We left Raiatea before noon and headed towards Taha’a, our final stop before Bora Bora.
By this point we were deep into the Leeward Islands, and everything seemed to be leading towards the place whose name appears on almost every postcard from French Polynesia.
Bora Bora.
But before reaching it, we planned to spend one more night at Taha’a.
The passage was short. From Uturoa to our anchorage on the western side of Taha’a was only around ten nautical miles, although following the channels through the lagoon and avoiding the shallow areas meant that the trip still took us around two and a half to three hours.
There was almost no wind.
For most of the way, we used the engine.
Raiatea and Taha’a are two separate volcanic islands, but they share the same large lagoon and barrier reef system. Once inside the reef, you can sail between the two islands without returning to the open Pacific.
It creates a strange feeling.
On the far side of the reef lies the enormous Pacific Ocean, while only a short distance away you are moving through calm lagoon water, surrounded by coral shallows whose colours shift from deep blue to almost fluorescent turquoise.
We arrived on the western side of Taha’a, in the area around Tapuamu and Tiva, opposite the small motu that line the outer reef.
The first impression was that Taha’a felt very different from Raiatea.
It was much more rural.
There was no Uturoa, no real town centre and much less traffic. There was basic infrastructure, a few villages, shops, small hotels and restaurants, but beyond that came houses, gardens, plantations and dense tropical vegetation.
Taha’a is especially famous for its vanilla and is often known as the Vanilla Island, because a significant part of French Polynesia’s highly prized vanilla is grown here.
But vanilla was not what caught our attention that day.
It was a church.
Macedonia in Taha’a
While walking along the coastal road, we came across a small Protestant church.
There is nothing particularly unusual about that in French Polynesia.
Christian churches can be found in almost every village and are often among the most noticeable buildings on the islands.
But then we looked at the sign above the entrance.
It said:
MAKEDONIA
Macedonia?
On a small island in the middle of the Pacific?
Thousands of kilometres from Europe?
Naturally, we had to go inside.
We met several people from the church community and tried to find out where the name came from.
There was only one problem.
Our French was roughly as good as their knowledge of our languages.
In other words — almost nonexistent.
They tried to explain.
We tried to understand.
Everyone smiled.
But we left without really solving the mystery.
Only later did I finally find the explanation.
The name had nothing to do with modern Macedonia in the Balkans, nor with some forgotten group of Macedonian sailors who had somehow reached Taha’a.
The origin was biblical.
Historical church records from Taha’a mention a community named Makedonia and connect the name with Acts 16:9in the New Testament.
In that passage, the Apostle Paul has a vision during the night. A man from Macedonia appears to him and asks him to cross over into Macedonia and help them.
That vision becomes the beginning of Paul’s journey into Macedonia and of the spread of Christianity farther into Europe.
So the name Makedonia travelled all the way to the Pacific through the Bible.
Mystery solved.
No Macedonian expedition had founded a church on Taha’a.
Macedonia had reached the island through scripture.
And those are exactly the kinds of accidental discoveries that make travelling interesting.
Had we walked along a different road, we might never have discovered that a small church community in the middle of French Polynesia had carried the name Makedonia for decades.
The First Clear View of Bora Bora
We continued walking.
There was almost no wind.
The lagoon was so calm that in places the surface looked like glass.
And then, in the distance, a silhouette appeared that was impossible to confuse with anything else.
Bora Bora.
For the first time, we could see it clearly.
Its distinctive mountain rose sharply above the horizon, dark against the still water.
The island’s old Polynesian name was Pora Pora, from which the European name Bora Bora later developed.
After so much time looking at charts, reading guidebooks and planning our route, it felt strange to finally see it with our own eyes.
Bora Bora.
A place almost everyone who dreams of the South Pacific has imagined at some point.
Turquoise lagoon.
Overwater bungalows.
Mount Otemanu.
One of the most famous tropical destinations in the world.
And now it was right there on the horizon.
Close enough to know that by the following day we would be there.
Still, as I looked at its silhouette in the distance, I already knew one thing.
No matter how spectacular Bora Bora might turn out to be, my heart was still on Moorea.
Maybe tomorrow would change that.
We would see.
After dinner, we returned to the boat.
The lagoon was calm, Taha’a was almost completely silent, and across the water we could still make out the dark outline of our next destination.
We went to bed early.
In the morning, we would raise the anchor.
Next stop —
Bora Bora.