Raiatea, Society Islands, French Polynesia

By Glen Bruels
This is part of a series called Oceania 2025
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Today we visited Raiatea, the second largest of the Society Islands, only behind Tahiti) in French Polynesia. While all the Society Islands were colonized from Tonga and Samoa as early as 200 BC, Raiatea (the traditional name for the island is Havai’i — sound like anyplace you know?) was only settled about 1000 years ago. Having said that, it became a very powerful religious center in French Polynesia. Today, Deb visited the great temple (or marae in Tahitian) of Taputapuatea that was dedicated to the god Oro when it was built in the 1400s. In fact, they “exported” their god to many of the other islands which displaced the local gods. In addition to religion, this became a powerful political center, exporting their influence as well as their god. In terms of expansion, the Maori people claim their heritage from this area and colonization of New Zealand got its start from here. Ultimately, the Europeans (initially with James Cook from Britain, but later the Spanish and French) colonized these islands and the traditional gods gave way to Christianity. The chiefs in Raiatea fought this for decades, but finally the missionaries “got their noses under the tent” and started converting some of the nine kingdoms that were represented on the island. This led to wars — both civil and with foreign powers that continued until 1888 when the last king’s reign ended. I should note that the marae of Taputapuatea were destroyed, rebuilt, converted, and destroyed again during these intervening years.

On the road to Taputapuatea.
Deb’s guide for the tour.
Some interesting totems along the edge of the marae.
Because it is forbidden to walk on a marae, a separate area is set aside for offerings.
The marae itself.
I love the carving of the stone fish.
Coconut meats drying in the sun in preparation for pressing to get coconut oil.

While Deb was doing the historical tour, I went drift snorkeling. I’m sure many of you have done this before — leave the boat in one place, drift along and the boat picks you up on the other side, right? Well, not this one. Here we waded out perpendicular to the roughly 5 knot current, trying to stay on our feet against the current and tripping on corral. Then you had to get out of your water shoes, get your flippers on, and zoom through the coral garden. Then you have to take a 90 turn and kick like crazy to get back to shore (or you will end up on the island of Taha’a). Then you do the same thing two more times! It was exhausting but exhilarating. One of the challenges is to try to steer clear of coral heads. Most of the time that worked. A few coral scrapes says it wasn’t always successful. We also had a surprise visitor that passed right between us — a black-tipped reef shark!

On our way to the little island where we will do our drift snorkel. It took about 45 minutes each way through the pounding surf.
The boats pulled up to the island and we all got off.
From the island, we walked perpendicular to the 5 knot current in our water shoes, ultimately up to our chest level. Dodging the coral heads that you could barely see was interesting.
At that point, we would have to get out of our water shoes, put on our flippers, and get into a line to start drifting. Needless to say, people were leaning (or falling) on each other to get that task done.
And then we drifted. On one hand, it was easy — just drift with the current and try to stay straight. On the other, you have to steer enough not to plow into a coral head. I was successful at that — mostly…
Lots to see on the drift…
… including this shark who was checking us out. I wasn’t expecting that!
The final challenge was turning left and fighting the current to swim back to the island. Not doing so would leave you to drift to the next island! We ended up doing three cycles of this. Tiring, but a lot of fun!
At the end of the snorkeling, our guide gave us about a 10 minute concert, singing and playing his ukulele. Lots of local ballads, but the inevitable “Country Road” and “You Are My Sunshine.” We’ve heard these all over. They must be in the ukulele lesson book.
This entry was posted in Cruising, French Polynesia, Raiatea
Glen Bruels

I am a traveler and sometimes clay sculptor, following a long career working in consulting. My work allowed me to travel the world extensively and I was hooked. Today, I travel with my wife/best friend to explore new places, meet new people, and learn new things.

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