It was time to head back to the airport and welcome our guests. After nearly twenty hours of travelling, Damjan’s father Savo and his uncle Milan finally arrived in Papeete, Tahiti. We were going to spend the next fifteen to twenty days sailing together through the Society Islands.
This time, the airport looked completely different from when we had arrived.
It was crowded with people, and everywhere around us locals were selling garlands of fresh flowers, traditionally placed around the necks of visitors arriving in Tahiti. We bought a few ourselves, welcomed Savo and Milan properly, and then headed back to the boat.
We decided to spend the next few days exploring Tahiti.
Naturally, one of our first stops was once again the market in Papeete. Somehow, it never seemed to lose its charm. We wandered among stalls filled with fruit, vegetables, fish, spices, flowers, handicrafts and all the other things that give this market its unmistakable Pacific atmosphere.
We also walked through the centre of Papeete and the nearby parks. Not far from the marina stands a memorial dedicated to the victims of French nuclear testing in Polynesia — a darker chapter in the more recent history of this part of the Pacific.
Pointe Vénus
The next destination on our list was the famous Pointe Vénus, about ten kilometres east of Papeete.
This place has played a surprisingly important role in the history of Tahiti. Matavai Bay, beside Pointe Vénus, was one of the first places where Tahitians came into contact with European explorers.
Samuel Wallis reached Tahiti in 1767, followed soon afterwards by Louis-Antoine de Bougainville. However, the name Pointe Vénus is primarily associated with Captain James Cook.
In 1769, Cook arrived in Tahiti aboard HMS Endeavour to observe the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun. At the time, this astronomical event was of enormous scientific importance. By comparing observations made from different locations around the world, astronomers hoped to calculate the distance between the Earth and the Sun more accurately.
It was this expedition that gave the place its name — Pointe Vénus.
But the history of Matavai Bay did not end there.
In 1788, HMS Bounty, commanded by Captain William Bligh, also arrived here. The expedition’s mission was to collect breadfruit plants in Tahiti and transport them to the Caribbean.
The crew remained in Tahiti for almost six months.
Six months of life in a tropical climate, among the Tahitians and far removed from the strict discipline of the British Navy, was more than enough for many of the sailors to become increasingly reluctant to return to their former lives.
Not long after the Bounty left Tahiti, one of the most famous mutinies in maritime history took place.
Today, Pointe Vénus is also home to a nineteenth-century lighthouse, standing beside a wide beach of black volcanic sand. It has become a popular place for locals, surfers and paddlers of traditional Polynesian canoes known as va’a.
There is something remarkable about standing in a place where, more than two centuries ago, Cook watched the heavens while the sailors of the Bounty were discovering a Tahiti that would change many of their lives forever.
The Abandoned Tahara’a InterContinental
On our way back from Pointe Vénus, we stopped at a viewpoint near the former Tahara’a InterContinental Hotel.
The view from here is spectacular. Matavai Bay, the coastline, part of Papeete and the sea stretching towards Moorea all open up below you. It was on this exceptional site that one of Tahiti’s most luxurious hotels was built in the late 1960s.
The Tahara’a InterContinental opened in 1968 and was associated with Pan Am’s InterContinental hotel chain. It had around two hundred rooms, large terraces, restaurants and swimming pools. During the 1970s, it was one of the symbols of luxury tourism in Tahiti.
Then things began to fall apart.
By the early 1980s, the hotel was suffering financial difficulties, and in 1983 there was a strike by employees. For a time it operated under the name Hyatt Regency Tahiti, but by the end of the 1980s it had closed.
In 1989, it was purchased by the Japanese company EIE, which had ambitious plans for its renovation. Those plans, however, were never seriously realised.
The enormous hotel complex remained empty, while tropical vegetation slowly began to reclaim it.
It is a strange sight: one of the finest views in Tahiti, enormous terraces and the remains of former luxury, all abandoned and left to time.
At the entrance to the hotel once stood an enormous tiki figure, more than six metres tall.
Tiki
The tiki is one of the motifs that appears throughout much of Polynesia.
It would be too simplistic to describe Tiki merely as a “god”. In various Polynesian traditions, Tiki appears as the first man, a mythical ancestor, or a being associated with the origin of humankind. The word tiki is therefore also used for carved human figures representing ancestors, deities or protective spirits.
Such figures can be found throughout Polynesia — in Tahiti, the Marquesas Islands, Hawaii and New Zealand — although their appearance and meaning vary from island to island.
This naturally reminded us of Easter Island, which we had already visited.
On Rapa Nui, the enormous stone statues are called moai, not tiki. Nevertheless, they are connected to a similar concept of reverence for ancestors and their spiritual power — mana. The moai represented ancestors whose presence and spiritual strength were believed to protect the community.
So moai and tiki are not the same thing, but they belong to the same wider Polynesian world, in which ancestors, mana and the connection between the living and the dead played an enormous role.
Even today, tiki figures can be seen throughout Tahiti in parks, gardens and public spaces.
The House of James Norman Hall
The next place we wanted to visit was the home of the American writer James Norman Hall, who, together with Charles Nordhoff, wrote the famous trilogy about the mutiny on the Bounty.
Hall’s own life was almost as extraordinary as the stories he wrote.
Born in Iowa in 1887, he served with no fewer than three Allied forces during the First World War. He first joined the British, later flew as a pilot with the French Lafayette Escadrille, and eventually served in the American air force. In 1918, he was shot down behind German lines and became a prisoner of war.
After the war, he met Charles Nordhoff. Together they would later write Mutiny on the Bounty, Men Against the Seaand Pitcairn’s Island.
Hall settled in Tahiti in 1924 and, two years later, built a house in Arue, where he spent the rest of his life with his wife, Sarah “Lala” Teraireia Winchester, and their children.
Today, the house is a small museum.
Inside, visitors can see his writing desk, typewriter and a large library containing several thousand books. The atmosphere makes it seem as if the writer has simply stepped outside for a moment and might return to his desk at any time.
Hall died in Tahiti in 1951 and was buried on the hillside above his home alongside his wife.
Another interesting detail is that Hall’s son, Conrad L. Hall, later became one of Hollywood’s most respected cinematographers and won three Academy Awards.
There is something particularly fitting about the fact that Hall’s house stands not far from Matavai Bay and Pointe Vénus — places through which the real Bounty had passed a century and a half earlier.
In the end, Hall lived almost on the very ground of the history he would later turn into literature.
The Museum of Tahiti and Her Islands
The following day, we headed in the opposite direction.
About fifteen kilometres west of Papeete, in Puna’auia, stands the Musée de Tahiti et des Îles – Te Fare Iamanaha, the Museum of Tahiti and Her Islands.
We spent a good part of the day there.
The museum was established in the 1970s with the aim of preserving and presenting the history, culture and natural heritage of French Polynesia.
Its collections include tiki and other carved figures, traditional weapons and tools, ritual and everyday objects, clothing, jewellery, objects connected with tattooing, fishing and navigation, as well as traditional Polynesian canoes.
One of the most fascinating parts of the story is the settlement of these islands.
Long before modern navigational instruments existed, Polynesian voyagers crossed enormous distances across the Pacific using the stars, winds, ocean currents, waves, birds and knowledge passed down from one generation to the next.
When you look at a map of the Pacific and realise how far apart these islands are, the scale of that achievement becomes almost difficult to comprehend.
The museum also explores religion, ancestor worship, tiki, mana and sacred sites known as marae, before moving on to the arrival of Europeans, missionaries and the colonial period.
In one place, many of the things we had been seeing separately over the previous days began to connect — tiki, canoes, Cook, the Bounty, European explorers and modern Tahiti.
The museum is therefore more than a collection of old objects.
It tells the story of people who found and settled islands in the middle of the world’s largest ocean, developed their own culture, religion, art and navigation, and then had to confront the arrival of an entirely different world.
Following the Trail of Paul Gauguin
We continued south towards Papeari, where we wanted to visit the Musée Gauguin.
Unfortunately, when we arrived, the museum was closed.
In fact, it had been closed since 2013 and, during our visit in 2018, was still undergoing a long process of renovation and redefinition. At the time, nobody seemed able to tell us with certainty when it would reopen.
The museum itself had originally opened in 1965 as a place dedicated to the life and work of Paul Gauguin and his years in Polynesia.
Interestingly, despite its name, it had never been filled with original Gauguin paintings. Most of the exhibition consisted of reproductions of his works, documents and material connected with his life, along with a small number of original objects and works.
Gauguin first arrived in Tahiti in 1891.
He was searching for a world far removed from European civilisation, artistic conventions and a way of life he found increasingly oppressive.
But the Tahiti he discovered had already been deeply changed by European influence, French colonial rule and Christian missionaries.
His paintings therefore show not only Tahiti as it really was, but also Tahiti as Gauguin wanted to imagine it — his own vision of the South Seas, far away from Europe.
Although the museum was closed, we were not sorry that we had come.
The complex lies beside the beautiful Harrison Smith Botanical Garden, surrounded by enormous tropical trees, palms, mountains and the sea. Instead of visiting the museum, we spent our time walking through the gardens and simply enjoying the surroundings.
Papeari belongs to the municipality of Teva I Uta, which includes Papeari and Mataiea. This part of Tahiti feels very different from Papeete — greener, more rural and much quieter, with tropical gardens, valleys, springs and mountains rising almost directly behind the coast.
Perhaps this landscape was closer to the Tahiti Gauguin had imagined before arriving on the island.
Puna’auia, Music and the View Towards Moorea
On the way back, we stopped once again in Puna’auia, not far from the Museum of Tahiti.
There is a beautiful lagoon and coral reef along this stretch of coast, so we decided to stop for a while, swim and enjoy the sea.
That was where we came across a group of locals sitting together, playing ukuleles and singing.
There was no performance for tourists, no stage and no organised programme.
They were simply sitting together, playing music and enjoying themselves.
They were extremely friendly, and the music was wonderful.
Moments like these, completely unplanned, often remain in your memory far longer than the sights you had originally intended to visit.
Puna’auia is known for its lagoon and coral reef, and from this western side of Tahiti there is a beautiful view across the water towards Moorea.
And that was where we would soon be heading.
We decided to leave the rest of Tahiti for our return.
Now it was time to prepare the boat and continue our journey. Moorea is close enough for its dramatic mountain peaks to be clearly visible from Tahiti, yet far enough away for leaving the safety of the harbour to once again feel like the beginning of a new voyage.
The following morning, we planned to leave Marina de Papeete and sail towards Moorea.
Cook’s Bay lay roughly fifteen nautical miles away — only a few hours of sailing for us.
But that would come later.
When we returned to Tahiti, we planned not to come back to Marina de Papeete, but instead to berth at Marina Taina, about five nautical miles farther along the coast in Puna’auia.
For now, Moorea was waiting ahead of us.