WORLD
With a special report this month on a short but rewarding cruise through Tahiti's Idyllic Îles Sous-le-Vent.
JULIE TURPIN
While sailing the lagoons, you'll soon witness the favorite sport of Tahitians: outrigger canoe racing.
are undoubtedly some of the most stunningly beautiful islands in the world. As I always tell friends, when traveling among them, it's difficult to decide which way to point your camera — wherever you go, you always seem to be sailing through a postcard. Formed by a series of volcanic eruptions in ancient times, each of the principal Tahitian islands has distinctive characteristics that are rare elsewhere: First, they all have lofty mountains that are covered by a lush carpet of nearly impenetrable forest, and topped by craggy pinnacles that reach up toward the heavens. As a result, most of the population lives in the flatlands near the water's edge, or on the lower slopes just above. Even more unusual, though, is the fact that each of these isles is encircled by a fringing reef that creates a flat-water lagoon between the reef and the island. For sailors, this phenomenon provides a rare combination of splendid trade wind sailing over flat water and peaceful nights at anchor, cooled by the steady tropical breeze. We're told the outer reefs are actually built on the ancient perimeters of sunken volcanic craters, and the islands that we see today are the result of much later eruptions from the same fiery sources. Apart from Tahiti's stunning geography, though, these islands stand out in comparison to many other travel destinations because of the genuinely friendly Tahitian people and the Polynesian cultural traditions that are evident throughout this archipelago — as well as the four other archipelagos that comprise French Polynesia. Every after noon, for example, in virtually every lagoon in the islands, you'll find broad-shouldered men — and sometimes women too — practicing their favorite sport: paddling one- to six-person outrigger canoes. If you're lucky ROGER DAVIS
At Play in the Leeward Lagoons: Three Days Just Isn't Enough Working as a writer with sailing as your specialty is certainly no way to get rich. But it does have its rewards, such as occasional travel opportunities to exotic sailing venues. A case in point was my trip in June to report on the fourth annual TahitiMoorea Sailing Rendezvous (see our July edition). My wife, Julie, and I had a great time hanging out with all those salty cruisers who'd just transited 3,000 miles of open ocean from the west coast of the Americas. But by the time we said goodbye to them, we were itching to do a little adventuring on our own. The perfect solution? Charter a bareboat, of course, and take a laid-back spin through the islands. From Moorea, we caught an 80-mile flight to Raiatea, in the center of the Leeward Islands (les les Îles Sous-le-Vent Sous-le-Vent), where this French Overseas Territory's four bareboat companies all have their bases. Unfortunately, we only had three days to play before unchangeable obligations at home would draw us away, but we made the most of it. After all, only a few days of sailing in this tropical paradise is far better than none at all. Before we give you the blow-by-blow account of the places we visited, allow us to share some background on these amazing islands. As you've probably heard before, Tahiti and her sister isles
enough to be here in July, during the annual Heiva celebrations, you can watch the top Tahitians compete against islanders from the Marquesas, Tuamotus, Gambiers and Australs. And in the evenings you can watch lavish ceremonial performances by hundreds of musicians and dancers wearing elaborate, handmade costumes. In French Polynesia, cultural dances aren't just anachronisms from olden days that are put on for the benefit of tourists. On every island we've visited during five trips here, we've seen boys and girls of all ages, as well as adults, joyfully practicing the age-old steps and gyrations of their ancestors — the girls dressed in coconut bras and grass skirts or pareos, and the boys bare-chested above their loincloths. It's obvious that Polynesian music is highly revered throughout the islands too, because it seems as though just about everyone knows how to play the guitar or ukulele and sing sweet island melodies.
