Revisiting the Society Islands

During a visit to the South Pacific in 1993, we had a stopover in Papeete. My memory is of a dingy hotel with a few bugs for free, a not too vibrant market, and a luggage storage facility at the airport that was closed between 11 and 3. I think Jason only remembers checking up on the Phillies and discovering that they were having a turnaround season.

We were looking forward to docking at the marina to recharge ourselves and Two Fish, but we weren’t overly excited about spending too much time in Papeete.

Needless to say, either our outlooks have changed or Papeete has, but we thoroughly enjoyed our time there. Yes, everything still seems to close between 11 and 3, but who wouldn’t want totake a break from the midday sun and eat a proper lunch. Speaking of food, La Palais des Glaces has super-fantastic ice cream, Carrefours stocks excellent chick pea burgers and the food trucks are the place to go for dinner. After a few nights, the chocolate milk shake woman didn’t need to ask twice for Jason’s order. However, the best food was probably the homemade Chocolate Mousse given to us by a fellow ARC boat (Swiss French, of course).
All of the people we meet are super-friendly and accommodating and greeting strangers on the street with a “Ia ora na” (hello) is expected; “Māuruuru” is thank you.

While here, we have observed a Polynesian cultural oddity: the men love doing wheelies on their bicycles. In both the Society Islands and the Tuamotos, we have seen almost every male bike rider doing wheelies. Blind turn, near a car and rainstorm do not stop the need to do wheelies. I love it, keep poppin’ wheelies!

Tahiti to Huahine from Two Fish on Vimeo.
After cleaning Two Fish and fixing a few items, we knew at some point we needed to leave the dock, so we headed up to Huahine. I can see why some people can spend years in French Polynesia. Huahine alone has many pleasant bays to choose from. We decided to stay near the town of Fare so we could rent some bikes. I am a bit behind in my workouts. Actually, I can’t remember whether I have worked out since St Lucia so the 55km bike ride was a bit of a shock to my system. At one point Jason had to wheel both of our bikes up a steep hill while I followed slowly. It was well worth it as we saw waterfalls and beautiful bays, stopped in a lovely Pareo shop and enjoyed the deep greens and interesting trees.

Another fun excursion was driving One Fish down to the end of the island. Behind the reef, the water was flat and 15 knots felt great. There are so many great spots here and on neighboring islands that I am sure we will re re-visit in the coming years. In fact, in a few days we will join our fellow rally boats and pick up our friends for the leg to Suwarrow but we may just have to visit one more spot before setting off.

When travelling down the inter coastal waterway (ICW) we tried to avoid a rally sponsored by Sail Magazine. We snickered about the group and told our other friends to avoid “the swarm”. Regular updates were swapped on the VHF of swarm sightings and upcoming swarm locations. Now we are on the other side of the coin and have been prejudged and maligned by cruisers outside the ARC rally. To monitor this phenomenon we have created a new language.
ARCmental: to piously judge an ARC rally boat. They were being ARCmental when they said the rally was going too fast, however, they have followed us for the last 5,000 miles.
ARCist: To be hate any member of the ARC rally before any interaction. The ARCist wanted to build a big marina to keep all the ARC boats away from the true cruisers. He plans on asking the Polynesians to pay for it.