Fantasy Islands - Part I

At the beginning of the television show Fantasy Island, Ricardo Montalban would stand at the pier waiting for the sea plane to come to rest, his white three-piece suit pressed and spotless. One by one, his guests exited the plane looking none the worse-for=wear after being crammed for hours in a clown-car of plane (how many people was that tiny thing supposed to hold, anyway?), with no apparent reaction to the oppressive heat and humidity that met them outside the cockpit. Just grateful smiles for the fruity cocktails that were immediately handed to them.

What I didn't see week-after-week - and I never missed an episode - was sweat; sticky, pervasive, invasive, preparation.

After having spent almost two weeks sailing to the various islands of the South Pacific, I'm fairly certain this is how I would have looked disembarking the Fantasy Island express:

Except that instead of smiling, I'd be wincing.

I don't want to give a false impression with starting out focusing on the negative. It isn't that we didn't enjoy our visit to each island - we did. Some of them are spectacularly beautiful. And we were often met with generous hospitality - especially in American Samoa and Samoa. It's just that we don't see a return visit in our future.

DAY 13 When sailing from Hawaii to French Polynesia, one has to cross the equator. This is a big deal onboard, considering the equator is an imaginary line that, without charts and GPS, one would never know they're crossing over; It's not as if the black line that circles globes and dissects world maps is visible on the surface of the ocean.

But a big deal it is, and so a ceremony was held.

King Neptune arrived with his queen - either Mrs. Neptune or Ariel from The Little Mermaid - you can decide which from the picture.

Following single file were all crew members who were Equator virgins. It was decreed that all aboard that had not crossed before were to be initiated. The initiation entailed kissing a huge fish - one that had been defrosting for at least an hour - on the mouth. (I avoided any mouth-to-mouth contact with the smelly, scaly creature by asking if I might kiss it in the European fashion. I then placed my hands on either side of its head, and quickly kissed both hands. It might have been better if I'd just planted one on the fish - despite numerous washing, my hands smelled like Seattle's Pike's Market for the rest of the day.)

We then had to kneel before King Neptune, who poured a huge ladle of ice water over our heads in the cruelest of baptisms. Once we were all initiated, we raised our hands and took the oath, transitioning from Scallywag/Pollywog (Equator virgin) to member of the Secret Society of Shellbacks. complete with a guarantee from King Neptune himself that we had his blessing and protection to "travel freely the Seven Seas and to pass the Equator un-accosted as long as ye shall remain on this earth."

DAY 16 Once we'd crossed the Equator, our first stop was the atoll of Rangiroa. It is one of the largest atolls in the world; the city of Los Angeles could fit inside the ring of islets that make up Rangiroa's boundaries. But that's inside the large lagoon - the inhabited islands are barely two-thirds the size of Disneyland.

Gary had booked a snorkeling excursion for the day. I had not. My last attempt at snorkeling did not go too well. The life-jacket I needed to stay afloat (I'm not a strong swimmer) kept me and my barrel-chested body on my back. To the other snorkelers, I must have looked like a turtle having found itself shell-down as I flailed around trying to right myself. The only part of my snorkel mask that got wet was my air hole. I could feel even the fish judging me.

I'd been told by a fellow passenger who'd been to Rangiroa before that there was a hotel with a bar and lovely beach and "just down the road" from the tender port. That sounded like a nice way to spend the five hours we had for the island.

As it turned out, "just down the road" was the entire length of the island. But I decided to give it a go anyway. What was a little heat and humidity when one was in paradise?

I never made it to the hotel - there was nothing little about the heat or the humidity. But I walked for nearly a mile-and-a-half before turning around, and the island afforded some lovely things to look at: beautiful tropical flowers, interesting birds, crystal-clear water on the lagoon side of the island, crashing waves on the Pacific side. I even saw a pig - more pet than wild - who had rolled in the mud to cool off and was sound asleep when I came upon him.

I had nearly returned back to the wharf when I ran into Gary, fresh from his snorkeling experience:

We spent the next half-hour walking and sweating, stopping every few minutes to snap a photo and mop our faces.

DAY 17 The next morning, when we arrived at Papeete, Tahiti, the island was emerging from a fog bank like some South Pacific Brigadoon. In what would be a recurring theme during our time in the Pacific, the weather forecast was dreary: rain for most of day. Rain that never materialized. The only drops of water landing at our feet were falling from our foreheads.

We had decided to stay close to the ship - didn't want to be caught on the other side of the island when the torrential downpours hit - and, with our friend Justin in tow, started off on a walking tour of Papeete, the largest town in French Polynesia with just under 30,000 residents.

Our first stop was the Papeete Market, a large, two-story marketplace that offered everything from fresh fish to fine jewelry. Justin bought a handsome black pearl bracelet. Pearl shops are to the South Pacific what Starbucks are to the States - there's one on every corner.

After taking in all the market had to offer, it was time to stop for something cold to drink. It had been just a little over an hour since we'd left the ship, and we were already completely dehydrated. While sucking down Diet Cokes, we mapped out a route that would take us to the Catholic church (the oldest in Tahiti), the Mairie de Papeete (town hall), the Territory Assembly Hall, and the Bougainville Park.

The church was a little worse-for-wear, and, although it was a weekday afternoon, it's doors were locked to both tourists and to the poor who were camped out around the entrance. Like many of the places we've visited, the gulf separating the haves (tourists) and have nots (residents) is omnipresent - vast and virulent.

In stark contrast, our next stop - the town hall - was glorious and grand. It housed a museum, but as it's doors were wide-open, we assumed that it was unairconditioned - an erroneous assumption we'd later find out - and satisfied ourselves with taking photos of its perimeter.

It was at this time that Justin begged off; the heat was getting to him and he headed back to the ship. More on that momentarily.

Gary and I walked the half-mile to the Territory Assembly Hall, housed in an impressive building. A handsome young gentleman in a suit looking depressingly fresh as he had on three more layers of clothes than Gary or myself, while we looked anything but handsome or fresh, not to mention young. We were told that we were unable to take photos on the grounds as there were very important government officials on the premises, but that we could take a photo of the official seal embossed on the wall of the courtyard. We didn't necessarily want a picture of the seal, but it seemed rude not to after the young man - did I mention he was handsome? - made the offer.

The "beautiful Bougainville Gardens," named not for the plant bougainvillea, for as best we could tell there were no plants in this garden - but for the explorer, was so underwhelming that we took not a single photo, save for the bust of Mr. Bougainville.

We capped off a sizzling-but-scenic walk along the wharf promenade with lunch at an outdoor restaurant/bar right on the water. It was our waiter's first day on the job - and he was eager to please. So eager that, despite the fact he spoke very little English, he said "yes" to everything we said, even our questions that were not of the yes-no variety. As a result, we ended up with more food than we knew what to do with, plates of meats, smoked fish, olives, cheeses. When we'd had enough to eat, the poor young man looked dejected by our still half-full plates, certain that he must have failed in some way.

When we got back to the ship, we discovered that it wasn't the heat that had wiped Justin out - it was COVID. He'd developed the sniffles on the way back, and he decided to self-test in case it wasn't allergies making his nose run. It wasn't. He immediately went to the medical clinic on board, where another test confirmed it was the corona virus, and he was sequestered to his stateroom for five days of isolation. His symptoms disappeared within hours. Even though neither of us presented any symptoms, Gary and I both went down to the clinic to test, which came back negative. Justin's stateroom is just two doors down from us, and we'd periodically lean over our balcony rails and chat. He reported that the ship had treated him fantastically. The nurse called him daily, as did the cruise director. All his meals were sent by room service. And he even got a "get out of jail early" card when he was allowed to leave his room after day three as long as he remained masked in crowded areas. MORNING OF DAY 18 I woke up early the day of our arrival to Bora Bora. Not intentionally; I was none-too-pleased when I awoke, looked at my Fitbit, and saw 4:50 flashing at me. I had hoped to sleep until 7:00. But I decided to get up, dress quietly so as not to wake Gary, and go up on deck to see if I might see the sunrise.

I'm so glad that I did. At first light, the sky was a deep-lavender. Venus, the morning star, was visible overhead:

And then the sky, water, and approaching land put on a show just for me. Well, me and twelve other passengers who'd gotten up early. And dozens of crew members whose jobs brought them outside:

After eating a light breakfast and lathering ourselves in sunscreen, Gary and I set off on our own to spend our first day in Bora Bora exploring.

As soon as we tendered ashore, we hopped into a taxi and headed for a much-spoken of magnificent public beach that stretched along the southern tip of the island. It was not quite 11:00 am when we arrived, and the temperature was already nearing the high of 87 degrees - with the humidity, a heat index over one hundred. Even before we got down to the beach proper, we could see just how crystal clear the water was. We couldn't wait to get in and cool off. Only there was no difference between the temp. of the water and the temp. of the sky. None. Because the sand of the beach wasn't exactly sandy - it was littered with chunks of coral - I wore my boat shoes to wade in. The water was up to my shins before I even realized my feet were wet. I've been in Jacuzzis that were colder than this. In or out of the lagoon that surrounded the island, we were going to be hot and wet.

We walked the length of the beach and back again, then had lunch at a waterside restaurant with possibly the best tuna steak sandwich we've ever had (the fries weren't too shabby, either.) We were waited on by a large, gender-fluid wait-person, flowers behind their ears, carrying themselves with a sense-of-freedom that we'd come to realize was, in Polynesia, more common than not - even on devoutly-Christian islands like Samoa. This left us with the impression that whatever openness and understanding the Polynesian forebears had for genderfluidity that had led to them viewing third-gender individuals as holy was still alive in spirit today.

Our bellies full and our sweat-glands overtaxed, Gary and I headed back to the ship, knowing that we had an excursion planned for the following day.

That excursion was a tour around the island courtesy of Le Truck - which is apparently French for "vehicle with tiny windows, hard seats, and no air conditioning." (Actually, I just looked it up, and that would have been "Le Vehicule Avec de Petites Fenetres, des Bancs en Bois Dur et Pas de Climatisation." Thanks, Google translate!)

Needless to say, some sweating was done. But frequent stops were made, which allowed us to sweat in the open air. It also allowed us to take in a lot of breathtaking scenery. Water of every shade of blue imaginable, with some gold, silver and bronze thrown in for good measure. Lush vegetation. The towering presence of Mount Otemanu and Mount Pahia, so spectacular it was said to have inspired the song "Bali Hai" in South Pacific (although it was actually filmed in Kaua'i - another Hollywood illusion shattered). We stopped and how the colorful designs on the fabric used in Sarongs are created. (The lovely photographers in one of the photos are our friends Carol and Linda, who have a big role in our adventure in American Samoa.)

We saw the famous Bora Bora-style bungalows, built on stilts over the lagoon - available to rent for as little as $800 - $1,200 a night. For a little less money, you can rent a bungalow that's along the shore but still on terra firma. For a lot more money - $2,000 a night or more - you can be so far out over the water, the only way to access it is by boat. That's part of the allure, of course. That inaccessibility. No cell phone signal. No internet. Away from work, world events, family drama, Taylor Swift gossip.

I can see the appeal of unplugging from the real world, although I think I could succeed in doing it for less money. But I can't help but think that many are paying for the opportunity to visit paradise, but avoid the inhabitants. Like many of the places we're visiting, tourist dollars are spent mostly in ways that line the pockets of very few who live there. Of course, this happens in the U.S. too, and maybe because we're living in the midst of it, it's harder for us to see? Easier to ignore? But so many visit these places like Tahiti, Bora Bora, Fiji - and keep their interaction with the locals to the bare minimum. It's such a loss. As Gary and I were soon to discover while visiting American Samoa and Samoa, the true beauty of paradise is found not in its environment, but in the hearts of its people.

To be continued in "Fantasy Island - Part II"

As always, apologies in advance for any editorial errors, as well as the lack of diacritics for many foreign words. I cannot decode the instructions for adding them.