The m/s Paul Gauguin is a 330-passenger cruise ship, named for the French painter who was inspired by the islands.Tim McKenna/Paul Gauguin
Always follow the sound of the drums. That might be the best bit of advice for visitors to French Polynesia. Because when drums beat, enchantment looms.
I didn’t understand that on my first visit to Tahiti and the Society Islands some 34 years ago. I’d arrived as a backpacker with my boyfriend, degrees and job hunts shelved for a year of travel. This archipelago was our first stop. We saved money by eating baguettes with vitamins and foraged coconuts, by riding a cargo ferry between islands (sleeping on the deck to escape the diesel fumes) and by camping on the beach in Bora Bora. Now I was back with the same guy – an old married couple wondering what happened to those kids we used to be. Returning to our first adventure together might help.
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This time we skipped the cargo ship for the much more luxurious m/s Paul Gauguin – a 330-passenger cruise ship purpose-built to squeak through the coral breaks surrounding many islands out here. Named for the French painter who was inspired by the islands, the ship sails year-round to the Society Islands, the Cook Islands, the Marquesas, the atolls of Tuamotu, Fiji and Tonga. When Gauguin was broke, he sketched on menus to pay for his meals – and one of these is displayed in a small museum on Deck 6, along with carved wooden paddles, statues and other small pieces of Polynesian history.
The Paul Gauguin was purchased by French cruise company Ponant in 2019, and the ship had recently been spruced up: Staterooms sported soft furnishings in shades of green and blue to mimic the lagoons outside; at the pool deck on top of the ship, the bar and outdoor Le Grill restaurant had been glammed up with new decor and comfy loungers; below decks, upgraded technology made the ship more energy efficient, including better filtration to turn seawater into drinking water.
Ponant was ready to show the ship off to travel writers – this was one assignment I couldn’t refuse.
The Paul Gauguin was purchased by French cruise company Ponant in 2019, and the ship had recently been spruced up.Jason Xu/Paul Gauguin
Early in our seven-night trip through the Society Islands we had dinner with captain René-Paul Boucher. Pestered with questions from a table full of writers, he barely had time to eat his steak as he good-naturedly opened up about his ship. The Paul Gauguin’s shallow draft allows it to get closer to the coral-wreathed islands and he explained why we feel the ocean between each one: “The islands are just needles in the ocean,” he smiled. “There is nothing between Antarctica and Tahiti. … There are long swells because there are no continents to stop them!”
When he learned my husband and I were Canadian – his eyebrows shot up – navigating the coral shoals is tough, he admitted, but nothing like the overnight run through the Welland Canal between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. He spent a season helming Ponant’s Great Lakes sailings and these eight long, thin locks – with less than a foot clearance on either side of a multimillion-dollar ship – still haunt him.
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One of the first nights I followed the drums on board, I found the ship’s cultural troupe performing. The thrumming and clacking and booming raced and slowed and led the Gauguin dancers into choreography that told stories of navigation, suffering, war and love. I’m not sure I had the patience years ago to follow along so closely to stories told through movement and sound that reverberated through my body. Costumes of woven palm leaves and flowers, shell adornments, cleverly tied pareaus and – yes – coconut-shell bras became less of a stereotype and more cultural touchstone as I better understood why and how they were used. Woman of all ages feverishly shook their hips (they made it look so easy) and the men stomped and cried out with a wild intensity.
Local foods on a woven palm plate.Catherine Dawson March/The Globe and Mail
“I like to share this haka, to show we are not just a happy people. We are also recognized as warriors, famous warriors in French Polynesia,” said Matairea Kui Sang, a member of the ship’s cultural troupe. He grew up on Huahine but never learned his ancestral traditions. “My parents were Christian,” he said, explaining that they were part of a larger group that included Protestant and Catholic missionaries and began arriving in Polynesia in the late 18th and much of the 19th century.
But when Sang started working on the ship, he discovered more of his country’s history and began adopting traditional dress and learning historic dances. You’ll often find him shirtless, wearing a pareau slung over his hips, shell necklaces and accoutrements on his body, Polynesian tattoos running down one arm. What may look like a costume to visitors is anything but to Sang. He’ll explain the significance behind each piece and each tattoo. It’s his way of sharing the “mana” – a sacred energy force in all living things in Polynesia. “It’s a big feeling. It makes you strong, makes you happy and you keep it going by sharing,” he explained.
I watched this mana happen one afternoon during a ukulele class on board. The last time my husband held one it was a beat-up instrument he found in our camping hostel on Bora Bora. Led by one of the Gauguins, he quickly got the hang of the three strings and learned a few local folk songs before our teacher ran out of music. She let him keep the ukulele for the rest of the cruise (during which he amused himself by transposing Led Zeppelin’s The Battle of Evermore).
Every day, the ship anchors close enough to a new island so that you can hear roosters crow and admire the many shades of green in the palm and pine trees that climb the volcanic cliffs. Two restaurants have outdoor dining, so even if you’re not on one of the dozens of excursions offered at each port, the lunch view is excellent. Perhaps one of the most glorious reasons for booking is the food – it’s French influenced with Tahitian tweaks. Poisson cru (tuna ceviche with coconut milk and slivered vegetables) is a treat but much appreciated are all the French wines and cheeses, and that sublime Bordier butter slathered on fresh bread.
The m/s Paul Gauguin sails year round throughout French Polynesia.Catherine Dawson March/The Globe and Mail
Our sailing included two full days at Bora Bora, the siren song of French Polynesia for its gin-clear waters (never has a travel-writing cliché been more true), white sandy coastline and idyllic motus (offshore islands). For many guests it is the high point of the voyage. We were no exception but had personal business in the “pearl of the Pacific.”
The first day I spent on the water – snorkelling with sting rays and blacktip reef sharks, hovering over the undulating mystery of a manta ray and making my way through a coral garden where maxima clams puckered flashy lips in iridescent shades of pink and green and blue. More than once fish surrounded me in a cloud of colour.
The next day we set ashore to explore on our own. We felt too old to hitchhike and negotiated a deal with a cab driver. He was 12 years old when we were here more than 30 years ago but he knew the spot where we had camped. The more we reminisced in his back seat and noted how things had changed (the only thing we grow on Bora Bora are hotels, he quipped), the more he became interested in our story and stopped more often than we had agreed on to show off his island. (More mana I expect.) We found the beach, and grinned for photos.
A coconut hulling competition in Vaitape, Bora Bora’s capital.Catherine Dawson March/The Globe and Mail
Back in Vaitape, Bora Bora’s capital, we bid our driver goodbye, and heard drums again. We followed the beat and discovered a coconut hulling competition in full swing. And I do mean swing. Men and women wearing pareaus and flip flops wielded axes with abandon, halving the hard fruit and tossing the pieces to the two men on their team who wrenched out the coconut meat with a metal tool. Each of the six teams were drenched in coconut water, they had hundreds of shells at their feet and enormous mounds of coconut meat they had to shovel into sacks. The drums kept time, residents gathered round to cheer on their favourites and slowpokes were harangued by a large man who showed his displeasure by ripping the husk off a coconut with his teeth.
We couldn’t understand a word but the crowd roared with delight. The energy was infectious. We grinned at each other, thrilled to have stumbled upon this wild bit of fun. We laughed along with everyone else and cheered just as loudly for the winners. We’d found the mana again, and this time it flowed through us, too.
If you go
The m/s Paul Gauguin sails year round throughout French Polynesia. Our seven-night Tahiti and Society Islands cruise stopped at Huahine, Bora Bora, Moorea, Raiatea and Taha’a for a private island beach day. Prices start at US$4,450 a person; during summer and school holidays the ship’s Moana Explorer program offers complimentary naturalist-led excursions and activities for kids aged 6-13. Some Paul Gauguin sailings include postcruise bus tours of Tahiti, including stops at the home of author James Norman Hall (Mutiny on the Bounty).
Travel in July and watch for Heiva festivals at all the islands, where locals turn up to compete in traditional dance, costume, singing, drumming and skills competitions.
The writer was a guest of Paul Gauguin Cruises. It did not review or approve the story before publication.
