Imagin' French Polynesia

...like The Little Prince who visited Earth and asked Antoine de St. Exupéry to draw a cute sheep to bring back home to his little planet.

...like Julien Cottereau miming his imaginary world with its monsters and courageous heros, ending his tale Imagine-toi with a lot of new friends.

...like us two bumble bees blown by the wind into the middle of the Pacific Ocean, starting a new episode of our life with bated breath, a breath boosting us with positiveness for our common future!



Soulrider's Vision
To experience total freedom while gliding over flat, endlessly turquoise water along coconut trees! The search after this fantastic sensation was driving us all over our journey and finally came true in the beautiful lagoon of Maupiti.
An encounter with the crazy kiters from Lakana Fly on Moorea taught us new limits: Those guys use two 80 meters long towing line in parallel behind a motorboat that cruises against the wind to give them a lift up to over 50 meters. The kiters then let go the line and sail their conventional kites like hanggliders to gently land on the water and continue with a graceful synchronized ride back to the starting point. We never saw something like that before!
We did not have as often wind as expected. Therefore, on calm days we often used a kayak to enjoy gliding over the lagoon. The wake-up Yoga sessions at the shore became Padi's daily routine to an extent he did not feel the need for regular cardiac training anymore. However, he was very happy to join a Sprint-Triathlon and find back the sensations of his long neglected favourite athletic discipline.


Daydream on a secluded Pacific Island
You need plenty of time and trials to finally find a place that corresponds to your dreams. First it's often hard to describe some imaginary settings, then you have to go and look for yourself in secluded areas, because if you follow guidebooks and commercial tours you'll just be disappointed to find some spoilt spots full of people, noise and rubbish. We found a neat campplace on a lonely cay full of coconut trees and lived like Robinson Crusoe for a week. Ok, he did not have kiteboarding gear to enjoy the wind. But he surely suffered far more than us, that there was no means of communication with the outer world. Instead, we sucked up the beauty of nature in an everchanging scenery conditioned by the weather, the Sun and the Moon, and let the magic do its work on us.


Set back to Dream Time
Spending much time on, in, and along the water, we were lucky to see wild animals such as huge turtles, tame manta rays and some black tips surfacing, or spinner dolphins, flying fish, marlin and once even an eagle ray teaching us flying lessons, or plenty of coral fish, white tip and gray sharks as well as a nosy Napoleon Fish during our Scuba dive sessions. We loved to go snorkelling as the clear waters allow for great views and the fish and coral are also very enjoyable close to the surface. Hunting with the harpune was another way to enjoy apnoe snorkelling and train our capacity to stay calm and long time at interesting depths. Padi was not such a good hunter as me, but I had to rely on him for spanning the dart ;-) This way, now and again we were able to also taste some of those colourful little creatures...
Near the beach you get to see those strange crawling creatures such as huge coconut crabs and hermit crabs (the strangest one of them used an rosty metal pump as his housing - well, nature can in some ways adapt to mankind).
We absorbed the luxurious green canopy on the islands and the tropical fruits, although the variety is much smaller compared to the fruits in Brazil. However, here we dared to eat lots of tuna - a real feast, no matter in which way: raw as sashimi or the Tahitian way, or barbecued etc.! And we discovered the power of the nutritious breadfruit called Uru!
We were lucky to visit Tahiti during their annual traditional festivities called Heiva. We believe that their well choreographed Tahitian Dance Shows along with great drumbeats could beat the crowds at the Brazilian carnavals, whereas the chants accompanied by Ukulele music rather reminded me of poor performances at secondary school level. I wont say that our Digeridoo session on our last evening in Bora Bora could do better, but it also had its effect on tying multicultural friendships!
The highlight, however, was the snorkelling-session with a couple of humpback-whales. I will never forget the sight of their beautifully shaped bodies and their slow but gracious movements. Nature is wonderful and always again manages to make me feel very small and unimportant.

Travellers Nightmare
On our arrival, we would never have imagined to experience such a kind of experience such as a masturbation of the obese French Polynesian Administration...
As you might have read in our reports from Brazil, we expected a parcel from Switzerland to replace our broken kites, that arrived in Tahiti with much delay and no announcement for another 10 days... With much patience and diplomacy towards all sorts of post departments and the customs adminitration of Tahiti, we finally managed to retrack the parcel and get our hands on it three weeks after the planned receival date. Without Christelle's help (we met her in the camping in Moorea and she spontaneously offered us to stay at her home on Tahiti and use her car) and our proficiency in french, we would've never managed and our kites would've been returned to Switzerland. We ended up doing more than thousand kilometers through tedious traffic jams in Christelle's 4x4 between the different administration instances (post, customs, chamber of commerce, national treasury) located at decentral points not accessible by foot or public transport only to leave a guarantee of 700.- US dollars for the duration of our stay in French Polynesia because we were not ready to pay the far too high commission toward a transitory broker. On our efforts to regain the deposit, we spent another four days (of totally eight days) to play messenger between the different instances because the informatic system did not support our special case. Finally, the big boss of customs who had proposed to us to enter this whole nighmare, had to deal with our matter to the end and became tributary of the very absurd process he required from the start! Now we'll leave the country with a seal on our two kites-backpack and the good feeling to leave a place somewhere in Africa! At least we did not have any personal or material damage, and that is what counts in the end!

With my dream to extend the stay in the pacific island, I responded to a job offer in the papers and got an interesting offer! The demand of skilled architects on the French Polynesian Territory is quite strong, but unfortunately not in concordance with the immigration administration, which refuses to deliver any temporary permission to stay for Swiss Citizens. The economic blockade against available foreign workforce (except French citizens, of course) may end up choking the own economy, if renowned Architecture Offices have to refuse big projects because a lack of working personnel! Perhaps we are happy not to have to experience a working life in Tahiti. The high prices, administrative absurdities and overpopulation are enough to transform a stay on the islands into a nightmare.
On the other hand taking the risk to experience a nightmare can sometimes lead to some extraordinary experience: We faced the difficult challenge to get on board of a cargo-boat. We decided to travel with the "Hawaiki Nui" without any reservation (normally one would have to book a cabin one month in advance to be on a list of maximum 12 passengers). Being accepted on board by the captain the first time, for a lift from Tahiti to Bora Bora, we weren't able to plan any further destination in doubt to be refused the next time we present ourselves again on the dock! We managed only with patience, strategy, the good will of the captain and the flexibility to stay a few nights more on an island to book an expensive flight back to Tahiti main island.
Globetrotting without a Round-The-World airticket can be quite adventurous regarding the usual immigration procedures: Despite our presentation of a correct visa, most airport immigrations do not accept us entering their country if we do not present a valid airticket for exit. For us this is a serious restriction to our freedom of deciding spontaneously on our overnext destination. Authorities do not want to understand our special wishes and so we are often forced to be rather creative on finding our ways through the administrative djungle.

Polynesian Dream Team
We had the chance to experience French Polynesia differently from the standard one-week honeymooners. We learned a lot about the warm hospitality of the Polynesians, the French Expats, and the Chinese Community. We also experienced how important it is to have local friends that can use their networks to help us out in complicated situations. Thank you to all of you, especially Christelle and Fabien for hosting us a month in your beautiful Fare next to the Lagoon at Paea, Dyonita and Eliane for your warm hospitality, Ronny for lending me the Triathon Bike, Nadège for taking us on her motorboat to search for the humpback whales, Rosine for receiving us during a month in your charming pension, Toby for your Aussie-Polynesian mateship, Paul for your professional (under-)water photography, Julien Cottereau, his fiancée Fany and the crew as well as the Kiwi Probst family for being the catalysor to start our Polynesian adventure! You have become very dear friends! May we receive you in the same way whereever our home will be!

Dream on: Our next adventures
One source of inspiration for our journey was my dream to sail around the world. We'd hoped to find a sailing boat in Tahiti and join in as a crew to reach the Australian coast by sea. The alternative would've been by air via Auckland, New Zealand. Well, as beautiful as to bumble be may be, Padi contacted a sailing boat who's skipper turned out to be his former French rival Jean-Baptiste at the Camel Trophy 2000!!! Jean-Baptiste and his partner Chloé invited us to join their expedition from New Caledonia to Australia starting mid september! In the meantime we'll scout the fabulous kitespots in New Caledonia. To find out more about Jean-Baptiste and his partner Chloé's Expedition, click on the link Un Monde d'Expeditions.

As a dessert to all of this, check out the various Photo Sets of our Polynesian Experience on Flickr, via this link!