French Polynesia

I mentioned in a previous post that I have done some traveling. When I was younger, I loved the thought of visiting certain places in the world, something I never dreamed I would do because of the cost, that no one in my family had ever traveld outside the US and my general ignorance about the process. I took my first trip overseas after I was married to Linda and it was  somewhat of a surprise how it came about.

In 1985, Linda and I, along with our toddler, Daniel, drove up to Oregon to visit various friends we had met in our college days. One stop was in Cottage Grove to see Debbie and Gary Williams and their son Jesse who was close to Daniel's age. Gary and I had been roommates at San Jose Bible College and I recall he sometimes spoke about his travels to Aruba and Tahiti. One afternoon, Gary and I were sitting in his study and our talk turned to Tahiti and how fun it would be for us to go there together. On the spur of the moment we decided to each go and ask the other’s wife if she would consent to allow her husband to go to Tahiti with the other guy. We met back in the study and excitedly discussed that both Debbie and Linda had said it “would be fine.” Neither of them felt the need to go because they were busy being moms. Needless to say, we were surprised and ecstatic.

So, in 1986 Gary and I boarded a Minerve Airlines charter jet that had originated in Paris in San Francisco and headed to Papeete, Tahiti in French Polynesia. When we got on the flight at SFO that night around 10 p.m., it was cold and foggy. I’ll never forget the exit from that jet onto the tarmac in Papeete. The beautiful, strong smell of frangipani flowers mixed with the odor of jet fuel exhaust in that warm and muggy weather was intoxicating! Thinking of it now, some 28 years later, brings a huge smile to my face. This was the first of four trips I eventually made to that destination.

Since Gary had been there before, he gave some advice about what to pack in one of my two suitcases. He said to bring some cheap t-shirts and baseball caps as well as candy and cigarettes. We also took a hot pot for heating water and Top Ramen noodles. We wanted to save money because Tahiti is very expensive. On some of the islands, a grocery truck comes by the hotels about 6 times a day from which we purchased fresh baguettes for 50 cents each, fresh bananas, mangoes and papayas and a can of butter from New Zealand. This butter does not need refrigeration and went well with our bread and Top Ramen.

The first night we stayed in a hotel in Papeete. The next day, Gary took me to a nearby park at Cook’s Bay that had a black sand beach. This was very cool and I filled up a water bottle with the sand to take home with me. That evening we went down to the docks to watch ships and the Moorea Island ferry come and go and to have dinner off a truck. I had never seen food trucks like these Les Roulottes before or since. They were not like those we see on the street here, but more like bread trucks converted to kitchens on wheels. Each on had its own specialty such as crepes, Chinese food, Peking duck, Belgian waffles and grilled ahi tuna with salad and a baguette. My favorite truck was called Chez Mamy which served grilled New Zealand beef with frites (fries). The steak had a dollop of garlic butter on top and cost about $5.00.

During our ten days there, we visited several of the French Polynesia islands including the main island, Tahiti, as well as Moorea, Huahine, Raiatia and Bora Bora. Such beauty we saw! The pure white sands of Matira Beach on Bora Bora, coral, fish and the sweet people are among my favorite memories.

French Polynesia is a territory of France, hence the name. Gary knew from his previous visit to FP that the many of the locals LOVE Americans and do not particularly care for the French due to several factors. These include that France has imposed a 100% tariff on all imports to the islands which is everything. The only two things that Tahiti exports are taro and Hinano beer. This tariff makes everything so expensive there. The main reason for loving Americans is that during WWII, France fled the FP’s fearful that Japan would invade the islands. The US moved in, built an air strip on Bora Bora and protected the islands throughout the war.

I had a couple of run-ins with pushy Frenchmen on my visits to Tahiti. During one of them, we were standing in a long line of passengers at the Tahiti airport waiting to get on a 36 seat plane to take us to Huahine. We had arrived early so we were within ten people of the front of the line. There were three elderly ladies from Texas in front of us and we chatted as we all waited to board. Their Texas drawls were so cute and the women were very friendly. Suddenly, this tall suave Frenchman wearing wraparound Ray Bans, and his entourage of five cut in line in front of the Texans (and us) acting like he owned the place. Those ladies were surprised at his rudeness and whispered their dissatisfaction to one another.

I was peeved at the dude so I pulled him aside to advise him that the end of the line was “back there,” gesturing with my thumb. He indignantly advised me that he was French and that he could get in line wherever he wanted. I then stated through clenched teeth that, unless he and his friends went to the back of the line, his friends would be boarding without him. He asked me how that would be, to which I said he couldn’t get on the plane if he had a broken leg which I was going to give him. He spoke in his native tongue to his posse and they quickly moved out of our way. We sat near the Texas ladies on the plane and they smiled at me the entire flight. I was such a stud. (=

On Bora Bora we stayed at a less expensive hotel much like a Motel 6 but it still cost $120 US per night. However, we hung out next door at the Marara Hotel which is now owned by Sofitel. Their rooms ranged from $200 to $600 per night. This hotel was built by the film producer Dino De Laurnntiis to house the cast and crew of Hurricane which was released in 1979. Once filming was finished, he kept it open as a hotel. It has garden rooms as well as overwater bungalows. On one of our trips to Bora Bora we were having lunch at the Marara when our waiter advised that Mr. De Laurentiis was siting a few tables away. I quickly noticed his dining companion was pretty young woman about 30 years old. I thought to myself, “Dirty old man with a girl young enough to be his daughter.” Gary insisted that we go over and introduce ourselves to the man which we did. Guess what? The young woman was his daughter. So much for my judgment.

Another feature the hotel offers are various tours such as a motu (which is an uninhabited island) BBQ, circle island tour in outriggers and shark feeding tours. This is where our suitcase of t-shirts, candy and cigarettes came into play. We made friends with the locals who run the tours for the hotels and gave them our gifts of candy, apparel and cigarettes. In exchange for these things we never once paid for any tour which ranged in price from $40 to $80. The main man, Fiah, would ask us if we were planning to go on a tour the next day. If we said we were, he’s say, “Don’t go to the hotel desk to buy a ticket, just come here at 9:00” (or whatever time that particular tour was scheduled).

Every time we went, Gary and I would walk down the beach from our hotel next door to the dock. We’d see a line of people waiting to get on the big outrigger, each of them holding a blue ticket in their hand. The boat was always empty because the tour guys wanted us to board first so they could put us in the seats where we were least likely to get splashed by the out rigging. Once we were seated, THEN, everyone else was allowed to board. No blue tickets for us and VIP treatment just because we were nice to them and had brought gifts form the US.

My favorite excursion, which I took several times, was the shark feeding tour. For this one, two outriggers from the Marara headed out to the reef a couple of miles from shore. One there, the boats were anchored about 15 feet apart and a rope was strung from the back of each boat to the other. One of the Tahitians would then dump a few buckets of fish parts into the water at which time the guests were told to get out of the boat into the waist deep water. No swim fins were allowed, only tennis shoes because fins resembled fish sins and it was possible the sharks might bite someone’s foot.

Within a few minutes of the fish parts being spilled into the water, 10 to 15 black tip sharks, ranging in length between four and eight feet long, cruised in for the feast. The rule was to not go past the rope between the two boats but since the food had been dumped a couple of feet on the other side, we were able to get as close as three feet from the sharks. I owned a waterproof Nikon camera with which I got some great photos. I regret to say that I have since lost all those photos. My favorite one was a shot I took above the water line about four feet from a shark. It showed the shark’s fin sticking up above the water and that famous view of Bora Bora in the background. I think it could have been used in a National Geographic magazine. I was able to find a couple of shots on the internet to give you an idea of how great it was to go on the excursion.

One last story… on my second trip to Bora Bora, I took with me a pneumatic spear gun I borrowed from a diver friend of mine. I showed this to one of the Tahitian guys that worked on the motu BBQ tour. On this tour, a group of people are taken by out rigger to a nearby uninhabited island for a picnic which included fresh caught fish. Upon arrival, the guests are instructed to go ashore and explore, swim and play volleyball while the picnic is being prepared. My local buddy told me to come with him so we got into the boat and motored out to the reef, anchored, put on our mask, snorkel and fins and went spearfishing. He had a couple of spear guns called Hawaiian slings which use surgical tubing to shoot the spear. I pulled out that pneumatic gun from my dive bag and his eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. I got a couple of fish but, this was a guy that knew where to look for the hogs. He would dive down about 15 or 20 feet, look under a huge brain corral (yep, it looks like a brain) and spear his prey. Once we had enough fish, he cleaned them on the boat and we headed back to the motu where the BBQ fire was hot and ready to go.

These adventures to Tahiti are among my fondest memories and I may write more about them later including that Gary and I attempted to start a group tour of the islands which did not pan out. On one of our trips, we even booked passage on a cargo ship that took us between several islands. Not the most comfortable mode of transportation but so fun and interesting, On my last trip there, I returned to SFO to learn that our daughter, Holly had been born while I was gone. She decided to make her appearance six weeks prior to Linda’s due date. I am so grateful, especially to Linda, to be given the opportunity to do these things. Of my four trips to Tahiti and her islands, Linda went with me once. She had a good time, but her heart was more about being with our children at home. I am so blessed to have her as my wife. By the way, this coming July 12 will mark our 33rd anniversary.