French Polynesia day 12

                It was double adventure day, as we were taken out to a giant manta ray cleaning station.  These behemoths, with up to 20 feet of wingspan, come in to a place just across from our motu each morning to have a kind of underwater spa treatment.  There, small cleaner fish pick off the parasites that have accumulated on the massive bodies.  Nature has two objectives in this activity:  the good health of the mantas and breakfast for the cleaner fish.  That the mantas and cleaner fish know when and where to meet is just another of her many miracles.

            With masks, snorkels, and fins affixed in anticipation, the pilot of the boat gives the word and all eight of us roll over into the water to take a look.  The water is at least 20 feet deep, with a fair current, so it is a strenuous activity to keep up with these giants.  They are as graceful as any ballerina, gliding through the water with those magnificent wings.  We stay until we are nearly exhausted.  At one point, Gerald from Poe Iti, who is ferrying out another group of snorkelers, pulls up and gives me a free tow back to the action.

Two mantas at cleaning station

Charlie filming one of the mantas

(movie compliments of Arnaud, one of the other guests)

What Charlie was filming

            Back at the pensione to shower and change, we headed over to the main island for the second endurance test of the day.

Mountain at the south end of Maupiti

            Camille, one of the owners of the pensione, had arranged for bicycles; we had been told that it would be a great adventure to climb a mountain that looked down on the monster you see in the photo above.  I thought I detected a glint of wickedness in his eyes as he gave us directions to the path upward.

            The tallest mountain on the island of Maupiti is Teurafaatiu Mountain.  Loosely translated, the Polynesian word teurafaatiu means “killer of old people and young fools”.  This mountain rises 1200 feet above the sea, and the path to the top is sometimes rocky, sometimes slippery, and always challenging.  We needed to be at the top within an hour in order to make it back down before the only restaurant on the island discontinued lunch service at 1:30.

View from one tenth of the way up Teeurafaatiu Mountain

            A quick reference to the mountain climbing chart designed by sports doctor Jonathan S. Meriwether will inform anyone who cares that the normal one hour vertical ascent limit for a 66-year-old man is 625 feet; the limit for any person not in superb physical shape is 1,000 feet in any one day.  We would have been wise to consult the chart before making this particular ascent.  That would have led to another day of underwater photography in the crystalline lagoon in front of our pensione.  But in any event, we were not about to let a couple of twenty-something honeymooners get to the top of Teurafaatiu Mountain without us.

 

 A faraway view of Poe Iti on our first motu

            Dear reader, if you are ever challenged to climb up 1200 feet in elevation in one hour, along a narrow, dangerous, twisting path—parts of which can be scaled only with the assistance of ropes anchored in the rocks—you would be wise to politely decline the challenge as one issued only to fools.  As you may be able to tell from one of the photographs, we were soaked by the time we reached the peak, and it was not from rain.  My tee shirt was so full of perspiration that I had to swim in it later just to get some of the moisture out.  The half gallon of water we took with us did not last the trip, and we ordered four more quarts at the restaurant down below.

We made it!

 Looking down on the second highest mountain

            Just as we reached the peak, we could see a rainstorm heading in from the north, and we knew a wet trip down would be far more dangerous than the climb.  So we quickly snapped a few photos, and took another hour to get back to Polynesian civilization.  The view was just incredible; looking down on the mountain we had photographed on the way over made us feel we were dreaming.

            At the local restaurant, our fellow traveler Charlotte translated to the owner our offer of a present from Georgia, one of the kind we have spread around the world in local hangouts.  Next time you are here, let the owner know you are familiar with Camden County, Georgia.

Presenting a Camden County tag on Maupiti

            We biked all the way around the island, stopping at a most beautiful palm-lined beach for a swim, before returning to our pensione for another great meal, several tablets of Ibuprofen, and about 14 hours of sleep.  Oh, God, the pain!

Charlie and Tricia

©2012

French Polynesia day 11

With further regard to the human history of Polynesia, after the Spanish priests threw up their hands, the London Missionary Society gave it a try, beginning in 1797.  This crowd was a little more convincing, although it took the next 15 years to convert King Pōmare II of Tahiti to Protestantism in 1812. Not to be outdone, the French sent Catholic missionaries to Tahiti in 1834; they made it two years before being thrown out.  This really ticked off the French, who sent a gunboat to rattle the local cages, and France declared Tahiti a French “protectorate” in 1842.  The fact that nothing saved souls faster than the point of a gun gave rise an onslaught of Catholic missionaries could return and continue proselytizing.

Meantime, noticing that no other country was much interested in the conquest of the South Pacific, France annexed Tahiti in 1880, moving its status up to colony.  We can only imagine the celebrations that took place when the natives were informed of this upgrade.

During the decade that followed, finding they could get away with most anything in Polynesia, France first claimed the Tuamotu Archipelago and then decided the entire Marquesas Islands were French.  When they found the islands of Rimatara and Rūrutu had been turned down for protection by the British, those islands, too were annexed.  Pretty soon France considered itself the owner of about a million square miles of ocean and islands, and since the British, Spanish, and Portuguese had their hands full trying to run the rest of the world, there was no one left to go to war over the question.  Before you knew it, the natives had all started wearing clothing and totally abandoned the practice of partial nudity in public.  Downright hypocritical of the French, when you think about it, if you have visited any of their beaches in Europe or the Caribbean.

Believe it or not, many Polynesians actually fought against the Japanese during World War II, even though they were unaware of the Japanese plans to do a little annexing of their own.  To show their gratitude, the French granted everyone French citizenship at war’s end and upgraded the place again, to overseas territory.  They didn’t get around to calling the islands French Polynesia until 1957, which might have been buttering up the locals for future testing of nuclear weapons.  In 1962 Maruroa atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago became the main site for seeing how hydrogen bombs would work—just in case someone thought France would be worth invading again.  When they found out the bombs worked, they discontinued testing for a while.  But just to make sure, they picked Fangataufa Atoll to blow up in the mid-1990’s.  This teed off the whole world, so they finally stopped the testing in 1996, and to please the locals, gave them another upgrade in 2003.  French Polynesia is now a “democratic French overseas collectivity” without any meaningful political power.  But that discussion will have to wait for another day.  You have been holding your breath to see what exciting things have been happening on Maupiti.

We bade farewell to Poe Iti this morning, as Gerald ferried us to the next motu south, dropping us off at Kuriri, where we will be spending three nights.  It is an exciting place.  Three other couples are here, all French; two of the couples are young honeymooners.  We have not decided whether to read them our description of French involvement in French Polynesia.  They appear to be the rather serious types.

 Saddled butterflyfish

Striped large-eye bream

Threadfin butterflyfish

Spotted eagle ray

Samurai squirrelfish

 

We roamed the beach, snorkeled, enjoyed the beauty, had two more great meals, and went to bed.

Tiapa’a motu, our home for the next three days

New digs at Kuriri

Charlie and Tricia

©2012

French Polynesia day 10

            Poe Iti, our residence for two nights on Maupiti, is located on one of the motus surrounding the main island (you do remember that motus are sand islands just inside the outer reef?).  It is another paradise, with hosts José and her husband Gerald taking care of us as if we were royalty.  The meals consist of several kinds of fish with sauces from curry to coconut, accompanied by fruits of every description, breads, rice, and anything else you can think of.  In fact some things you can’t think of.  Like homemade taro ice cream for example, which we had at lunch today.  The deep purple color (the color of royalty, you recall) was deceiving, as the delicate taro flavor almost took your breath away.  Sublime.  Transcendent.  Inspirational.  We should come back later for another pint or two.

Orangespine unicornfish

Night sergeant

Scissortail sergeants

 Queen parrotfish

            The morning was spent snorkeling and photographing more beautiful, exotic fish inside the outer reef.  The afternoon was spend walking along the completely deserted beach three miles or so, picking up beautiful shells.  Tricia made some photos.  This is all you get today.  We are zonked.

Jose making fragrant necklaces

Strange crab on the beach

Looking across at the main island

Snorkeling area behind Poe Iti

Charlie and Tricia

©2012

French Polynesia day 9

                It was another moving day, and the clouds above Bora Bora turned overcast as we imagined we could hear them saying, “we waited for you to leave so your visit here could be perfect!”  We drove around, had a last lunch at a snack bar aside a beautiful beach, scooped up a bit of sand to remind us of the place, and caught the ferry to the airport before boarding a plane to Maupiti.  The clouds hung low and we got out first rain shower as Gerald ferried us to Poe Iti, situated on one of the motus facing a beautiful bay and the central island of Maupiti.  He had greeted us at the airport with two necklaces of incredibly fragrant flowers, and we made the only great photo of the day in front of our new bungalow.

Beauty and bungalow at Poe Iti

            While we relax after a huge dinner in the beachfront dining area, it’s time to tell you a bit of the human history of these incredible islands (by the way, you wouldn’t believe the homemade coconut ice cream they serve after dinner here; it tastes more coconutty than the coconut itself).  While relatively little is written about the original inhabitants, they were surely the greatest oceanic navigators in the world at the time of their arrival in the Marquesas around 300 A.D., and until the time of the great European explorers.  Without compass, astrolabe, clocks, or even a system of writing, these ancient mariners crossed thousands of miles of open sea to discover and settle the most remote inhabitable places on the planet, including, later, Easter Island.  More than a thousand years after this migration from perhaps the Philippines or Indonesia, Europeans had trouble not only finding the islands, but returning to specific islands after their initial discovery.

            While none of the original Polynesian vessels has survived, descriptions of early Europeans, particularly Cook, showed them to be a cross between the canoe and the catamaran, with two hulls joined by connecting beams of wood on which were mounted platforms to carry supplies and perhaps people.  It is said that more than 50 people could travel on one of these, with whatever animals, plants, fruits and vegetables they could carry.  It is almost unimaginable that such a “primitive” people could cross thousands of miles of open ocean to make such discoveries.  Kind of puts the boat people from Cuba and other places into perspective.

            The islands were divided into chieftainships, and battles and raids occurred within the different island chains as manifestations for the desire for power and control.  Sound familiar?  There was a religion, and there remain the vestiges of a few places of worship, called marae.   And there was total inhibition in sexual matters and complete lack of respectable clothing on the part of the natives, particularly the beautiful females—a thoroughly disgusting state of affairs.  But after the European visits by Magellan in 1520, Wallis in 1767, de Bougainville in 1768, and Cook in 1769, the Spanish finally brought missionaries in 1772 to convert the heathens.  After three years they threw up their hands, and left.  It was up to the crew of Captain Bligh’s ship, who spent 6 months on Tahiti in 1878, to bring around the natives.  But as you recall, the lure of the South Pacific helped convince Fletcher Christian and his comrades to kick Bligh and his supporters off the ship, returning to Tahiti to partake further of the many delectable fruits available there.  16 of the mutineers decided to make it their home, while Bligh took eight of them and the ship to Pitcairn.  The eight were never brought to justice, but the ones remaining in Tahiti who had not been killed were rounded up in 1791 and brought to justice back in England.

            Anyway, more missionaries came and the marae were mostly destroyed.  The natives were converted to Christianity and required to wear decent clothing.  Then the French took over and the place has never been the same.  More about that next time.  You have had all the information you can take for one day, and it’s time to say good night.

Charlie and Tricia

©2012