Letters from the Antipodes

The colorful ex-patriot American described by Michener or Burdick was typically an eccentric artist seeking to paint the "noble savage au naturel." Or, he was the intemperate scion of a prestigious family who "escaped" to the South Seas. Both were usually found at Quinn's, a colorful bar well known to the itinerant boozers of the South Pacific. The ex-patriot American in Papeete today is more likely to be the manager of a resort hotel on Moorea or a retiree complete with VISA card. Quinn's has been torn down to make way for a multi-level shopping center filled with the same artsy-fartsy shops with ersatz trinkets one can find in any of the Ghiardelli Squares of the world.

After another month of enjoying its pleasures and brooding over its disappointments, we decided to make a greater effort to escape Papeete. We decided to take a leisurely sail around Tahiti, including Tahiti-iti (little Tahiti) that is connected by a narrow isthmus. The cruise began with headwinds as we worked our way southeasterly into the trades. It was fun, the first real windward sailing since leaving Berkeley Harbor. And, here the spray was warm!

We selected our pass through the barrier reef with care, because some have tall waves or even breakers at the entrance. We entered Papeari Harbor about 30 miles south of Papeete on the west coast of Tahiti. We rounded a small point and dropped the hook 50 yards from shore in an idyllic, protected cove. We looked out on an unusual variety of trees, shrubs and flowers. Strangely, they were not dense and overgrown. We had discovered the Botanical Gardens of Tahiti with beautifully maintained grounds. In the last century an American benefactor collected many of the tropical plants of the Pacific Basin and created these botanical gardens. It has plants from Polynesia and also from Southeast Asia, New Guinea, the Philippines, etc.

To port, 500 yards away, were small houses with green mountains behind. To starboard, a mile away, we could see and faintly hear the surf on the barrier reef. Between the reef and Dawntreader lay the lagoon with hues of light blue, aquamarine and brown where coral heads neared the surface. Through the lagoon ran a well-marked channel to the next-harbor. It is hard to get used to what they call harbors here because they are usually protected only by the barrier reef that seldom breaks the surface. Any self-respecting storm could make a shambles of an anchorage in one of these "harbors."

However, we were protected in our little cove through 265 degrees of the compass by tall trees and high land. For this we were grateful when six days later the weather turned nasty. Tropical cyclone, LISA passed about 45 miles southwest of Tahiti. She hit Bora Bora with 66-knot winds. Here, the winds blew off the land from the northeast and east over a fetch of only a quarter mile. I set a second anchor just to keep the boat from veering and healing as gusts of wind blasted successively from port, then starboard.

A week later we discussed cyclone LISA with the crew of the only other boat to visit our little cove for three weeks. They were two physicians who had worked together for the French public health service on La Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean. One is now retired and living on Tahiti. The other was on vacation. Both scoffed at LISA and called it a "cyclone banan," a cyclone that only knocks bananas off the trees. Cyclones are much worse on La Reunion, they insisted.

Their jobs took them to most French possessions. They said local officials in tropical French possessions make the same fuss, over cyclones that American local and state officials do over floods and other disasters. Their objectives are the same, more financial help from the central government. In our case it’s disaster relief from Washington, in theirs it’s more favorable financial treatment by the colonial office in Paris. Over a bottle of pastis we learned other fascinating things about the overseas Frenchman. He is typically a Breton, a native of Brittany in the far west of France. Brittany, where the indigenous language is a Celtic dialect as in Wales or Ireland, has traditionally produced a seafaring population. For instance, the majority of career personnel in the French Navy, the professional officers and enlisted, are Bretons. Bretons also occupy most overseas jobs.

The Paul Gauguin Museum is also in the Botanical Gardens. Although it has no Gauguin originals, it does have good reproductions and interesting displays about his life and times. We met Gilles Arthur, the museum director taking an evening swim at the point. He graciously invited us for a scotch in his quarters