While reading one of our guidebooks, we came across an intriguing note: not far from the marina stood the remains of the old Bali Hai Hotel, with abandoned overwater bungalows still stretching out over the lagoon.
Even more interestingly, just offshore from the hotel lay the wreck of a nineteenth-century three-masted merchant ship at a depth of roughly thirty metres.
That was more than enough to get our attention.
We packed our diving gear into the dinghy and set off to investigate.
After about fifteen minutes, we reached the remains of the old resort.
The overwater bungalows were still there.
Abandoned, weathered by years of sun and salt, and slowly being claimed by coral and marine life, they looked almost unreal. Some parts were clearly deteriorating, but the structures were still recognisable enough that I remember thinking I could probably spend a night in one of them.
With a little imagination, it might even have been the cheapest overwater bungalow in Polynesia.
There was also a certain irony in that thought.
The old Bali Hai hotels on Raiatea were closely connected with the early development of the overwater bungalow concept in French Polynesia. In the 1960s, the American entrepreneurs known as the Bali Hai Boys experimented with building accommodation directly above the lagoon. The idea would later become one of the most recognisable symbols of luxury travel in places such as Bora Bora, Moorea and eventually resorts around the world.
We tied the dinghy to one of the abandoned structures and started preparing the equipment.
But the real reason we had come was hidden beneath us.
On the bottom of the lagoon lies the wreck of the Nordby, a Danish three-masted merchant sailing ship from the nineteenth century.
The vessel was built in Dundee, Scotland, in 1873, originally under the name Glenorn. It was later sold to a Danish shipowner and renamed Nordby.
During its working life, the ship sailed across a large part of the world, calling at ports from South America and South Africa to New Zealand and the Pacific.
Its final voyage ended here, at Raiatea.
In August 1900, Nordby arrived at Uturoa while sailing from Auckland towards Liverpool. The ship was due to load copra, the dried flesh of coconuts that was an important export product used for making coconut oil.
The following day, strong south-easterly winds known locally as the mara’amu began to blow.
The ship dragged its anchor.
It was pushed towards the reef and eventually struck the sharp coral near Tepua, close to the Teavapiti Pass.
Its hull was badly damaged and the vessel sank into the lagoon.
More than a century later, it is still there.
The wreck is approximately 53 metres long and lies at depths ranging from around 18 to 30 metres.
We began the descent slowly.
The first few metres went without problems, but somewhere around ten metres I began to feel a sharp pain in my ears, followed by discomfort and nausea.
There was no point in forcing it.
I aborted the dive and returned to the surface.
I handed my equipment to Milan, while Damjan and Milan continued down towards the wreck.
Later, they told me the dive had been good, but also very dark, with fairly limited visibility.
I never actually reached the Nordby myself.
I saw it only through their stories and the photographs they brought back from the dive.
But even from the surface, the place had something unusual about it.
Above the water stood the remains of an abandoned Polynesian resort, its old overwater bungalows slowly being absorbed by the lagoon.
Around thirty metres below them lay a merchant ship from the nineteenth century.
Two abandoned worlds.
Two completely different periods of history.
One above the water.
The other resting silently below it.