The Last Plane Out - A Letter from French Polynesia

"Travel stripped of adventure is almost inevitably an exercise imbedded in monotony; without it, the traveler moves through strange lands untouched and feeling nothing."
- American author Caskie Stinnett

(Bora, Bora in the Society Islands)

Like a quiet stalker, El Nino has been following me. Although I had not encountered him, there were times when I could feel his cold breadth on the back of my neck. It was in Bora Bora, of all places, that he finally caught up with me. I met him at the gates of Paradise.

I am sitting in a bungalow at the edge of a stretch of beach that leads to a lagoon laced with coral and pools of deep turquoise water, The Hotel Bora Bora is a horticultural triumph of a hotel that redefines lushness and elevates the concept of Paradise. But paradise can be deceiving.

Yesterday we arrived, after a day of air travel that began with a flight from Chicago to Los Angeles, a wait of several hours, followed by a seven and a half-hour non-stop flight to Papeete, the capital city of Tahiti. Worldwide destinations are developed by their exposure to daily flight schedules and Tahiti just doesn’t have any. Three primary airlines, Air France, Air New Zealand, and a French airline called AOM fly to Tahiti two or three times a week out of the City of Angels. This appalling lack of air seats from the U.S. is one reason that French Polynesia has been described as "Hawaii without the tourists". In fact, horizon for horizon, the islands of French Polynesia are far more beautiful than Hawaii on Hawaii’s best day.

Our Airline was AOM, the only carrier flying on the day we had to leave to take advantage of a three-night package at the Hotel Bora Bora before boarding the new, deluxe cruise ship, the Paul Gauguin, for a seven-night cruise to four of French Polynesia’s most beautiful islands. We never made it to two of them.

Accompanying Angela and I was a small circle of friends. This was to be a personal vacation for us, a birthday celebration in a place that neither of us had ever visited. It was to be our first getaway together for an extended period in several years. The concept started falling apart when we mentioned the trip to a few clients and it developed a life of its own after that. We were taking eighty people to Paradise. It was going to be a party.

Twenty-six of us left a few days early on AOM, an airline whose initials, I later discovered, stand for Airline of Misery. They fly an older version of the DC-10 that is outfitted in a charter configuration, meaning they have added a row of seats across and decreased the seat pitch. As an added touch of French savoir-fare, they also eliminated the center cabin restrooms, putting more seats where toilets might have gone. While some in our group sat in Business Class, I settled into a coach seat and quickly realized that I could not place my knees in the allotted space. The gentleman in front of me had put his seat back at full tilt prior to take-off and never moved it up again until we landed. Angela was sitting across the aisle next to a young Polynesian woman who was holding the oldest lap child on the planet. During those times when the child was not crying, he would kick Angela’s thigh in anger, feeling that she had taken his seat. I arrived on Tahitian soil with my hip socket out of joint while Angela was merely black and blue. But it didn’t matter, we were in Paradise.

We took one of Air Tahiti’s prop engine ATR’s over to Bora Bora, a forty-five minute flight that ended with ten minutes of sheer rapture. Bora Bora is the eroded cone of a large and extinct volcano. Sharp edged mountain peaks that protrude out of pockets of cloud clusters dominate the eastern portion of the island. As the plane began its descent, we flew across the length of the island, a magnificent sight that prompted Michener to call it the most beautiful place on earth. Imagine the peaks of the mountains dominating the center of the island and a huge lagoon enclosed by coral reef composing the outer shell. Imagine lush greenery, the kind you might find on a June day in the fields of heather in County Clare in Ireland. And then, for good measure, add motus, small out islands with green centers and white-fringed beaches on the edges, dozens of them dotted across the clear lagoon waters.

The plane pitches left and I can see the long runway on Motu Mute along the water’s edge. We pass the island, circle, and return for our landing on an airstrip that was built by the US Government in 1943 during something called Operation Bobcat. In the weeks following Pearl Harbor, it was decided that Bora Bora would be used as supply base for U.S. operations in the Solomon Islands. In January, 1942, a convoy of nine ships carrying 5,000 men and 20,000 tons of equipment sailed out of South Carolina to the small atoll that had been formed some three to four million years earlier by volcanic action. The runway on which we were landing was one of the first things built by our forces, It was so well constructed that it served as Tahiti’s international airport until the 1950’s.

A large yacht was waiting to take us across the lagoon to our hotel. You have to leave the airport by boat since it sits on an island.

The Hotel Bora Bora staff greeted us with smiles at the dock. Drinks awaited us in the lobby and we were quickly escorted to our individual bungalows.

The Hotel sits on Raititi Point, the best location on the island. The self-contained bungalows are set along two beaches amidst lush gardens. Fifteen of the bungalows are built out over the water and guests can step down from their bedrooms right into the crystal clear water for swimming and snorkeling.

I had been anxious to visit the resort because it had recently become part of the Aman group, an Indonesia-based collection of resorts and hotels that generally enjoy a reputation as the finest on earth. Two particular Aman properties, Amanpuri in Thailand and Amandari in Bali are consistently ranked as the two best resorts in the world. I was anxious to see what world-class service looks like. Could these folks actually be better than, say, the staff at Chicago’s Four Seasons? As it turns out, they were not as accommodating as the staff at the Lisle Hilton. Oh they smiled, all right, but the "no can do" laizze-faire service attitude grew tiresome as the weather changed.

As I write these notes, I’m witnessing the source of Bora Bora’s legendary lushness, a driving rain shower that has pelted us for the last twenty-four hours. Yesterday was clear and sunny and we joined our friends, Phil and Judy, in a rented Ford escort for a drive around the island. We saw not a little construction, a Club Med with breathtaking views, and a tired looking Moana Beachcomber Resort. We stopped along the way at several art galleries, picking out some beautiful local pottery that clearly showed Japanese influences. We looked at lovely wooden swords and facemasks made in the legendary Marquesa Islands, an isolated archipelago some 1400 kilometers from Papeete. We also looked at Black Pearls, the one "must have" item sold in French Polynesia. These shining, perfectly round silver grey spheres are the symbol of a visit to the islands, a several thousand-dollar memory worn with a simple gold chain around the neck. I looked hard but I never did see any locals wearing the Black Pearls.

We paused to look at coconut trees and we picked up some French bread because Angela thought that the small dogs we saw strolling along the circular road looked hungry. We had to slow down as we passed each dog so Angela could toss out a piece of crisp baguette.

Phil and I weren’t so sure that these dogs were so bad off. They lived in houses tucked into the fold of small hills, encompassed by breadfruit trees and fields of mangos and pineapple. The view across the road was nearly always picture perfect, large expanses of lagoon with children fishing and swimming off the reefs of coral.

But that was yesterday. Today, the sky has opened up with a vengeance. The rain was so powerful last night that we awoke in our bungalow to inspect the 30 foot wood and bamboo ceiling to see if was holding. The winds had kicked in and sitting at the small desk in my room, with the wind howling outside and the rain slamming in sheets across the windows, I wonder why lay ahead. This is no ordinary rainstorm.

I decide to return to the lobby of the hotel to see what they know. I am concerned about the weather tomorrow and about our chances of getting off the island the next day, when we have to fly back to board our ship.

I grab one of the hotel umbrellas and am nearly picked up by a wind gust as I step outside. The entrance to the bungalow next to mine has flooded, there is now a good foot of water over what was sand just twenty-four hours ago,

In the lobby, the charming Polynesian women smile and give out virtually no information. The lobby is really a huge thatched hut with inlaid hemp layers and mahogany wood crossbeams. The lobby is open on three sides, but is now buttressed by hastily fastened tarp screens that blow open whenever a guest enters from one of the surrounding garden paths. Giant chandeliers made entirely of seashells wobble overhead as one of the room maids’ swabs up the water on the stone floor with a mop and bucket.

A New Yorker, nervous and not at all in the Polynesian mind-set approaches the front desk.

"I have to know the weather report for the next two days" he tells the desk clerk wearing fresh gardenias in her lustrous black hair.

"Oh, we’re not sure sir. Perhaps the rain will go away", she replies with a smile.

"I have to know" the New Yorker insists.

"Maybe I can find out something later" the still-smiling desk clerk answers.

Then the New Yorker does something amazing. He grabs the telephone and tells the desk clerk to "Call my friend Harvey in New York". At first she gently tries to explain she can’t do that but he is insistent and the number is dialed. Harvey answers on the first ring and he is instructed to pull up the weather forecast on the internet. He must have already been on the internet because he provides the information in less than two minutes.

The New Yorker slams down the phone. "It’s going to keep raining" he tells no one in particular.

I decide to do the appropriate thing. I head in the direction of the hotel’s fine French restaurant, which has lagoon views on three sides. I meet Kim, a member of our group who tells me that she has been listening to the radio in her bungalow and every once in a while she hears them using a word that sounds very much like cyclone.

I reassure her, as a notice that water is pouring through a hole in the roof of the bar area. I’m sure the front desk would alert us. The ladies at the front desk are still smiling. The flowers in their hair are still fresh.

In fact, Polynesia has suffered a series of disastrous hurricanes throughout its history. They normally develop in the area surrounding Samoa and move southeast, avoiding Polynesia. But sometimes they do not act predictably, they stray off course. The last time they hit the islands was 1983, when they caused severe damage. That is why we had been careful to avoid the "rainy season" which runs from November through March.

As I wrote portions of the above in the lobby of the Hotel Bora Bora, we were unaware that a hurricane and cyclone were moving in the direction of Bora Bora and the surrounding Society Islands. The boat that had brought us across the lagoon would be sunk, along with its pier and roofs would be torn off of buildings.

But at this point, you could only sense it building. You couldn’t see it. And as the rain pounded and the wind whipped with sharp crackles through the coconut trees, I wondered if our prop plane would be there in the morning. Would we make the last plane out?

(To Be Continued)