Traipsing Around: Travel and Psychogeography: August 2015

I arrive at Tahiti Airport and get a taxi to the hostel. I arrive at breakfast time and Fred the proprietor invites me for coffee and food. I’m sharing the four bed dormitory with Jos, who is immediately friendly and welcoming. I venture out to explore. I have to say that I was initially disappointed. The walk to the nearest beach is along a very busy road, the only arterial road for the island, to a small, public beach of black sand and pebbles. The next beach along, perhaps 400 metres away, is of yellow sand, but is very busy. Well, it is a Sunday, after all, so perhaps that is to be expected. When I enter the water it is cold and I involuntarily exhale as I dive beneath the surface. Instead of a dense carpet of brightly coloured, vivid coral, I have entered an underwater desert. The bottom is sandy and there are large but sporadic outcrops of coral, like copses in a series of large, ploughed fields, lacking vegetation, or like desert cacti, growing in isolated towers in an arid and desolate landscape. As I swim further out, the water is fantastically clear and I can see across what seem like large distances. There are silver, yellow and black butterfly fish, browsing the seabed. There is a shoal of Parrot Fish, but both types of fish are very large, perhaps twice the size of the fish in Thailand and much easier to spot, out in the open (although, so am I). Some of the Parrot Fish I have seen before: a fantastic combination of colours, deftly drawn lines and broader brushstrokes of luminous blue, orange, shimmering greens and purples. Some are new types to me, with delicate white backgrounds, but painted with thin lines of orange, green and blue, whilst others are all green, with bright, horizontal, wavy orange lines. I meet a few people: Jos, originally from Canada, but who now lives in New Zealand and who has been travelling for about 12 years, all over the World, Han, of Vietnamese origins but who has spent most of his life in Germany, travelling for a year and Ons, from Tunisia, who now lives in Paris and is here prior to a work assignment. I mention I’m thinking of going to a nearby island, Mo’orea, and organically we all decide to go.

We travel by ferry and then bus and settle at a camp site (Camping Nelson) on the North West of the island. It has cabins for rent and I share one with Han. When we arrive, I think I have died and gone to Heaven! Mo’orea is the stereotypical idea of a South Pacific tropical island. It has fantastic turquoise, deep blue and green water, a cooling sea breeze and fantastic snorkelling, across vast beds of coral, intersected by clear channels of soft sand, which is gritty in parts and in others, as soft as talcum powder.

Yesterday I swam in the morning, before sunrise when the water was really cold. Later, I swam in the middle of the afternoon. At one point I’m swimming past an outcrop of coral, when at the very same time, a sting-ray emerges from the other side, swimming in the same direction and in parallel with me! It is huge, at least 3 or 4 feet across and we both see each other at the same time. I see the left eye on a stalk turn towards me and then the grey wings ripple gracefully, yet forcefully and suddenly it is in front of me, and I’m swimming hard to keep up. I see its long tail, which must be 5 feet long. I’m expecting a sharp point, but it is blunt, so I assume the sting is in the barrel rather than right at the end. I follow for as long as I can, perhaps 1 minute although it seems like much longer, until it sweeps swiftly over some very shallow coral, so that I can only follow with difficulty and then it is gone. Absolutely brilliant.

Today I see a ray swim close to the shore, about 3 feet out. Typically, because I have just been swimming, I have left my camera in the cabin, but never mind. I get to actually see it, rather than photograph it. It swims or rather flies, along a straight channel, effortlessly, gracefully and then heads for a gap in the low rock wall which encircles the island (I assume it's the perimeter of an ancient volcanoe). I watch the birds circle overhead and dive straight into the water, wings pulled back as they enter, arrow-like, and then rise again with the small fish, which they throw into the air and catch on the wing so it is in a better position to swallow. I will stay here for a few days more, I think and tomorow rent a kayak. I hear that you can watch rays and sharks, just beyond the next small island. It is a tropical paradise!