-stop for the entire day.

In town I go check out the fishing fleet (only one potimarara and assorted small skiffs) and the pass for any spearfishing activity, but since this is Sunday the village is pretty deserted save some kids playing on the street. The place completely lacks the charm of Tiputa; most of the houses are new pre-fab types ringed by ugly cinderblock fences, giving this place a sort of army camp kind of a feel. Eventually, with some provisions in our backpacks, we manage to hitch a boat ride back to the motu.

The second night is much like the first. I get up a couple of times to admire the stars, the palm trees still sound like rain and overall the experience has a kind of dream-like quality to it. I spend the second day snorkeling and helping with the construction, and Teva talks to Terri in the construction crew who promises to take me fishing with him. He also says he can arrange an interview with the man in town who runs the only fish weir in operation in Manihi. I also look forward to wading over to the next motu to talk to the owner of the small family-operated pearl farm there. Though not strictly fishing, this form of aquaculture in a place like Manihi occupies such an important role in the island’s economy that I’m very interested to hear about it from a first-hand source.

[Giant clam]

In the mean time I’m getting ready for another night under the stars with some trepidation, as there have been more squalls around today. My rain fly and hammock survived just fine, but none the less I use some dried palm fronds to create a bit more wind and rain shelter by weaving them together and hanging them to help block the gap between the rain fly and the ground. In these squalls the rain can come down at a pretty good angle and this ought to help. We’ll see…

February 5 – Jeudi – Papeete

As quickly as it started, my stay in Teahupoo is now over. Back in Papeete and on the ship for just a day, the past week seems positively surreal contemplating it now with the ship as a very familiar backdrop. The last two days consisted of another spearfishing outing, a trip to the Taravao fish market and a farewell soiree at the parish house.

The spearfishing trip incluldes myself, Jean, Estelio and Baby Maoni, a many-time French and Pacific spearfishing champion now in his seventies. He is incredibly spry, though, and has absolutely no trouble keeping up with his protégé Jean on the fishing front. He has these friendly twinkling eyes, and though, again, there is no shared language, we hit it off very well. We take off on his boat, a small outboard-equipped Potimarara at around six in the morning, heading south inside the reef. The itinerary has a little sightseeing and more fishing in it, and we begin by following the reef further around the island than I’ve been before. The weather is indifferent with some squalls and occasional rain around, but this, with the early morning light just seems to intensify the greens and black of the steep mountain sides to our left.



There is a portion of the southernmost Tahitit Iti where the reef actually stops for a while, where there is no reef crest to offer protection from the swell and the waves served by the Southeasterly trades. Before we get to this rough batch, though, the reef turns into the island, and we must cross a very shallow, coral boulder-strewn bit of the waters, and Baby slows the boat down amidst the surf that is now breaking everywhere. These are his home waters and, given that no prayers have been uttered yet, I try to relax and enjoy the show. He picks one particularly large swell, guns the engine and we leap over some boulders that seem much too close to the surface in the clear water. I clutch the camera and eye the distance to the shore to scope for a feasible bailout plan, but soon regret my timidity as we are, predictably, safely through.



After inspecting the sheer cliff faces, a cave opening to the sea, and a small steep-sided and incredibly lush bay, we turn around and head back North toward the reef. Running the same roiling gauntlet we stop just beyond, anchor the boat with what seems a purely symbolic small hook, and enter the water. I follow Baby as he fishes the edge of the reef, but soon start losing sight of him as he effortlessly glides down past 30, 40 feet. Eventually I give up trying to follow him and, sticking closer to the reef crest, content myself with inspecting the shallower reef instead. We get back around midday and clean the fish and the gear. Afterwards I take a small walk around Teahupoo as this is really my last day here.

The last evening turns into another party, thrown in my honor! More dancing and eating is followed by some farewell words and a dozen shell and flower necklaces are hung around my neck. Leaving seems like a cruel form of punishment.

The next day Estellio drives me to Keitapu’s house where I spend a delightful day with him, his wife Hillary and their two young sons. Keitapu takes me spearfishing on the reef in front of his house, and we enter the water via stairs leading down the six-foot drop from his patio to the water. I have a Pupuhi (speargun), a search image for Parai (a species of surgeonfish we’re after), some quick instruction as what not to do with the spear and we’re off. With a speargun in my hand I realize I must look at the reef very differently than my usual rote. Lots of diving on the reef looking at corals has really trained my eye to take in the fish as these mobile things that flit in and out of one’s field of view. Now I try to follow them, anticipate their moves. We arrive at the sport Keitapu has in mind, a 20’ deep section of the reef shoaling quickly so I can see the underside of the breaking swell to my left. He gets off the first shot just ahead of me and…a hit. Then another. And another. Turns out he is really good at this. It also turns out I am not. After many, many shots I manage to score a hit, but even then the fish seems only perturbed by the event as the spear somehow pushes it out of the way.



The consolation is some encouraging words from Keitapu and a first-hand initiation into the fine points of reef fish tasting. While we clean them, he cuts little morsels off the fish and I start understanding the vast differences both in texture and taste between the different species. Keitapu has shot about a dozen fish - half Parai and the other half a careful selection to illustrate the differences. The dinner is a truly exquisite affair with the Parai served raw as Poisson Cru with some lime juice, jalapeño peppers, garlic and a hint of salt. Needless to say all ingredients save the salt are from their garden. The rest of the fish are gently steamed to preserve the taste and texture differences. This is followed with a copious quantity of fresh fruit as Keitapu and Hillary warn me of the veggieless and fruitless future awaiting me in the Tuamotus. Once again I go to bed feeling like the day contained simply too much to fit in a mere 24 hours.

And now back on the boat. I invited Estellio and everyone else to come and visit the SEA ship in Papeete, and he was able to come together with some of the family and friends. Seven people in all, Estellio’s extended cab pick-up is loaded with three bunches of bananas, breadfruit, a box of avocados, papayas and some limes. Their gift to the ship!

Tomorrow it is off to the airport and to Rangiroa. I am to stay with someone named Hérve in the village of Tiputa, which is about the sum total I know about the immediate future. This has been an amazing week on all fronts, but now it’s off to the Tuamotus!

So it begins

Here’s something worse than a mere blank page. A blank blog. And very little idea of where to start the narrative. I’m writing this sitting in a plane over the snowy Midwest, having just started a journey that I hope will take me to far corners of the distant archipelago of French Polynesia. Relating how that journey goes is what this blog is all about.

I do have a more specific mission for these travels than just sight seeing. Through the generous support of a pretty remarkable foundation, I’m setting out to take a look at the relationship between the people of the islands and the sea. Specifically how, and to what extent, they still extract a living from the ocean.

My motivation to do this? I have been lucky enough to be able to visit some of these islands in the past five years, on board the Sea Education Association (SEA) sailing research vessel Robert C. Seamans. Approaching the islands as we do after a passage of some three thousand miles of naught but blue water, they present a startling contrast to the surrounding tropical ocean. Contrast in both the abundance and diversity of life familiar to everybody who has dived or snorkeled on a coral reef. The surrounding ocean, though, is among the least productive waters in the world – described by some as an ocean desert.

Nowhere else in the world I’ve visited have I experienced such a palpable sense of remoteness than on a Pacific ocean atoll island. On the big ones the lagoon that forms the center of the island is big enough to visually project just a horizon – the other side somewhere beyond it. So you realize that you are essentially standing on this pile of coral rock and sand with some palm trees and low shrubs offering a vivid green contrast to all the hues of blues from the sea and the sky.

It is beautiful, but you quickly realize just how hostile of a place it is all the same. With the high points maybe 8 feet above water, there isn’t much of a fresh water table. With all the sand, the soil is not really suited for agriculture. So you quickly realize that the people of these islands really had to understand how to extract a living out of the sea. Because in the final analysis that is all there is.

Today many of these islands are starting to sprout a tourist economy and the realities of life have changed rapidly in the past 50 or so years. All of these islands suffered horrible losses from disease in the wake of the contact with Europeans. The population today is a fraction of what it was when Wallis, Cook and Bougainville first visited Tahiti in 1767 and 1768. Today, the outer islands are still slowly emptying as young people seek the opportunities that Papeete offers. My mission for the next three months is to visit a few of these islands, talk to the fishermen and try to document what of the traditional fishing techniques that are still around.

So much for the introduction. During the next three months I’ll be writing more about the islands themselves, their culture, the politics, the fishing and natural history - essentially anything interesting I can get my hands on. I hope you tag along!