French Polynesia
Tahitian Paradise found! Heaven on Earth!
Do you remember the first time you experienced your first taste of Tahiti? Was it hearing Bali Hai from South Pacific or watching Mutiny on the Bounty? Was it gazing in absolute fascination at beautiful brown skinned ladies with long dark hair and liquid eyes with their arms filled with flowers from Paul Gauguin? Even Gauguin couldn’t paint the complete picture of this mystical place.
The 118 islands of French Polynesia were born from volcanoes about 20 million years ago. The land area of these 118 islands and atolls only adds up to about 1,365 square miles. However, they are sprinkled, like gems, over almost 2 million square miles of ocean in the eastern South Pacific! The islands in the Society, Marquesas, Austral and Gambier Island groups remained high islands, while the islands of the Tuamotu Islands group became atolls. Atolls are formed as volcanoes die and become extinct.
Polynesian origins are believed to be in the area of eastern Indonesia or the Phillipines about 4,000 years ago. The early Polynesians were master navigators and their migrations took them through Melanesia to the eastern edge of Polynesia, settling there between 1000 BC and 1000 AD. The very remoteness of the islands of Polynesia kept the people insulated from the rest of the world until Magellan first sighted the Pukapuka Atoll in the Tuamotus in 1521. The Spanish explorer Mendana discovered the Marquesas Islands in 1595. However, true contact between the Polynesians and European explorers did not begin until the discovery of Tahiti by the Englishman Wallis in 1767.
French Polynesia Yacht Charters – There is something about the beauty of the water that makes you just have to jump in. More than 400 varieties of rainbow hued fish glint like ornaments in the iridescent waters, flashing among the jewel-like colors of the hard and soft corals, and the softly waving sea fans. For those who desire the rush of a more active dive, “shooting the pass” of Tiputa is a favorite excursion, where hundreds of fish, moray eels, and shark swim beside and below you, swept along by the strong currents. If you are really lucky, you might catch a glimpse of the rare black and white dolphins that live around the coast of Rangiora. You are floating in your chartered yacht from Taylor’d Yacht Charters in the limpid waters of the most beautiful place in the world. Time now to say “parahi ia” (good-bye) and relive the dream over and over until the next time you are able to visit this heaven on earth.
