The great Tahiti getaway

Rurutu
Haunted waters
We’re floating at the surface. The mother humpback whale has finally gotten used to our presence and quietly naps on the seafloor 80 feet below us. Her 2,000-pound newborn, unable to hold its breath for more than five minutes, frequently rises to the surface to breathe. Its curiosity brings it closer to us with each interval, which sends a ripple of both thrill and awe through our little group. We’ve been snorkeling for about 30 minutes and just the sight and presence of a whale in the water is a life-changing experience.

When the calf gets too close for the mother’s comfort, she silently lifts off the seafloor and wraps the calf under her pectoral fin to gently persuade it to move to a more comfortable distance.

The experience has been accompanied by a constant ghostly soundtrack of whale song. The ethereal sounds seem to come from every direction at once. It’s as if the entire Pacific Ocean is haunted. The sound also has a presence. It seems to wrap around and pulse through us at the same time, almost as if the whale song carries a memory that the whale is trying to implant in our minds.

When she finally decides that our little group is not going away, the mother rises and comes in for a closer look. The nearer the whale comes, the more humble we all feel. The whale is enormous, easily 50 feet in length, and she would top the scales at nearly 40 tons. Only when you look into the eye of a whale do you experience the deep sentience of this creature. Being this close to a humpback gives us all a profound memory that we’ll cherish for the rest of our lives. This is the sole reason most of us have come to the little known outpost of Rurutu in the Australs of southern French Polynesia.

Every year between July and October, humpback whales converge upon the warm waters of Rurutu to give birth. They are thought to have chosen Rurutu because its shallow waters are relatively free of predators and because there are two protected bays in which to escape storms — a perfect whale nursery. The island is only about 35 square miles in size, and the whales gather just offshore, so it’s pretty easy to find them, making this one of the world’s premier places to have this unforgettable encounter.

Topside, the island sees few tourists, so traditions not only run deep, but rule the fabric of daily life. One of the most famous traditions, unique to Rurutu, is a biannual show of strength in which the village men and women lift volcanic boulders. It’s called amoraa ofai, and it occurs in both January and July. Once the champion is crowned, the island erupts in a national feast. Lush Rurutu is also riddled with magnificent caves, thick with stalactites and stalagmites. And if you close your eyes inside one, you’ll swear you can hear the reverberations of the whale song emanating from the shadows and rock.

Nuku Hiva
Marquesas — Land of pelagics
There are no coral reefs, calm lagoons or gin-clear waters in the oceanic badlands of the Marquesas. These are primal, high, breathtaking and remote islands that feel the brunt of the Pacific Ocean’s currents and attract the big predators. So far, on three dives off the deliciously exotically named island of Nuka Hiva, I’ve seen mantas feeding on a current line, and spotted eagle rays and hammerheads in addition to thick aggregations of barracuda, snapper, trevally and, in the shadows, soldierfish. On one early morning dive, I spent about 20 minutes in the water with more than 30 melon-headed whales. This is pelagic country, the wild west of the dive world. It’s even culturally different from the rest of French Polynesia.

Slide show   A Mermaid’s Playground Presented by Sport Diver Magazine. more photos

But right now I’m headed out to a site called Motumano Point to see what’s going to show up today. Like most of the sites in the Marquesas, Motumano is washed with current. And when we reach the undersea tip of the point, a group of whitetip reef sharks greets us. They seem to love the flow, but we round the point to a more sheltered spot, where a large school of trevallies darkens the water. We keep our eyes to the blue and are rewarded with two mantas that linger before passing — but not too close.

For the second dive, we head off to Taiohae Bay to a shallow site called Ekamako. A large cavern under a cliff, it’s one of the rare sites in Nuku Hiva that has calm water. Once I’m inside the cavern, my eyes adjust to the dim light and I fin toward the back. Soon my dive light picks up mounds in the sand. Dozens and dozens of stingrays cover the floor, resting. Normally skittish, these rays hardly stir at my approach. I have no problem getting as close as I like. It’s like a Shangri-La for stingrays.

The sense of the unusual continues topside. Here in the Marquesas the greeting is “ka oha,” which is distinct from the “ia orana” one hears in the rest of Tahiti, and the tattoos and woodcarvings in these isolated islands are distinct in their designs. The Marquesas rise almost straight out of the ocean, like citadels. And with such steep topography, it’s not surprising that one of the world’s highest waterfalls (Vaipo Waterfall at 1,148 feet) tumbles noisily in these wild islands. Gauguin and Melville found inspiration here, and if you’re into the lush and untamed, then you should go straight to the map and circle this corner of French Polynesia.

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