Tahitian Dreams

In which your faithful correspondent sails, dines, paddles, and dances in proper Polynesian style. Poorly, but with gusto…

Mark Orwoll Is at It Again

by Mark Orwoll

Like its sister islands (Moorea, Bora Bora, Raiatea, Gilligans, and more than 100 other islets and atolls), Tahiti is thick with waterfalls, frangipani and red hibiscus, myna birds, beachside blowholes, surfers, highly attractive residents, and water-view restaurants selling plates of poisson cru (raw tuna) for U.S. $27. Tahiti ain’t cheap.

Unlike everywhere else in French Polynesia, Papeete, the capital of Tahiti, is an unlovely place. Traffic jams, an inordinate amount of uninspired concrete and cinder-block architecture, trawlers tied up at the downtown port, and taxis racing to and from Faa’a International Airport give the town a slightly rundown, industrial appearance. By any measure (meaning “in my opinion”), it’s the least-favorite settlement in all Polynesia.

But wait! Give Papeete a couple of days, peel back a layer or two, and voila! Magic happens.

Adventure on the High Seas

Shortly after arriving, I booked an excursion on the Moana Explorer, a double-outrigger sailing canoe with stretched netting instead of an actual floor. At a Tahitian boat ramp just beyond downtown, we backed the canoe into a lagoon that, in any other city, would be a national monument. A breeze caught our red sail, and off we went.

Poisson cru with all the trimmings. You will eat lots of tuna in Tahiti. Guaranteed. Image: Orwoll

Our captain, Niuhit Buillart, sailed in the first Hawaiki Nui Va’a, the Super Bowl of paddling competitions, over a distance of 80 miles from Huahine to Bora Bora. His teammate was Teiva Veronique, the owner and founder of the Moana Explorer company, which began in 2019. He said they currently have seven canoes, with three more on the way. They also offer canoe sailing in traditional outriggers, with no instruments, “like our ancestors.”

“Most Tahitians know how to dance and play our music,” Buillart said, “but they’ve forgotten the main thing: sailing. We shouldn’t forget where we’re coming from.”

Sail along Tahiti’s magnificent shoreline with Moana Explorer. No paddling required! Photo courtesy Moana Explorer

Buillart tacked into the oncoming breeze, and sometimes had to paddle to get us back into a wind current. A squall came in and drenched us—not that we were dry to begin with, considering the waves that sloshed up onto the web seats. But the rain brought with it a cold wind. The temperature felt as if it dropped 20 degrees in less than a minute as the wind picked up and the raindrops pelted our faces. I was wearing a cap with a Foreign Legion-style neck flap that could be buttoned around my face, so I kept a relatively dry head, whereas my two companions had to turn their faces away from the wind and face down, eyes closed.

At last, the squall passed. We had made it almost all the way to Point Venus, where once Captain James Cook anchored the HMS Endeavour and, later, where Captain Bligh came with the HMS Bounty in quest of breadfruit.

An abandoned resort on a clifftop just outside Papeete has been the subject of speculation for years. Image: Orwoll

We turned back in the direction from which we’d come and anchored in a protected cove beneath an abandoned resort high on the cliff above us. The spooky old hotel had been empty since the operator absconded years earlier because of tax issues, or so our captain thought. Buillart brought out plastic containers of poisson cru and sliced fruit, and we enjoyed a repast right there in the water, floating gently on the near-shores of Tahiti, in the shadow of the ghost resort.

Here’s a Paddle, Now Earn Your Keep

Va’a is the Polynesian word for canoe, meaning an outrigger. Fare Va’a means canoe house. The traditional canoe has an outrigger just on one side, while modern-day versions, like the Moana Explorer, have outriggers on both sides of the canoe plus a single sail.

I had come to the Fare Va’a in the Papeete suburb of Faa’a for a clinic in paddling basics with Milton Laughlin, one of the greatest canoeists and outrigger coaches in Tahiti. Laughlin, a native Tahitian, gets his unorthodox name from a great-grandfather who emigrated from Ireland.

Outrigger canoes at the fare come in one-man through six-man sizes. Polynesians explored and settled much of the South Pacific in these sorts of canoes. If you look at the Polynesian Triangle, Tahiti is right at the center, with Hawaii, New Zealand, and Rapa Nui (Easter Island) at the far corners. Tahitians built their smaller canoes for fishing. Those fishing canoes morphed into racing canoes and the present-day outrigger competitions, of which Laughlin is one of the world’s most renowned.

“You will learn how to paddle first,” said the no-nonsense Milton.

Milton Laughlin is known throughout French Polynesia as a champion paddler and an even better canoe coach. But no messing around! Image: Orwoll

The paddles themselves are much shorter and more flexible than a typical canoe paddle, with a handle at the end and a curved blade. Counterintuitively, the scooped face of the blade faces the direction in which you’re traveling, while the convex side is used to pull the water.

Rowing in concert with the three other paddlers in my six-man canoe wasn’t as difficult as I imagined. The person in front would paddle on the left side, the next person would paddle on the right side, and so on. One person was designated to shout “Ho!” on the seventh stroke, at which point we would all make one more (eighth) paddle, then quickly switch to paddling on the opposite side. After five minutes or so, a new paddler would take responsibility for counting the number of paddles.

Counting the number of strokes turned out to be harder than paddling, because it was easy to become hypnotized by the splash-splash of the blades cutting into the water, the waves breaking on the reef ahead of us, and the harsh sunlight, and forget to shout the alert. Also, I’m not good at counting on the best of days.

The inner-reef water near the shore was blue-gray, but quickly became swimming-pool blue the closer we paddled to the reef, about a half-mile offshore. Brain, cauliflower, staghorn, and other corals rose from rocks just 10 feet below us. Groupers, orangespot surgeonfish, clown fish, and more sea life loitered in the coral shadows.

Milton Laughlin selects a va’a for his amateur paddlers, ideally one that won’t flip over because of their ineptitude. Image: Orwoll

After 20 minutes of paddling, we were well offshore and enjoying the peaceful waters. Laughlin asked if any of us wanted to slip out of the outrigger and take a swim. As attractive as it sounded in the 80-degree heat under a cloudless sky, we all declined, concerned that getting out of the canoe would have been far, far easier than climbing back in, which would have meant treading water, reaching up two feet to grab the rail, and using pure upper body strength to hoist oneself back inside the canoe. My upper body strength is about on par with Emo Phillips. No thanks. I’ll just sit in the canoe and sweat.

Turns Out, I’m No Dancer

Milton suggested a more relaxed form of recreation would be a dance lesson at Moeata Dance School, run by his sister, the celebrated terpsichorean Hianu Laughlin.

“Traditional dance is my culture, my soul,” said Hianu, who established the school in 1989. “My dad is a singer. I grew up every day with dancing and singing. Our life is dancing and singing.”

Since 1989, Hianu Laughlin has been keeping traditional Polynesian dance alive. Image: Orwoll

As much as we might think that Polynesian culture is embedded in the islands, traditions have largely declined over the past century. French is spoken more than Tahitian, reggaeton-inspired ori deck has supplanted the ancient, gospel-like himene tārava, and even the Chinese-immigrant catastrophe called the chow-mein sandwich has become a staple of Polynesia’s food trucks and “snack” joints.

To find someone who is keeping Tahitian dance alive is impressive.

The plan was for us visitors to take lessons for 30 minutes, then watch the accomplished students perform.

Another man and I were told to make fists at our waists and bend our knees, then do a kind of scissors motion with our legs. Next, we were advised to raise each foot, slowly, in time with the rhythm as we continued scissoring—much harder than it sounds. I looked like an angry man who desperately needed to find a bathroom.

“Now we will show you how we practice during a class,” said Laughlin.

Centuries-old dances are being kept alive at the Moeata Dance school in Papeete. God bless ‘em, everyone. Image: Orwoll

Ten young women, mostly in their late teens and twenties, stepped to the front of the classroom. I don’t mean to sound like a dirty old man, but they wore skimpy, short-skirted pareus with their right legs exposed nearly to the waist. As they practiced their steps, their dance moves were exceedingly sensual. Their hips wiggled left and right while their shoulders hardly moved at all. If I had tried to replicate their moves, I would still be in the critical-care unit.

At that moment, I understood why Fletcher Christian and his shipmates from the Bounty mutinied rather than leave their Polynesian girlfriends.

And you wondered why the sailors on the Bounty mutinied. Image: Orwoll

Hianu’s 10-month program has twice-weekly, one-hour classes for which the students pay about $100 a month. She currently has 110 students in the dance school. They’ve graduated more than 800 dancers since the program began more than 35 years ago.

“It’s in my soul,” said Hianu about Polynesian dance. “I can’t stop dancing. I travel to L.A. and Japan to teach workshops. It’s very specific to us, the way we do fast fara paho’o. If you want, we can show you a dance.”

I inserted my finger into my collar and tried to allow in some air. Then I took a gulp of hibiscus-scented perfume and attempted to maintain my composure.

“Why…yes,” I said. “Please do.”

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