Raiatea

In July of 2020, we rented a sailboat for a week in the San Juan Islands and brought an instructor on with our family, and he taught us how to manage the boat ourselves.

And then in September, we flew all of our family to Raiatea, Raiatea, Tahiti, and we moved onto a sailboat.

And we lived in Tahiti September, October, November, December, and we just lived on the ocean.

And we'd never done [laughs] anything like this.

okay right so how long did you so three months of working on the boat

yeah my husband blood sweat and tears three months he put into that boat seven days a week he was working on it um and eventually we managed to get out of um tahiti but not without challenges and we you know we didn't have enough anchor uh road we we thought they that we had the people who sold us the boat didn't quite uh foreclose everything so we went to anchor and we didn't have enough and so yeah we we managed to get through and out of Tahiti so we sailed from Tahiti spent quite a bit of time in Moria and then we went across to Raiatea and then into Bora Bora and everyone's like Bora Bora how magical when you're sailing it's a totally different experience it is beautiful don't get me wrong but um There's so many challenges of living on a boat that you don't anticipate until you're actually doing it.

Such as? What are some of the hardest things?

I think there's things that stick out for me is provisions.

You know, the guests have a, a opportunity to experience the highlights of all the islands of where we go to.

Uh, in Tahiti we will start, uh, from Papeete, and then we would go to Moorea, uh, Raiatea, Tahaa, of course Bora Bora, and Huahine.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, we offer, uh, three different, uh, uh, types of itineraries.

They place him on a high seat and feed him with abundance of the finest food.

Polynesian Researches The Snark was lying at anchor at Raiatea, just off the village of Uturua.

She had arrived the night before after dark, and we were preparing to pay our first visit ashore.

Early in the morning I had noticed a tiny outrigger canoe with an impossible sprit sail skimming the surface of the lagoon.

I watched the canoe beat up from leeward and run in towards the village, its sole occupant far out on the outrigger and luffing up and spilling the wind and the puffs.

Well, I know one thing, I announced.

I don't leave Raiatea until I've had a ride in that canoe.

A few minutes later, Warren called down the companionway.

You have the Society Islands.

That's Tahiti, Bora Bora, Huahini, Raiatea, Mo'orea.

Then up north, you have Nuku Hiva and Hiva Oa, the Marquesas Islands.

And by the way, Nuku Hiva has a 1,000-foot waterfall.

It is gorgeous.

And for sheer absolute physical beauty that overloads the senses, it's French Polynesia, Tahiti, Bora Bora, Mo'orea, Nuku Hiva, Hiva Oa, Raiatea, Huahini, all of these places.

Well, right now, Air Tahiti Nui, uh, flies from Los Angeles to Auckland, New Zealand with a stop in Tahiti, and they're offering a free stopover.

You have to book directly with them.

Okay.

Some of these islands, like Raiatea is probably one of my favorite islands in the French Polynesia there.

I just remember taking a speedboat up a river.

They say it's where the kind of Hawaiians left before they went to Hawaii.

Mm.

So today, we are doing an exhaustive, no-stone-unturned deep dive into Raiatea.

It's the second-largest island in the Society Islands, and it's widely considered the cultural and sailing heart of French Polynesia.

It really is a place of world-class magic, but, you know, only if you know exactly what you're getting into.

... that is, like, the perfect place to start.

Really hits hard.

It does because it gets to the absolute core tension of Raiatea.

It is a spectacular destination, but it operates on a very specific set of rules.