The South Pacific - The Pull of Maupiti
A Near Miss in French Polynesia
This is the second installment of my South Pacific stories. Check out the story of the sinking boat here.
The Pacific Ocean was claiming me. With each desperate stroke toward the beach, the current pulled me closer to the reef opening - and beyond it, thousands of miles of empty ocean. My arms burned as I dragged the kayak behind me, swimming diagonally against the rushing tide. Ten more feet to safety. Eight. Five. The roar of waves breaking on the reef grew louder, a reminder of what awaited if I failed.
How had I ended up here? Two weeks ago, I'd first spotted Maupiti on the map, a tiny speck in French Polynesia so small my parents couldn't find it. After the sailboat sinking underneath me near Raitea, I'd made a decision: no more crewing on other people's boats. Instead, I boarded a local ferry to Maupiti, an eleven-kilometer paradise where every available piece of land burst with breadfruit, mango, and banana trees.
It was the kind of place that tourism hadn't quite figured out yet - no hotels, one road, one shop, and three public phones. The kind of place where authentic island life still thrived, untouched and genuine.
I'd been clutching the ferry rail as we approached the island, watching the impossible blues of the lagoon shift and change beneath us. A woman about my mother's age appeared beside me, her silver-streaked hair cut in a practical bob, skin tanned to leather by decades of island sun. When she offered me a room to rent, I didn't hesitate.
"First time to Maupiti?" she asked in French-accented English.
"Yes. My sailboat started taking on water near Raitea, so... change of plans."
"Ah, the best adventures start with disaster." She smiled, extending her hand. "I'm Juliette. Twenty years ago, I came for a week's vacation. Then I met a fisherman who sang like an angel and danced like a god." She gestured toward the approaching dock where a tall Polynesian man was securing his small fishing boat. "Now look at me - married to Aeriti, living on a motu, and as far from France as I can be."
Their home sat on a motu - a reef island - facing the island's only pass, a dogleg so narrow that even the supply ferry had to approach at an angle every two weeks to avoid running aground.
That's how I found myself in paradise. My room was a simple shack opening directly onto a white sand beach, with the lagoon stretching out front and the constant symphony of crashing surf behind. The bathroom was an outdoor affair - just vine leaf partitions and no roof, offering an unobstructed view of the sky while showering. That first morning, standing naked under the bucket shower with sunlight warming my skin and the scent of plumerias carried on the breeze, I knew I'd made the right choice.
"You're doing it wrong," Juliette called up from the kitchen, laughing as I tried to manage soap and modesty simultaneously. "In Maupiti, we don't hide from life."
She was right. That shower became my morning ritual, though "shower" was a generous term for the contraption. By the end of the week, I'd learned to appreciate the luxury of washing my hair while watching frigatebirds circle overhead, their forked tails cutting black lines against the dawn sky. At night, the Milky Way spilled across the open roof, so bright it felt like you could reach up and stir the stars with your fingers.
Days fell into an easy rhythm. I adopted the island way of life - wearing only a colorful pareo, my feet bare against the warm sand, time measured by the arc of the sun rather than the hands of a clock. Mornings belonged to exploration, and afternoons to learning the deeper rhythms of island life. Aeriti took me spear fishing, gliding through the water like a silent shadow, while I followed with considerably less grace. He showed me the sacred places of the island - the fruit trees that sustained generations, the ancient marae temples where stone tikis still stood sentinel. These weren't relics for tourists; they were living parts of island life. While gathering breadfruit one afternoon, Aeriti paused to place a fresh flower at the base of a weathered stone, explaining how his grandfather's spirit watched over this grove.
Over meals in their open-air kitchen, Juliette and Aeriti's stories revealed a more complex reality beneath the paradise surface. The shadow of nuclear testing still haunted these waters. Aeriti's brother had worked at Moruroa, where France had detonated over 100 nuclear bombs since 1966. Now he battled blood disorders — "a small price to pay for France having a nuclear deterrent," Aeriti said, though his eyes told a different story.
I thought of these contradictions as I paddled across the lagoon that morning. Beauty and danger intertwined here, like the impossible blues of the water concealing powerful currents below. Mesmerized by manta rays gliding beneath my kayak, I failed to notice the changing tide until it was almost too late.
By the time I understood, no amount of paddling would overcome the force pulling me toward the pass. The decision to abandon ship, so to speak, wasn't easy — but neither was watching the gap between safety and the Pacific shrink with each passing second.
I hit the water with the kayak's tow line gripped tight in one hand, swimming as hard as I could at an angle toward that beach. My muscles screamed. The current pulled. But the shore grew closer, inch by excruciating inch, until finally — wonderfully — my feet touched sand. I crawled ashore, dragging the kayak behind me, and collapsed on the beach just ten feet from where the tide would have swept me out to sea.
Later that evening, as I swayed in a hammock strung between two palms, watching the sunset paint the lagoon in explosive shades of red, violet, and gold, I thought about how close I'd come to a very different ending. The wind whispered through the palms, mixing with Juliette and Aeriti's laughter from the kitchen and the eternal rhythm of waves breaking on the reef — a symphony of life that needed no accompaniment.