17th August 2025

I left Bora Bora on a morning of very heavy rain.  I had been fortunate with the weather during my time there – while there were quite a few heavy rain showers, I was mostly out in the bouts of sunshine and it was pretty darn glorious when I did my excursions.  My Air Moana flight back to Tahiti stopped off in the neighbouring island of Raiatea on the way back, which seemed more of a down-to-earth tourist destination than super-glamorous and expensive honeymoon island just next door.  After arriving back in Faaa Airport (yes, that is indeed the correct spelling for Papeete’s international airport on Tahiti, although it is more accurately spelt in the local Tahitian language as Fa’a’ā, goodness knows how that is pronounced!), I walked back up to my first night’s accommodation to pick up my large backpack which I had left there.  The lovely hostess was so kind to also give me a lift to my next one for my three further nights on Tahiti, in the southern suburb of Puna’auia.  I checked this time into a very cosy “Tiny Home” there, with bed, kitchen and bathroom all in a one-room gypsy-style caravan – it was the perfect accommodation for me, and right up my street being all quiet and secluded.

After a short rest, I took a taxi to the nearby Museum of Tahiti and the Islands, and made a good connection with the lady-driver to arrange further journeys with her – call me sexist, but I find female taxi-drivers so much easier to trust.  While public transport seemed to exist in the city, I rarely saw a bus, and locals mostly said they never saw buses either, so I was unsure as to how that worked!  The Museum was interesting, with good information on the geological formation of the French Polynesian islands created over hotspots under the Pacific tectonic plate as it gradually moves over them.  There was also some good information on the fascinating ocean explorations of these expert Polynesian navigators of old, their history and culture, and the arrival of the Europeans from the 16^th century onwards.

On display outside was one of the very anchors belonging to legendary British explorer Captain James Cook.  It was apparently lost in 1773 in some strong sea currents during one of the three visits he made to Tahiti, and remained at the bottom of the depths until it was located, resurfaced and restored 200 years later in 1978 – I found that amazing!  The Museum is also located on the seashore, and I enjoyed a bit of contemplative wave-watching, contemplating as I often did on this journey the very fact that I was in such an exotic location again, this time Tahiti!  My reliable lady taxi driver then came again to take me back to a supermarket not far from my accommodation to stock up on my supplies in town – I even treated myself this time to some French brie and chocolate éclairs!  When in Rome, as they say, although this wasn’t Rome, nor was it France, but it was near enough!

The next day I took a ferry to the nearby island of Moorea, whose forested sharp mountain slopes just beckon the visitor to hop over the ten miles of water to explore.  I was heading there mainly for a swimming with humpback whales experience in the afternoon, with Moorea apparently being one of only two places in the world where you can do this.  It was really amazing, but not in the way I’d expected.

I was sooooo nervous about this, but booked it with the idea that it would probably be the only chance on my travels to be able to do something like it.  While I’d been able to bring myself around to snorkeling in shallow water and enjoying it, and while I’m in fact a good swimmer if I’m honest, I have a deep fear of being in the deep open water, particularly when you can’t see the bottom.  I had done it for the first time six years previously around Kicker Rock in the Galapagos Islands, and the image of a ghostly figure of a shark I saw out there flashing in and out of vision around 20 metres below me really scared me and stuck in my mind.  Particularly the thought that while you can’t see them, they can certainly see you!  I’ve also seen way too many shark films.  I didn’t sleep too well the night before, and had no appetite for my lunch before the trip.

Meeting the excellent guide, the question of sharks while out there swimming inevitably came up.  Apparently it’s not uncommon to be approached by a tiger, hammerhead or oceanic whitetip shark while out there.  It can happen once or twice a week, or every day – the chances of encounter are unpredictable.  He told us the advice to keep calm and not to panic, stick with the group, put your feet down in the water, and to face the shark at all times.  This didn’t make me feel any better.  He told me the story of a shark encounter a few years ago, when an Italian lady panicked and swam fast back to the boat, screaming and splashing – the shark swam in and attacked her.  She survived, but it must have been pretty scary.  He told me this story just to illustrate the importance of not panicking and sticking with the group, but it did not make me feel any better either.  I realised I was overthinking it quite a bit, and trained my mind to focus instead on the beauty of the island, the waters we were speeding through, and the amazing possibility of seeing the humpback whales rather than sharks – I had never seen humpbacks before.

On our trip out, we in fact saw humpback whales on two occasions, including tails when they dived!  I got some good photos at least from the boat.  We got in the water at the mandatory 100m distance away, to swim quietly over to them, and waited around on both occasions to see them while up close – both times they had unfortunately swum away by the time we got there.  On the second occasion, we also inadvertently swam into a school of small jellyfish, and the eight-year-old son of our guide unfortunately got stung, as did the other tourist swimmer.  He cried quite a bit, and I initially thought he’d seen a shark, so I was a bit spooked to start with.  There were three other tourists with me on this trip, along with the skipper, the guide, his son, and the guide’s friend.  The three tourists were a very friendly family from Florida, one of whom did the swimming, the other two were happy to stay in the boat.  We were thus a group of five swimming in the water, and I stuck with them at all times, trying not to splash as we went.

Despite not being able to swim with the whales, I still enjoyed the boat ride around stunning Moorea Island, particularly returning to port as it had gotten very choppy by then, and the captain played some excellent music with a booming base.  That was great fun!  I was so very proud of myself for challenging my fear and getting out there in the ocean deep.  It’s not something I plan to do again to be honest, and I learned the difference between challenging your fear and enjoying yourself, and challenging it and not.  This was the latter, and in future I think I’ll stick with the shallows and coral reefs.

The ferry back to Tahiti was also very choppy, and there was the most amazing sunset I think I’ve ever seen in my life, as the sun went down behind the jagged peaks of Moorea, casting very strangely coloured lights and rays over the mountain tops.  The taxi driver back to my accommodation was also very cool – I had no phone signal out there to arrange for my lovely lady taxi driver to pick me up, and instead went with one of the waiting drivers as the ferry arrived.  He said I had good mana (energy), and I said he did too.  He said that whenever he goes out into the water, swimming or on any kind of craft, whales follow him!  Now that is mana!  The New Zealand film “Whale Rider” sprang to mind!  He is him, he has aura!  He also seems to attract sharks too, and said he always swims with something long and sharp to shoo them away with.  Again, I felt so proud of myself for what I had done on this day, it seems that sharks are really quite common out in those waters.

The next, my final, day in French Polynesia, I had booked a half-day tour around the island of Tahiti.  It took me a while to find a tour agency that did this to be honest, as it seems most visitors arrive at Fa’a’ā Airport, and then jet off to other, arguably more beautiful islands.  I wanted to stay to learn more about this oh-so-exotically-named island, and was glad that I did.

After being picked up by a really great tour guide, I joined a group of four older travellers just arrived off a cruise ship – an American and an Australian couple.  They were mostly nice people, but I found the Australian lady really irritating.  Every time the guide told us something about the island, people, culture and so on, she would chirp in with saying what things are like back in Australia.  Honestly love, I didn’t come to Tahiti to learn about Australia, and I’m sure the guide couldn’t have cared less either.  When she began to answer herself some of the questions I’d asked the guide, I put my foot down and said quite abruptly “I’m sorry, I can’t hear what the guide is saying”, at which she stopped.  I met someone similar on my trip to Montenegro a couple of months later, also an Australian lady, which I will relate when I come to that.

Anyway, we stopped off at a number of places on our anti-clockwise tour.  Firstly, the Marae Arahurahu, an ancient place of worship and site of human sacrifice.  Apparently they only “sacrificed” enemy warriors who had already been killed in battle, which isn’t really a sacrifice let’s be honest!  Hardly anyone practises the ancient Polynesian religion any more, as most locals converted to Christianity with the arrival of the Europeans and their missionaries.  This Marae was dedicated to the Polynesian goddess of fertility, Haumea, and was actually a rebuilt temple that was re-constructed in the 1950s after the European settlers had dismantled it in the 19^th century.  The place had a beautiful, calm vibe to it – it had good mana, as they say around here.

Next was the Mara’a Grotto, a pool in a cave fed by water dripping through from above.  Then the beautiful black sand beach of Taharuu, with some surfers riding the crazy waves crashing just offshore.  Next up was the beautiful Vaipahi Water Gardens, with some lovely tropical garden views.  Afterwards we headed to the crazy high 80 metre Faarumai Waterfall, before stopping off for a bit at Point Venus, our final place of interest for the day.  This is a great place to observe the planet Venus apparently, as well as the landing site of the HMS Bounty before half its crew decided to mutiny after having fallen for the pretty local Polynesian women and wondering what they were doing spending their lives in comparative squalor on board a British Empire merchant ship.  It was also the filming location of the 1962 film “Mutiny on the Bounty” with Marlon Brando, based on said episode.

Unfortunately we didn’t get to visit Tahiti-iti (Little Tahiti), the small adjacent near-island next to Tahiti-nui (Big Tahiti).  This would have been possible on the tour agency’s full day tour, but that tour was only done as a private group tour, not a shared one like this one.  Upon my request, we did stop at a point to view it from a distance though, as well as the narrow natural land bridge that connects “Big Tahiti” with “Little Tahiti”.  The authorities are in the process of building a sea wall, as it is believed the natural land bridge will be eroded by the sea at some point to create two separate islands, which they don’t want to happen.

After our circumnavigation, a miniature version of my global circumnavigation (!), the tour guide very kindly stopped off at an open supermarket for me after he had dropped off the others.  Supermarkets rarely open in French Polynesia on a Sunday, so I really appreciated him helping me get a few final supplies, before dropping me off back in my accommodation in the early afternoon.  I did weigh up the possibility of exploring the town of Papeete on this afternoon, but the security issues I had heard about the city particularly on a quiet Sunday afternoon along with my desire to have a bit of chilling time, led me to the decision to rest up instead in my gypsy caravan for the rest of the day.

The next morning I was starting at 3.30am, for my lady taxi driver to pick me up and take me to the airport for my onward flight to resume my ever-eastwards journey, this time to LA!  I was soooo excited to be going back to America again – yay!

More of course on that in my next!