Go ahead, say the word slowly and softly: Tahiti. That, friends, is the sound of Paradise.
No other island has the dream power of Tahiti – not Bali, not Hawaii, not the Seychelles, not anywhere. Over the past 256 years, ocean voyagers, starting with the 18th century European explorers – Samuel Wallis, James Cook, and Louis-Antione de Bougainville – have felt the island’s pull. Lured by tales of a magical idyll of volcanic spires, lush valleys, waterfalls, and sapphire lagoons, they found themselves entangled in an extraordinary culture, caught between island kings and hundreds of wakas, thousands of warriors in take-no-prisoners sea battles. And meanwhile, they were besotted by women beautiful beyond imagination. When the Europeans sailed away from Tahiti they must have wept and cried out, “What was that all about? Was it real? Was it a dream? How could such a place exist?”
Right now, the high, sharp silhouette of Tahiti is framed between ’s bows in the sunrise. Just twenty-four miles to go. What will we find? When I say Tahiti, of course, I am using cruiser shorthand for the Society Islands of French Polynesia, six isles west of Tahiti: Moorea,among cruisers as a voyaging milestone and home to Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia and heart of the South Pacific. Sooner or later, every yacht calls into Papeete.
