The islands of Tahiti are the places that honeymooners dream about – overwater bungalows and couples on scooters abound. It’s interesting how you get used to all the strange island names so quickly – Raiatea or Huahine become as natural to say as Chicago or San Francisco. It was a quick overnight sail to Tahiti and I was happy to actually see the outline of towering mountains from miles away. The Marquesas are pretty much “big islands with no reef,” the Tuamotus are “no islands at all and only reef,” and now here in the Society Islands we were in a combination of “big islands surrounded by reef”… Not only are there blue water lagoons, coral reef and the challenge of sailing through passes, but you also have big island mountains to climb. The best of both worlds!

The picture of Papeete of thirty years ago showed a couple of sailboats anchored by a village by the sea... it was a faraway place that typified island life. Today Papeete is a noisy and crowded city, the hub of the South Pacific, complete with Walmart-type grocery stores, cruise ships, a McDonalds, and traffic! To say it was culture shock to be back to a profusion of people and places and things after the remote experience of the Tuamotus was an understatement.

Papeete Harbor was a stark contrast to the Rangiroa ambiance we'd just left. Coming in the pass, we dodged huge ferries that were hauling ass and creating enormous wake, with background scenery of oil tanks, container yards and concrete docks. Urios was stern tied up to the busiest street in the town, with cars and scooters zooming by at all hours – it was like stepping off the boat onto Broadway Avenue in New York city. Everything was an assault to my senses – the noise of traffic and buses, people in the streets, the neon lights of the cafes and pearl shops, steak frite and chow mein being served on the sidewalks – but, it didn’t take long to get used to the comforts of home again, having fresh baked baguettes every morning and internet access.

The Marche of Papeete is a main attraction in town and everything seems to operate around it. The market is open every day, but the real action starts at 4am on Sunday mornings. The local population is out in full force before the sun comes up and that’s when the market is bustling… before the tourists wake up! The mixture of smells, sounds and colors are incredible. It’s a tourist dream come true – there are technicolor pareos fluttering in the stalls, Tahitian shirts and tourist knick knacks of every kind and all things coconut (from oil to art). The bright tropical fresh flowers catch your attention, but it’s the women who are meticulously stringing together orchids, tiare, roses and greenery to create magnificent garlands and crowns of flowers for church hats that draw you into the stalls. The local produce looks so good you almost don’t mind that the fresh peppers are 8 dollars a pound. Fishermen are hocking the day’s catch of fish and you can buy poisson of every kind. It’s obvious why you eat so much raw fish here… it’s so fresh that it’s a shame to cook it! Throw in the stands selling local dishes of manioc, taro, and mape (chestnut) and snack shops with fresh baguette sandwiches and coconut ice cream and you just want to buy everything in the market. It’s what you want an island market to be.

The famous roulottes of French Polynesia quickly became a favorite spot. The roulottes are vans that pull into plazas or onto patches of dirt or sidewalks around mealtimes, and open up into mobile restaurants. They serve up a veritable smorgasboard of food from Chinese stir fry to Tahitian poisson cru to French crepes. In a place where hamburgers cost 15 dollars and tomatoes are 8 dollars a kilo, somehow 12 dollar chow mein eaten on the side of the road on a plastic stool is the best deal around! The roulettes were the main attraction for locals and tourists alike and was always delicious and entertaining. You could tell the cruiseshippers in their khaki shorts and bright floral shirts from a mile away, and the local Tahitian band playing Polynesian renditions of Neil Diamond was a laugh. On a good night you’d have dinner at the roulotte, a big night out on the town, and then be back for another meal around 3am. I was amazed to see the roulettes just clearing out of the plaza on my 6am baguette run!

I found the Tahitian culture to be an interesting mix of Asian/Chinese, Tahitian, and European/French. The reputation of Tahitian ladies as beautiful tanned women (vahines) in pareos and bikinis, draped in black pearls and flower garlands, lying on a white sand beach under a palm tree is probably a bit overexaggerated by the postcards, but by no means untrue. The combination of European, Asian and Polynesian genes have mixed to produce some of the most beautiful women in the world. And, given the number of beauty contests (there is a beauty pageant for every occasion) and the Hinano beer girl that is proudly displayed on everything from clothing to cars, you know the Polynesians are proud of their beauties and find many occasions to show them off.

Surfing was invented in Tahiti and the surf culture is omnipresent from t-shirts to board shorts. The reefs of Tahiti create some immense waves as the ocean swell meets coral. We happened to be in town for Billabong’s annual surf competition at famous Teahupoo and after seeing the massive waves cresting onto the reef, those surfers must be crazy. Unreal. Some of the biggest waves happen right on the sides of the passes in/out of the lagoons and we’ve had the best seat in the house from the cockpit of the boat as we’re sailing through. It’s quite amazing to be eye to eye with surfers riding huge crashing waves as you cruise right by. Thanks to friends of friends in Papeete we actually got a chance to give it a try on the baby waves of Tahiti's north shore. I can see why people become obsessed with the sport… my two and a half seconds successfully standing on a 12 inch wave was enough to get me hooked!

I think the French Polynesians really want to keep paradise all to themselves. All non-European Union citizens are required to pay a bond when they get here to make sure you can leave, and the prices of things are outrageous. I’ve never been to a place that had such a strict requirement on making sure you don’t stay. One thousand of your dollars in their bank pretty much guarantees they can kick you out when it’s time to go, though you’d run out of money living here well before that!

You see the cost of everything, the two-hour lunches and the weekends off and wonder how people here can afford to live. You know it’s bad when Parisians think it’s expensive! The monetary support France gives French Polynesia may have created an unproductive and unrealistic society, but I certainly saw as many fishermen, farmers and shop owners working from the crack of dawn every day to earn their Pacific Francs as I saw large lazy types sitting under a tree drinking beer and eating Cheetos all day, fully enjoying their French subsidies, which seemed to be the overriding stereotype. Some things don’t always make sense to the outsider...
There are BMWs and fancy homes with amazing views but also tin roofed shacks in the valleys with no running water.
There are lush fields of pineapples and bananas but the oranges are imported from California, and their chicken is flown in from New Zealand.
There are posh shops selling thousand dollar pearls, but also many families making what they can by drying copra on pegs in the yard.
There are vahines in their skin-bearing pareos and bikinis, while other women are covered from head to toe in huge floral laced traditional mumu-style dresses.
There are barely doors on some houses but people in Papeete all live behind locked gated fences.
Polynesians were as hospitable and friendly to yachties as could be, yet some sailor friends of ours were jumped, robbed and beaten up by a group of Tahitians for seemingly no reason late one night in Papeete.
It certainly is a study in contrasts. If recent years have already brought cruise ships and the internet to the remote islands, then it’s only a matter of time before the country catches up to itself. Hopefully it’ll do so without losing its charm.

Taking a walk on the island roads is always sightseeing enough. The scenery is pretty much made up of the same stuff – tiny villages, banana and mango trees, bright flowers, stray dogs, kids on bikes, chickens, blah blah blah – but each island is so different and has its own character and pace. Huahine was wonderfully quaint and mellow, my favorite Society island. The plots of land growing taro and vanilla were wonderfully tended to and the flower bushes looked like something out of a garden magazine. We’d been treated to some interesting and delicious foods made from tropical fruits and vegetables and I found myself with a handful of great recipes. The islands are just teeming with fruit trees and Gregory and I are constantly scanning the landscape for banana flowers and papayas that are within reach. Going on a walk has never been the same since!

Huahine was full of perfect blue water anchorages which are my favorite kind of place – you just jump right off the boat into your own fishbowl. It’s the ideal place for me to practice my free diving techniques and while Gregory has more serious pursuits… spear fishing. We’d been in Moorea for the annual spear fishing championships and watched in awe as they counted up and weighed the day’s bounty. I didn’t realize how hard spear fishing is, until I saw it firsthand, which made their spearing of 20 fish in a few hours (including an 8 pounder) even more impressive. I’ve had nothing to worry about on my shark watch yet (a bloody flailing fish on the end of a spear gun is bad for the one hunting!), but now Gregory is now the proud owner of a new spear gun as tall as I am which may increase our intake of fresh reef fish. We’ve heard firsthand accounts of bad cases of cinguatera from fellow yachties that lasted many painful months – one fish can be enough to send you over the edge. It’s enough to make me wary of eating anything you don’t catch on a hook, but seeing as how our tally of speared fish is at two, I don’t think we have to worry just yet!

The whales are migrating and to see them emerge from a glassy ocean as you’re sailing is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The first time I saw the huge fin rise out of the water, followed by the splash of an entire body and tail, I literally squealed in delight. You can’t imagine that there are animals that large and that gentle, and it makes you keenly aware that there is a lot that you can’t see under the ocean. Other sailors we talked to have been lucky enough to be sailing right among many humpbacks and even hopped into the ocean with them for a snorkel. I can’t even imagine how incredibly cool and scary that would be, though that may just be too much whale too close to me.

Bora Bora is definitely the honeymooners paradise. There are overwater bungalows at the end of every white sand beach and five star hotels on every shore and motu. The sight of newlyweds being shuttled to the motus, one behind the other all in a line, with a picnic basket in hand is quite amusing, but I guess that’s what you’re supposed to do on a honeymoon in Bora Bora. For me, Bora Bora seems to be one of those places that looks better from afar than up close. The view of Mount Otemanu from the ocean as we were approaching the island is the most impressive sight that I’ve seen, but the island itself seems on the very of becoming another Papeete with its functional but bland towns and overload of tourist knick knack shops. If you can't ignore the garbage littering the streets and shores, and all the bleached coral in the lagoon, then it's more idyllic to be on a sailboat where you get to a perspective on the island that those on the shore may not.

The Saga of the Engine:
Who would have known back in May that Moorea would become our home for the next three months, but that’s where the Saga of the Engine begins. The reality of cruising is that something is always broken or in need of repair, no matter how new the boat or how well it worked two minutes ago! Unlucky for us, it was our engine, and it happened to go CLANG CLANG CLANG in the worst way. It was a long and expensive and arduous experience to get it fixed, but you always can find the silver lining if you want to. When you’re sailing, you’re constantly on the move, staying only a few days in most places, and usually filling those days exhaustingly with everything there is to see and do. Although having a broken engine sucked, it also forced us to stay put for awhile. We got the unique opportunity to get to know a place and live like an islander, if just for a little while.

Moorea is just 12 miles from Tahiti but is a world away. It had most of the conveniences of Tahiti but with the tempo and feeling of a faraway island. Gregory left me and Urios in Moorea for a month to go back to Paris and Cook’s Bay was the ultimate spot to be boatsitting. The scenery was absolutely incredible to wake up to every morning – wisps of smoke from the burning coconut husks floating into the bay and hot pink fluffy clouds against ragged mountain peaks. This was literally the first time there was no one within 20 feet of me in over 6 months and it was the weirdest feeling to be all alone on the boat. I enjoyed having it all to myself, but I don’t know how single-handers do it as a lifestyle – one week of solitude was enough for me! It was also bizarre to be completely responsible for a 37-foot sailboat, nonetheless one without an engine (my greatest responsibility to date was being “Captain” of Herbie, our dinghy!). No big deal though – solar panels are magic, and thanks to the endless hot sunny days here, I had plenty of power to turn on lights, listen to music and even indulge myself with a cold fridge every once in a while. At the end of the day, it’s all that I really needed. Having to fend for myself again, I quickly made a friend on the island and got an insider’s view of island life. I was happy to hear that entertainment revolved around the ocean rather than the TV or the mall, and free days were spent spear fishing and surfing. Heimata lent me his bike to tool around the island and I was living a day out of a movie… again. It was surreal to be pedalling my bicycle through tiny villages, on a road that was littered with bright green breadfruit, mango and banana trees, huge colorful flower bushes, and a view of the coastline and turquoise water that never stopped. There’s nothing like a lazy sunny day on a bicycle.

Thankfully, my time alone only lasted a week. Ky, a friend from business school, took me up on my offer to join me in paradise while I was boatsitting and see what the cruising life was all about. I don’t think it took very long for Ky to believe everything I had written in my blogs – all of about 10 minutes in the hammock at sunset pretty much convinced him that this was the life! We cruised the island on a scooter, hiked around, swam, laid around in the hammock, and read a lot. For someone who’s used to energetic vacations, our big achievement of the day would be to actually go ashore. But, Ky got to partake in the real Polynesian experience of paddling a va’a (outrigger canoe) with the local club and the photo I have of him paddling in Cook’s Bay is a real souvenir! The va’a is an icon here and is a primary mode of transportation, work and activity on most islands. There are always va’as paddling around the sailboats in the bays, whether to go fishing or to practice for an upcoming race. Va’a racing is to the Polynesians what All Black rugby is to the Kiwis. Where some va’as are of the homemade variety, made of tree branches and rope, these racing va’as are sleek and shiny and logo’ed with corporate sponsors. The sight of lean strong tattooed Polynesian men during a race paddling out on the open ocean in crowns of leaves and flowers is something out of the history books. The two week visit flew by quickly, and they felt incredibly lazy and active at the same time. We got as adventurous as flying to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands for a few days and then as lazy as spending hours in the cockpit just staring at the scenery. It was a good taste of cruiser life; just a shame we couldn’t actually go sailing...

More on the engine... Thankfully Tahiti is more equipped than any country between Panama and New Zealand to deal with most yachtie problems. We visited every single shipchandler and marine shop firsthand in our quest to have an engine rebuilt, and found ourselves commuting to Tahiti regularly on the ferry to run our engine errands in town. We would spend more time than we ever thought we would figuring out what was wrong, looking for some parts, waiting for other parts to be shipped from Europe, and then finding the right people to work on it. It’s a long supply chain on an island and was as long a process as I could have imagined, but at least it was doable. The connecting rod could easily have gone bust on a remote island of two inhabitants without a screwdriver between them!

Meanwhile, daily life goes on. It’s not all rum drinks on the deck all the time. There are the everyday parts of life like laundry and the drudgery of chores that have to be dealt with, and you finally have all the time in the world (and no excuses) to get to the long boat maintenance list. Every sunset comes with a bucketful of dirty dishes. But, time also gave us the chance to go do the things that we may have skipped - doing the many hikes on Moorea, scuba diving with the huge lemon sharks, and making friends on the island and spending weekends in a real home with hot showers. You are also lucky enough to be around for the more commonplace island experiences that you never thought you’d see...

It starts slowly. Suddenly a gust of wind seems much bigger and prolonged than the last and they are more frequent. The skies get darker and the clouds cover the mountains. It is the Maraamu of the South Pacific – an acceleration of the tradewinds from the south. The wind was gusting up to 60 knots and boats were reeling back and forth from the gusts and tugging hard on their anchors. It is a normal July/August occurrence but it was anything but normal for me. You think you're safe in a sheltered bay with a bottom of mud, but in 50 knots, the sound of the wind and the pulling on the boat makes you feel like you're tethered by a piece of dental floss and not 10mm chain. I honestly can't imagine a hurricane; this is scary enough. But, I guess the beauty of a boat without an engine is that there's nothing you can do about it anyways, so in theory you should sleep better at night... Not! All of us battened down the hatches and just wondered how long to would be and how bad it would get. A particularly loud and howling series of gusts woke us from our sleep up at 2am. We turned on the VHF radio and were greeted with radio traffic like I’ve never heard. Boats in Tahiti just across the way, were dragging anchors, running into each other, and going onto the reef, calling for help, warning each other, and reporting lost dinghies. We went up to check on Herbie only to discover that he was a victim of the Maraamu too - everthing in the dinghy, from our paddles to my flip flops were gone. But, after seeing pictures in the paper the next day of the damage and stories from other sailors who ran their engine full throttle into the wind all night to avoid drifting into the reef, our episode was nothing. A lost engine and paddles meant that we were now rowing our way around the anchorages with a pair of scuba fins duck taped to fishing gaffs - they are certainly a ridiculous sight but they work, and they're a great conversation starter. In the middle of the storm when the boats were rolling, the wind was howling, and the rain was bearing down, I got a VHF call on Channel 16 from Twixt, our friends just next to us in the bay. I thought he was warning us of some calamity that was coming our way, and we were prepared for some daunting news. Instead I just got a “look outside!” In the middle of the raucous was a huge beautiful bright rainbow!

Since we were parked in Cook’s Bay for such a long time, everyone managed to catch up with us. Tahiti is the ultimate bottleneck and gathering of yachts because all the boats that arrive from the other side of the Pacific, whether Chile, Galapagos, Mexico or the US, must stop and check-in in Papeete. We ended up seeing friends that were on the snail’s pace (we last saw them in Panama months ago) as they cycled through the must-do anchorage in Moorea. There are tons of boats you see and meet along the way – we’re all on different schedules and routes but it’s amazing how you’re basically reading the same cruising guides and end up in the same place at one point or another over 10,000 miles. It’s always a happy coincidence at how different people arrived at the same place, both literally and figuratively. Whether they got here via Chile or Panama or whether they were sailing because they’d just had a grandchild and needed an adventure or else realized that sailing around the world on a two-year honeymoon was the perfect way to start a new marriage… There are backpackers who hitchhike on sailboats rather than take trains and there are ex-CEOs who realized that life is too short. Everyone has a story, and the beauty of this trip has been meeting them and hearing about their adventures. Tiki took 37 days to cross the ocean from Panama and just about everything broke on their 80 ton sailboat on the way and they almost ran out of food and water. I’m sure they were the most happy of all of us to see land. Father and son, Bob and Chris on Twixt became quick friends. Bob sang sailing shanties as he played his concertina for us and Chris introduced us to the world of tequila and Tang, having just sailed from Mexico. Dragonfly and Nahanni are two favorite boats of young cruising couples with a thirst for adventure – what a cool way to really get to know your partner. Gumbo Ya Ya was our welcoming committee after the long Pacific Crossing. Kurt came right out in his dinghy to introduce himself as we pulled in, and give us the lowdown on the anchorage and things around. There is nothing like a smiling face at the end of a long journey… We were happy to keep the good sailing karma going with Bernard. After six years at sea and 26 days alone on the Pacific Ocean, a conversation with fellow Frenchmen was just what he needed, and we were there, waiting for him with a hot cup of coffee.

The yachting community is such a unique brotherhood of people – no matter what country, age, or background. They are always friendly and welcoming no matter if they’re on a homemade 26 foot wooden boat or sailing a 110 foot brand new mega yacht with 6 professional crew. Dinghying up to random boats is never a problem and you make quick friendships sailing because you have to – everyone has their own plan and lots to see and do, so you rarely stay in one place for long. Sometimes it’s a quick hello and goodbye, but sometimes, one night of having cocktails on a fellow boat in the anchorage is enough to make friends that you know you’ll keep in touch with along the way, and hopefully see again. Thank goodness for fellow yachties! They’ve all had a sympathetic ear when hearing the story of our broken engine (probably because they’ve all been there before and understand the stress and frustrations) and there were all kinds of offers to help pull us to the dock and back again, tools and helpful advice. No where else have I ever come across such genuine generosity and friendliness.

After months anchored in Cook’s Bay, a few cranes and dinghy tows, lots of grease under our fingertips, a multitude of wrenches and feeler gauges, and wires and diesel fuel and pumps and bolts to be put back where they were, we turned on the engine for the first time in three months! It was magic. It's great to be sailing again and finally able to get to the places we want to go. So we're off again, heading west. Lots more to see and do before it's time to stop.