Selling Travel September 19

48
my trip to...
Islands of
Bounty
It’s a long way to the South Pacific so you could argue it’s worth
seeing more than one island. Jane Archer shows how you can visit
several on a cruise.
We’ve stopped beside a pile of
stones that to an untrained
eye (mine) looks like, well, a
pile of stones. To anthropologist Mark
Eddowes, a walking encyclopaedia on
everything Polynesian who happens
to be guiding my tour, they offer an
insight into the lives of the people who
lived here hundreds of years ago.
‘Here’ is the South Pacific island of
Moorea, the last stop on a one-week
cruise around the Society Islands with Paul
Gauguin Cruises. We started in Papeete,
in Tahiti, and have already visited Raiatea,
Tah’a and Bora Bora. There’s an overnight
in Moorea to come and then, all too soon,
we’ll head back to Papeete.
The islands are as close to paradise as
anywhere I’ve ever been (certainly worth
the near 24-hour journey getting here) – all
small, ringed by beautiful beaches and
with lush green rainforest interiors. They
are each enclosed by strings of coral reefs,
which keeps the waters calm and attracts
an array of marine life; on the reefs
themselves are beautiful white motus, the
local name for coral islands, which glint in
the bright sunshine.
Paul Gauguin’s ship, also called Paul
Gauguin, has proved the perfect base
from which to explore this region.
Purpose-built to cruise the South Pacific,
it accommodates just 332 passengers and
has a shallow draft so it can get inside the
reefs. There’s plenty of outside deck for
lazing in the sun and a laid-back, casual
atmosphere that suits the destination.
After all, who wants to come to the South
Pacific and have to dress up in tuxedos or
DJs. The icing on the cake, is that prices
include all dining, drinks and gratuities so
you don’t have to think about the budget.
Ship mates
I was there with my daughter on what
turned out to be the perfect bonding
trip. While I was loving the sea, sand and
temperatures in the high 80s (despite it
being August, which is their winter), my
daughter was coming back from scuba
and snorkelling tours with the ship’s dive
masters, telling tales of turtles, sea urchins,
eagle rays, sharks (I was assured they were
harmless!) and more. On one notable
trip she encountered a Crown of Thorns
starfish, a carnivorous echinoderm capable
of wiping out entire reef colonies.
My daughter is a scuba dive instructor
but you don’t have to be qualified to dive
from the ship as there are scuba trips for
beginners and certified divers (these are
at extra cost). Uniquely, there are three
dive masters on board, plus a couple of
assistants, and between them they also
look after the marina, housed in the stern
of the ship, which contains water toys like
snorkelling equipment, kayaks, canoes and
a windsurf, all of which are free to use.
We also had plenty of together time.
I got roped into a drift snorkelling trip,
which sounded alarming (“for confident
swimmers only, no touching the coral”)
but was brilliant. We were guided through
fields of colourful coral teeming with evenmore
vibrant tropical fish, pulled along by
the strong current that runs between the
motus – a bit like being in a funnel - when
the tide is coming in or receding.
We drank cocktails from coconut shells
during a Robinson Crusoe day on Motu
Mahana, Paul Gauguin’s private coral
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