Papeete, Tahiti, Society Islands
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sun 4 May 2008 22:36
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17:32.404S 149:34.247W
We are still enjoying civilization in the city of
Papeete on Tahiti and early yesterday morning were joined by two
pale crewmembers from Buffalo - Bill and Kathie Maloney. We plan to leave
the town dock today and sail through the lagoon to a nice anchorage on the
northwestern side of Tahiti. From there we will finish stocking up and
then Monday move on the to the island of Moorea, which is about fifteen miles to
the west of Tahiti.
Before the Maloney's arrival, we enjoyed several
events arranged for all the rally boats by the World ARC and the Tahitian
Tourist Board. The first was an afternoon of canoe racing and instruction
in Polynesian craft making. We skipped the canoe racing - too much work in
this mighty heat! But I did learn how to weave a very nice dinner plate
out of coconut palm leaves. This is a skill I'm sure will come in handy
when we return to upstate NY. The canoe racing was accompanied by a conch
shell blowing warrior (picture 1), who seemed to really enjoy having his picture
taken and posed no less than four times for us.
Later that day a reception was held with speeches
from the French Polynesian Vice President, Minister of Tourism, the Papeete
Mayor's wife and the head of the Port Authority - lots of smiles and thank yous
and congratulations flowed between the speech makers and the audience.
Later, a well known Polynesian singer accompanied by a Polynesian dance group,
entertained the group for a while. The dancers were beautiful teenage
girls complete with thick black wavy hair down to their waists, cocoa brown
skin, hip-hugging grass skirts, tiny bikini tops and flower crowns. The
girls looked like they were having a great time laughing and smiling and we
were all mesmerized by their hips. The bottom half of their bodies
seemed to be disconnected from the top half. Incredible.
How anyone can move their butt like that and still look graceful is
amazing. For those of us that are used to watching teenage girls perform
Irish dancing in the annual Buffalo St. Patrick's day parade, Polynesian
dancing is about as far from that on the dance spectrum as possible.
If we had to choose between the two, I think we'd go for the Polynesians -
they just look like they have a lot more fun.
The next day, the Tourist Board arranged for all
120 or so World ARC boaters to go on a bus tour around the island of
Tahiti. Tahiti has basically one road (a very nice road) that follows the
coast. Very few roads go into the mountainous interior of the
island. There are no village groups around the coast, just a continuous
stream of houses spreading out from Papeete. Most people work in the city
of Papeete and many have a driving commute as bad as that of people living near
cities like New York and Washington. There are less people here, only
about 170,000, but there is only one main two-lane road that rings the
island, so car travel is slow.
We made several stops on our bus tour, the first of
which was a lovely park with an excellent view of the northern coast of Tahiti
(picture 2). In that same park, a photo shoot of a local beauty queen was
taking place, so of course all 120 boaters joined the photographer to stare and
take photos (picture 3). Don particularly liked her dress (as did most of
the men). Later we moved on to a botanical garden where the scenery was
quite lovely (picture 4). Flowers grow everywhere throughout French
Polynesia, and it's no wonder that the Polynesians wear them in their hair and
use flowered fabric for everything from their clothes to table cloths to car
seat covers. This place is just teeming with flowers.
Our last stop on the tour was an ancient site that
was used for political and religious ceremonies. Here, meetings were held
and decisions made concerning the tribes that inhabited Tahiti. The
site was also used for ceremonies including human sacrifices to the Gods.
The Tahitians believed that if they killed and ate their enemies, they
would inherit their enemies' power. The famous Captain
Cook attended one of these cannibalistic ceremonies, and
was completely disgusted. The Tahitians admired Captain Cook so
much that based on his opinion, they ceased cannibalistic activities
from then on. There were many wood and
stone tikis around the site and picture 5 is the largest of them with Shin, a
crewmember from Blueflyer, standing next to it.
After the Maloneys arrived, we spent a fair amount
of time wandering around the streets of Papeete and the
main marketplace. Picture 6 is of one of the market stalls with a few
Tahitian ladies gathered around. Note the giant grapefruits. All the
fruit here is big.
Once the sun set yesterday evening and the
temperature started to decrease to a more humane level, we all took hose showers
and got ready to go to the trucks for dinner. Why a hose shower? The
water on the dock is not safe to drink, so we have not put it into our
tank. For any water sucking activities like showers or clothes washing, we
bring the hose from the dock right into the boat and hook it directly to the
washing machine or bring it right through the port into the bathroom for a
shower. Hence, a 'hose shower'. Even the Maloneys agreed
that a hose shower is actually quite refreshing.
The food prices in Tahiti are about the highest
we've ever seen, so early on we were turned on to dinner at 'the trucks' by
other boaters. In a plaza not too far from the town dock, food trucks pull
up every night and set up plastic tables and chairs for the dinner crowd.
It's kind of like the food trucks at the NY State Fair except that the food is
actually very edible and you don't have to worry about whether or not
you are going to live to see the next day. In the morning, the
plaza is completely empty and clean with not a trace of the food trucks to be
found.
Pictures 7 and 8 are Don and I and Bill and Kathie
after hose showers and before truck dinners.
Anne
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