February 1st – Dimanche – Teahupoo

On Tahitian hospitality.

I am writing this late in the evening of another amazing day. No fishing, no water-based adventures, but cultural immersion instead. Last night was the birthday of Gineta, my hostess here. Her family and friends gathered around to celebrate. Present were some thirty people - sisters, in-laws, friends, all with kids of varying ages. But before I get to that, I should describe the situation here a bit better.

My hosts are Estellio and Gineta, a couple in their late forties/early fifties. They have three kids, and formally live in the town of Taravao about a fifteen minute drive away. Estellio works for the Service de Peche (fisheries service), and has generously promised to both arrange for housing and some contacts with the local fishing community. Gineta does all the cooking and together they take care of the Parish House. Indeed it was Estellio who largely built this house and, because of the small size of the congregation (only some six families), has somewhat the run of it. He prefers this place to his house in Taravao in that it is directly on the water in a setting reminiscent of his home on the atoll of Rangiroa. And after being here a couple of days I can only concur – this is a very nice little corner of paradise. Together they maintain the kitchen, work the orchards around the church, and generally keep the place up.

Since I arrived there has been a steady stream of friends coming and hanging out during the afternoon hours. Jean, the spear fisherman, and his wife Joana are here quite a bit as are cousin Louisa and her husband, the deacon Ernest. You put these six people around a table and what follows is much hilarity. I understand absolutely none of the rapid flow of Frehitian (French and Tahitian mixed evenly), but the peals of laughter are enough to bring a smile to my face. Everyone seems absolutely nonplussed by the presence of this strange person in their circle, and I quickly relax and am content to try to snatch a few words of the conversation here and there.

Right, and I should mention that Jean and Joana are complete Elvis nuts. I mean name-your-son-Elvis kind of Elvis nuts. Jean apparently in earlier life wore his hair Elvis style, and can do a mean Elvis air guitar complete with the moves. Why do I tell you this? Because the substantial boom box in the corner churns out a continuous soundtrack of Elvis. Elvis on infinite repeat. And not the young Elvis either I’m afraid, but the worst excesses of the Fat Elvis during the darkest moments of his Las Vegas career. I hope not to offend anyone by saying this, but a drug overdose seems like the next logical step for what pours out of the speakers. The juxtaposition of this and the life and people around me is something to behold.

Moving on, however, to the birthday soirée. The spread of the table was as lavish as it was broad in scope. The modern Tahitian family is a mélange of Polynesia and Europe, and accordingly on the table is everything from a potato salad to traditional Paumotu-style grilled fish. Potato salad being fairly familiar to us all, let me describe the traditional Tahitian end of the menu. The staples are uru (breadfruit), taro, various fish, coconut milk and, more recent additions, corned beef and baguette. The uru is roasted whole over a fire, peeled and served in chunks from which you break a piece of your liking with your fingers. Taro is boiled, with the coconut milk poured over everything on the plate. By the way, there are various kinds of coconut milk, none of which bear much resemblance to the Thai-style product found canned in American supermarkets. One variety is prepared fresh, tonight by the teenage girls. A fresh coconut is split and grated, the resulting pulp then squeezed through a cheesecloth to yield the product. It is lighter both in consistency and taste from the Thai variety. Another style is fermented for a few days and kept refrigerated, having a slightly tangy taste.

The fish. Where to begin? Prepared every imaginable way from completely raw with a bit of salt and lime juice to being tossed on the fire whole and turned until appropriately charred on both sides. In the case of Oiri, a species of trigger fish, the raw liver is inserted under the charred skin just before cooking is finished, the oily liver melting into the flesh for some extra flavor. Some fish are just tossed into the pot and boiled, others steamed, but in no case are any particular spices inserted into the cooking process.

Perhaps the most peculiar of these dishes is Fafaru. You start with some small fish, even lobster, which you place in a jar with some seawater. You then leave this jar sitting around sealed for four to five days – and did I mention the contents are dead at this time? You then carefully open the container and decant the liquid portion, this being the product (part A) of the process. Only then do you secure a perfectly good parrot fish (Uhu), tuna (Ahe), trevally (Paihere), or any other fish you might have on hand at the time. You then skin the fresh fish, fillet it into bite size morsels and pour part A liberally over the pile of it. Let the two mellow for few hours and…eat. Yes, I have tried it and yes, it does taste just as revolting as it sounds. Mind over matter, however, and if you avoid breathing and concentrate on Elvis crooning Moody Blue in the background you quickly realize that there are worse things in the world. I submit that this dish truly is one of the Kings of the Land of Acquired Tastes.

Overall Tahitian food is uncomplicated with subtle flavors coming wholly from the ingredients themselves rather than added spices or sauces. Provided you like fish it is really very good!

After dinner follows a performance. The young women of the family come out one after another to perform the classic Tahitian hula, complete with wreaths of flowers and colorful, not-too-covering dress. The dance is clearly and deeply part of this culture, yet I still find myself startled by the sensuality of the dance in this setting of family and friends. Clearly this is not Kansas, where a 16-year old girl would probably find herself grounded for a month should her parents see her perform a dance like this! The party goes on in a rather mellow way until about midnight as people drift off, leaving me eventually listening to the surf and the echoes of the mournful voice of Elvis still bouncing inside my head.

Sunday we go to church, where the priest does me the courtesy of saying a few introductory words and a summary of the sermon in English. Once again the generosity and hospitality shines through as after the service I am ushered to the head of the table, taking precedence even over the priest. He sits to my right and speaks very good English. We speak about modern Tahiti and the political troubles brewing in the Polynesian Assembly. After the breakfast preparations commence for an afternoon traditional family lunch/dinner, and I am ushered out the door with Louisa on an errand to do, well, I’m not sure exactly what, but options seem limited so I go along.

See, Louisa and I do not really have a common language. I mean there is a ton of good will and a real desire on my part to learn Tahitian, the intensity of which is only exceeded by Louisa’s determination to have me speaking fluently by the time we get back. Accordingly, she points out every plant on the roadside and loudly repeats the Tahitian name of each twice before moving on to the next plant we flash by in the car. I try to make the most of the opportunity by repeating each name twice, but the situation is utterly hopeless and my head soon swims with a cloud of syllables disconnected from each other; never mind of any particular meaning. My fallback position is the grin-and-nod routine. And grin I do, until it hurts. And eventually all the defenses and the verbal person gives way to a more primal grunting and pointing animal, and we establish some level of communication on this more limited plane.

So I get a tour of Taravao and its environs, the local schools, waterfalls, picnic spots, neighbors and relatives houses until I’m anxiously glancing at my watch as the hour draws past midday. We go to Louisa’s house to get some coconuts and mangoes, then to her daughter’s house to get some Taro and some other places for flowers and eventually I am emphatically pointing at my watch that now points at two o’clock. I get my point across and we get back to Teahupoo where Louisa is met with some reproachful looks from all the gathered family. Everyone has arrived, and much of the food is on the table; people had started worrying. I feel both mollified and indignant.

What follows is an eight-hour eating, drinking (not to excess), hanging out session during which I have time to talk to lots of people about, well, everything and anything. Lots of people want to hear about Obama. Some teenagers want to talk about the environment and their worries about Tahiti. Some people tell me about their relatives in LA and Hawaii. I hear about Jean’s older brother who went to Hollywood with the film crew of the Marlon Brando movie Mutiny on the Bounty some forty years ago as a very young man and had a career there. More dancing and eating until around eight o'clock people start drifting off and by 10:00 the place is silent. I sit up for a while listening to the surf on the reef and watching the lightning from a passing storm. Language may be an issue, but these people can certainly make one feel comfortable and at home.

January 31st – Samedi – Teahupoo

I am hanging on for dear life. My hands squeeze a wooden handle at the back of the very forward cockpit of a Potimarara, a boat built for harpooning Mahi Mahi (dolphin fish). The boat is some 24 feet in length, and equipped with a deep-V bottom and a 200hp Yanmar inboard/outboard diesel. It is leaping off a six foot wave to catch the next one. Water sprays outward in an impressive fan, but the boat has proven remarkably dry inside so far. Driving the boat in the peculiar stand-up steering well at the bow of the boat is Eric, a very deeply tanned muscular fellow looking very much the part of a Mahi-harpooning Tahitian boat captain. I have yet to really understand what Mahi Mahi harpooning really means, in practice, but by the whistle of the turbocharged engine growing more urgent and the boat positively jumping forward in hard acceleration, I have a feeling I’ll soon find out.

Some two hours earlier, around six o’clock, I boarded the boat at the local marina where the fisherman’s co-op has an ice-making plant and fueling station. Eric’s Potimarara is basically an open boat with the engine compartment aft and a large built-in ice box midships. The steering station is all the way forward, with a throttle next to the well and an eight-foot long fiberglass harpoon mounted on brackets on the forward deck. Steering takes place using an athwartships (left-right) lever instead of a wheel. Brilliant orange and yellow in color, the boat is in a good shape and very clean. Billabong surfing stickers adorn the sides and some other surfaces, overall the impression is of a hard used but well cared-for and loved tough piece of sea-going equipment.

After taking in some 60 gallons of diesel and four large sacks of ice stowed in the icebox, we proceeded down the channel inside the reef toward Eric’s house to drop off his wife. They live past Teahupoo in an area of Tahiti Iti with no road access. Some twenty homes dot the shoreline, connected to schools, shopping, etc by boats only. This looks like a very, very nice place to live. The mountains begin pretty much on the back stairs of the houses, the front yard is the lagoon behind the reef and the white picket fence is the surf beating on the reef some 200 meters distant.

We arrive at Eric’s house and dock by the gazebo at the head of his long, narrow dock. His son helps me hold the boat as Eric walks to the house with the shopping bags. The boy is some 8-9 years old, and we entertain ourselves wordlessly by showing each other knots we know; it appears that the bowline knot is pretty universally known. Eventually Eric re-appears and we dash off making well over 20 knots through the channel, coral boulders flashing by on both sides. A bit further we round the reef and stop. It is time for the prayer and over the low purr of the diesel I hear Eric say some quiet words. And then we are out of the pass and head toward the open, brilliant blue South Pacific Ocean.

Eric’s number one asset for fishing, his fish-finder as it were, are the seabirds. He follows the birds closely, occasionally stopping the boat and scanning the horizon with a pair of binoculars. We proceed this way at a leisurely pace for about three quarters of an hour, until he sees something promising. “Mahi Mahi” he exclaims and points at a group of birds maybe a half-mile away – and we’re off!

And so I find myself hanging on as we quickly approach the group of birds. When we get close he slows the boat down some and seems to be intently scanning the water. Apparently he spots something as the throttle opens again and we careen forward amidst the waves, banking hard from left to right and back again. Eventually looking forward I get a glance of the fish he is following with the boat. The bright yellow pectoral fins of the Mahi stand out against the deep blue of the ocean, and the big dorsal fin ripples the surface as the fish gracefully speeds just below the surface. At this point I sense that things are about to get busy, and so move back in the boat to avoid accidentally receiving a mouthful of the back end of the long harpoon. Bracing myself between the icebox and the side of the boat, I manage to get out the camera and proceed to try to get some photos of the chase.

A few more turns, a few more decelerations and rapid take-offs, and Eric’s hand goes to the harpoon. He steers with his left hand; works the throttle with the harpoon in his right hand and then… the throw is so quick I simply miss it. A thick nylon monofilament attached to the harpoon trails over the side, and he stops the boat. It seems so improbable that one could possibly hit a fish so quick with that thing, the boat bouncing in the waves and all, that I don’t immediately comprehend that there indeed is a fish at the pointy end of the harpoon. It is only when Eric leaps from the cockpit, motions toward the gaff at the back of the boat and starts heaving on the line that I get it. I pass the gaff to him and proceed to take in the events through the viewfinder of my camera. The view that unfolds is simply amazing. The fish puts up a fight, but once the gaff is in the fight is over. Eric hoists the fish up and I get a simply astonishing view of the big brilliant yellow fish. Once on deck, the fish goes into the reflexive escape swimming motion that looks more like a very rapid tremor than anything else. Eric reaches down and with a quick motion of his knife severs the artery leading to the gills. The fish stops, relaxes, and it is over.

Eric hoists it over the side and makes one incision in the belly of the fish. Through the gill operculum he reaches two fingers around the gills and twists them out along with some parts of the innards. Holding the fish through the operculum, he then thrusts a hand in the belly and neatly pulls out the rest of the organs and tosses them in to the boat. A couple of rinses and he lifts the fish into the icebox, spreading ice over it. He then sorts through the innards, keeping the liver and the two intact small fish in its stomach. A few buckets of seawater over the deck and the boat is ready for the next one. I am looking on, somewhat stunned at the speed and efficiency of the whole operation. I don’t know why I’m surprised, this is his profession after all, but the consummate skill that went into this performance is very impressive. We pause for a drink, and then it is off to find the next one.

Except there is no next one. The sun rises higher in the sky and Eric is clearly growing a bit frustrated. We cruise, stop, he scans the horizon. An hour, two pass like this, at times he curses “Aita manu”, no birds. And there aren’t any birds. Or there are some, a distant fairy tern, a few brown boobies and shearwaters, but not the flock he is looking for and not in the combination he is looking for. I later quiz him for what exactly does he look, but the language barrier allows me only to understand he’s looking for a combination of a white bird and a black bird.

One o’clock, and we are still at it, when he sees something promising. After the leisurely cruising pace he opens up the throttle and we take off, the turbocharged engine whistling at the back. He points to the horizon, explaining “Bonitiere”. Indeed I see another boat in the distance, our paths converging on a particularly large flock of birds. All stops come off and we bounce through the waves at what must be around 28 knots. The bonitiere beats us by a little; some 32 feet long and resembling a 1960’s east coast cabin cruisers, it still seems pretty fast. With several lines trolling behind, there appear to be about five people on board working the back deck.

We slow down on a parallel track and both follow a very large feeding flock of birds. Boobies, noddies, terns, shearwaters and petrels are all present in the mixed flock, each engaged in their own peculiar feeding behaviors. The boobies dive spectacularly head-long into the water, first gathering altitude, then folding their wings all the way back and plunging into the sea like a sliver of an arrow. The shearwaters plunge in with much less grace, while the terns dip down to pick at the surface while in flight.

Every so often there is a very concentrated spot of bird activity, the water is positively beaten into a froth by them. It is for these spots that both the bonitiere and we race, occasionally in pretty competitive fashion in close quarters. Eventually we end further apart and Eric whips the boat to one of these spots. We scare the birds out of the water, arriving almost on the top of them. Eric slams the boat into reverse and motions in the water. I don’t understand what he is saying, but there is this floating branch about 8 feet in length in the water and it seems like he wants me to grab it. So I do, and lift it in the boat while he leaps out of the cockpit and races to the back of the boat. Now he is peering behind the boat, then turns and, speaking rapidly, motions me to go to the controls and drive the boat slowly forward. At this point I am truly at a loss, but clearly want to help and so hop into the cockpit.

It is at that moment I learn where his muscles come from. The steering lever requires significant effort to move and it takes me a couple of moments to get the hang of the feel of the boat. I do manage, though, all the while looking at what Eric is planning to do with his damn stick. Except he isn’t paying the stick any attention at all, instead he has in his hand one of the six or so bamboo fishing rods from the back of the boat. The rod, about 7 feet in length, has about 6 feet of nylon monofilament line and a lure, and he is making the lure swim side to side behind the boat his gaze intently on the water. And then he jerks the rod back and flying through the air is a two-foot long skipjack tuna that lands in the boat with a resounding thud. He jerks the rod back and the lure flies out of the fish and back into the water. Maybe 15 seconds later another comes flying into the boat. And another. And another! And now I can see them, the fish darting behind the boat silhouetted against the curtain of bubbles thrown by our propeller.

There is a lull in the rain of fish. Eric quickly grabs another rod and proceeds to land a couple more. Then another rod and another couple of fish. On deck the dying skipjack go into the same escape swimming tremor, flapping and vibrating furiously, the deck covering with bloody froth as they bash themselves against the hard fiberglass. Eric pulls on a pair of wetsuit booties to protect his ankles from the beating, convulsing fish. And then, as quickly as it started, it is over. The feeding frenzy on the small fish that were trying to find refuge by our boat is done and the skipjack depart. There are well over a dozen skipjack between 20 and 30 inches in length on the deck, blood spattered everywhere and one by one the fish fall quiet. Eric catches his breath, and the proceeds to clean the fish with the same astonishing speed as the Mahi Mahi; a quick cut to the belly, two fingers around the gills, a twist, another hand in the belly, a pull and the fish is gutted and ready for the ice box. He hands me the fish, I stack them in the box, done. He then proceeds to clean the boat thoroughly, and together we finish the task in some ten minutes.


And with that, the catching is over. We continue tracking a large flock of birds for a while, but the birds themselves are looking. Gliding along the surface, there is an occasional fracas, but nothing much is happening and the birds keep moving further offshore. At around 1530 Eric turns the boat around and proceeds toward Tahiti Iti, now distant in the horizon. An hour and 20 minutes of cruising at about 20 knots gets us close to home. Near the reef we see another group of birds and detour to investigate. We get there, but to Eric’s dismay driving the small fish to the surface is not tuna but dolphins. We see them below us darting back and forth, occasionally breaking the surface for a breath. With this sight he quickly turns the boat toward the pass and home.

We arrive at the dock around five in the afternoon. Estellio is there to greet us with a couple of beers. The next day there is surf in the forecast, and Eric has some surfers chartering him and the boat for a day at the pass. With a good Tahitian handshake I say mauruuru, thanks, and head home my head still spinning from it all.

January 30th - Vendredi – Teahupoo

So here is the scene. I’m writing this from the verandah of the parish house of the Teahupoo’s St. Benoit catholic church, where I will be staying for the next six days. What you have to picture is a building of which 1/3 forms a large open space that opens directly to the sea. And I do mean directly, as there is but a ten-foot strip of gravelly sand between the balustrade and the water. Some half-mile distant is the reef, with the famous Teahupoo surf break about a mile away to the left. Behind the house and less than half a mile away start the deep eroded slopes of the ancient volcano that formed this island, now covered in the exuberant
lush greens of the Tahitian landscape. To say this place is gorgeous seems inadequate.

I just came back from the first outing, this with Jean Sulpis who is a local spear fisherman. Actually he is not making his living from spear fishing, but like many people around town he puts a lot of the food on the table by his spear gun. And did I mention his is good at it?


I had never really seen spear fishing first hand, and the term “fishing” here seems a misnomer. It really is hunting more than anything else, creeping on the bottom, using ledges and coral boulders for camouflage, waiting for the fish to come within reach. While holding your breath, of course… We got up at 0430 (in the dark), had a bite to eat and then paddled the va’a (outrigger canoe) to the reef cut. I ask Jean which way we are headed and he responds by gesturing primarily upward. This is followed by a brief stop during which he prays. I assume this is for a good catch, but combined by the previous gesturing and getting a good look at the surf on the Teahupoo pass, I increasingly dread it is simply for a safe return.


We slip into the water as the rising sun is casting its first rays over the mountains of Tahiti Iti. Jean immediately begins fishing, approaching the reef break from the shallow water to peek over the edge. He lies on the bottom motionless, at times using his hand to creep forward - the spear gun pointing forward and at the ready. I am so focused on him that I completely fail to see the fish his first shot hits – an Uhu, or parrotfish some 30cm in length. He kills the fish at the surface by a quick stab of the tip of the spear just behind the eye to the brain. He then threads the fish on a stout nylon line around his waist, and proceeds to go after the next one. Fish are scarce this morning apparently, and, before long, we have swum some distance from the anchored canoe. Jean motions me to go fetch it and tow it behind, emphasizing the motions with “la pirogue, la pirogue” (the canoe, the canoe). I sprint back, happy to be of some use.

At this point Jean abandons the reef edge and starts fishing almost in the surf. I guess I should mention something about the surf to those who, like me, know next to nothing about surfing. See, this is quite possibly the most famous surfing spot in the world right now. It is hard to appreciate it this early morning when the sea seems pretty placid. There is something about the reef near the pass, gently curving to an almost South-North orientation, that forms an almighty wave when the long swell from the distant Southern Ocean storms roll in. After all, there is naught but water between us and Antarctica (all right, some small islands I’ll be visiting later…) so the swell can travel long distances without disturbance. The Teahupoo wave, at its highest reaches well over 7-8 m I’m told, and is one of the places where the top surfers in the world gather every May to establish the rightful pecking order of surfing stardom.

Back to fishing, however! This monster wave leaves its mark underwater as well, flattening pretty much all growth forms of coral toward the reef crest, and scouring deep drainage channels into the reef matrix, running perpendicular to the reef crest toward deep water. It is these sheer-walled channels some one to two meters in depth that Jean is now fishing. Alas, he is doing it so close to the reef crest that even the present gentle 1 to 2 meter swell occasionally breaks right over him. I remain further seaward in deeper water with the canoe in tow, visions of the canoe catching a wave and being deposited in bits over the reef crest – with yours truly in tow – helping to enforce a respectful distance.


Jean’s fish count is now up to about 7 or 8, and we have swum a good mile down the reef. He comes to the canoe; we pile in and start paddling further south, toward the next pass and into the building wind and waves. I am proud to report that my watery education that commenced at an early age in rowing boats of the Savo-district in Finland comes handy, and I can produce a controlled movement forward in the canoe all by myself as Jean bails. I can only assume this is how he has always done things, but the canoe begins to feel more like those James Bond two-seater micro-subs, albeit man-powered, than a proper Archimedean vessel of conveyance. I paddle, he bails and we inch along the reef finally reaching the next pass and scoot in behind the reef. He makes some noises of relief and, with an international gesture, mops his brow with his forearm. I’m sensing he’s perhaps trying to impress me just a bit and this might not be his average day’s fishing journey.

He fishes the edge of the pass, approaching the very abrupt fall-off of the reef from about 2 meters depth to goodness knows how deep. I’ve never been a particularly good free-diver as a restricted eustachian tube means I can’t equalize the pressure in my ear fast enough to make it very deep. Jean, however, is truly impressive. He gracefully glides down and vanishes into the blue for almost two minutes at a time. He is from Ua Pou in the Marquesas Islands, and says over there they fish even deeper.

Eventually the sun gets high enough to put an end to his efforts – the height of day is not good for fishing. This time we are running with the wind in the protection of the reef and the paddle back to the house is a positive joy. We get back around 11:00 and sit down for a Tahitian breakfast of papaya (with some lime), avocado, baguette, coffee and fried fish. Not a bad start for the day!