At Sea in Polynesia

The centrepiece of this whole expedition is the 10-day cruise around the islands of French Polynesia on Princess Cruise Lines’ Ocean Princess.  Alone among all the “big players” in the cruise industry, Princess has had the smarts to keep a foot in the “small ship” category.  Ocean Princess and her identical sister ship Pacific Princess weigh in at a tiny 30,277 tons and carry less than 700 passengers each – a startling contrast to the floating apartment towers which all the major lines are busily building.

It’s ironic that barely a century ago a 30,000 ton ship would be one of the three or four biggest vessels in the entire world.  Ocean Princess is nearly the same tonnage as the Cunard liners Lusitania and Mauritania.  It’s exactly 100 years ago this spring that the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk off the coast of Ireland, while the 31,938-ton Mauretania continued to give distinguished service for another 20 years.  But check out these pictures to see just how different two ships of similar tonnage can appear:

  

The obvious visual difference in the two ships is in their length.  Mauretania was 790 feet long while Ocean Princess is nearly 200 feet shorter at 592 feet -- but stands three decks taller!  The other key difference which shows just how far life at sea has evolved in a century is the fact that the old Mauretania was designed to carry 2165 passengers at a time, versus Ocean Princess with a capacity of 672.  The difference is that today's cruise ship offers every passenger the equivalent of what would have been a first-class ticket in the early 1900s -- or pretty close to it.

I’ve gone to the trouble of comparing this cruise ship to an ocean liner from a century ago because the interior designers of Ocean Princess and her sister Pacific Princess have come up with a look for the public spaces which are obviously intended to evoke that bygone age of luxury without slavishly imitating it.  Dark wood panellings abound.  There are carved decorations in the ceilings.  Wall lamps make a nod in the direction of the old, as does the furniture.  Nothing is positively antique, but everything whispers little reminders of an age of bygone luxury and leisure.  

The same is true of the customer service people.  When I ordered a pre-dinner teeny martooni, in the Casino Bar, it was not the bartender who did the honours.  Rather, the waiter brought the shaker over to the table, shook it up with a flair and poured it elegantly right in front of me. 

We’ve actually started the cruise by sailing – nowhere.  After boarding on January 27 we remained firmly tied to the dock in the small but busy harbour of Papeete until 5:00 pm on the 28^th.  To me this was the golden opportunity to take in a tour of some of the highlights of Tahiti.  It meant that I could just concentrate on relaxing during the three nights I was at the resort.

The Tahiti of today as seen in and around Papeete is certainly not the tropical paradise depicted so evocatively in the paintings of Paul Gauguin.  It’s the most heavily developed island in French Polynesia and no wonder.  Papeete is the capital of the entire territory, the seat of the government, the seat of the Roman Catholic bishop, the location of many cultural and educational facilities, the chief port of entry for goods and the only port of entry for air travellers (at the nearby Faa’a International Airport).  

It’s a busy, bustling place, but not always beautiful by any means.  Like any major city of 50,000 or so people, it has it’s stark industrial areas, it’s uglier buildings, it’s dirtier and seamier neighbourhoods.  That – as the saying goes – is life, but it amuses me that people who wouldn’t even blink at such things in their own home town get furiously affronted and burst into torrents of indignant imprecation when they encounter them here!

 
Having said all of that, the waterfront of Papeete is very lovely.  The main boulevard is lined with trees and gardens, there’s a sizable park, and some of the city’s more attractive buildings right behind it.  And we have a grandstand view of it all from the port side of the ship, as it sits at the dock.  So naturally my balcony stateroom is on the starboard side, with a view of the working area of the harbour.  The Terevau in the photograph is one of the fast ferries to Moorea.

As our tour bus fought clear of the traffic in Papeete and slowly made its way east along the coastal road, the old traditional image of Tahiti was more and more evident.  The lush tropical vegetation, the volcanic rock, waterfalls, and pounding surf all looked exactly right. 

Surfing, we were informed, was traditionally an activity reserved for royalty, and only the chieftains were allowed the privilege of standing up on the surfboard.  Well, times have certainly changed and there are plenty of people out surfing now!  Here are a couple of video clips of some spectacular surf on the rocks of Tahiti's north shore, and some Tahitians enjoying some bodyboard surfing.

The one thing that hasn’t changed at all is the beauty of the Tahitian people.  Behind the modern clothes you can still clearly see the grace in movement and the warmth of the smiles that so captivated Gauguin.  And when they adopt traditional dress, it’s easy to ignore the trappings of the modern world and – just for a moment – be swept back in time to the Tahiti of long ago.  I hope that never changes.