I don’t know why, but I expected, after all the foreign ports we had approached by sea, that Hilo would look different….I guess more ‘merican (which, according to the urban dictionary, is a word that means “American”, but doesn’t require you to put your burger and fries down to use the shift button in order to…
Continue reading →“When you see the Southern Cross for the first time, You understand now why you came this way. ‘Cause the truth you might be runnin’ from is so small. But it’s as big as the promise, the promise of a coming day.” ~Stephen Stills, Richard Curtis, & Michael Curtis I cannot think of the Marquesas…
Continue reading →Rangiroa, whose name means ” vast sky”, is the biggest atoll of French Polynesia, but aside from two main villages, the rest of it is almost uninhabitable and remote. It has a string of rich coral encircling a luminous turquoise and jade-green lagoon and is considered one of the world’s greatest dive destinations. Insignia anchored…
Continue reading →One of Polynesia’s best-kept secrets, Huahine, has steep mountains descending into protected azure bays with white sand beaches, sacred blue-eyed eels, mystical ancient temples and archeological sites, lush forests, and untamed landscape. Scarcely developed, It is said to be one of the more interesting islands to explore. But, the longer I spend in Polynesia, the…
Continue reading →Our ship approached Tahiti at dawn, with the island outlined in the rising sun. As we got closer, I could see that Papeete was a town of more significant size than any on the other islands. With a population of almost 26,000, it is French Polynesia’s capital and cultural center. When spelling Tahitian words the…
Continue reading →Believed to have inspired the mythical Bali Hai from James Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific, Moorea is one of the most scenically striking islands in French Polynesia. The island is roughly shaped like a heart from overhead, with the northern shore split into two symmetrical bays, Cook’s and Opunohu Bay, and Mount Rotui standing sentinel…
Continue reading →“The first experience can never be repeated. That first love, the first sunrise, the first South Sea island, are memories apart and touched a virginity of sense.” ~Robert Louis Stevenson This was Stevenson’s impression upon first alighting in the South Pacific in June of 1888. A lot has changed…or maybe not. Bora Bora is now…
Continue reading →Raitea is the second largest of the Society Islands, after Tahiti, in French Polynesia. It’s name means “faraway heaven”, and rightly so with its green-carpeted mountains, cascading waterfalls, crystalline waters, and the beautiful Tiare apetahi, a white corolla-petaled flower so rare it can be grown no place else on earth. The port is in Utoroa,…
Continue reading →Arriving at Pago Pago felt a bit like an early homecoming, as it is the capital city of American Samoa, a territory of the US since 1900. English is spoken along with native Samoan, and the local currency is the good ole’ US dollar. The territory is made up of five volcanic islands totaling 76…
Continue reading →Tonga, the Pacific’s only remaining kingdom, is perched just east of the International Dateline and is made up of more than 170 tropical Pacific islands, most uninhabited. The entire population is about 105,000 with almost 70 percent living in the capital city of Nuku’alofa on the main island of Tongatapu. We arrived at the capital…
Continue reading →