All these islands boast of being super friendly and most of them are. Tonga, for instance, evinces a quiet, happy, contented feel that is very deep. I didn’t get that feeling in New Caledonia.

We spent two days in Tonga.

I am on my verandah watching pilot boat leave. It is standard to bring on a pilot to get in and out of port, but here on Tonga it is essential.

On Saturday the 29th of October we played mah jongg as if there were no tomorrow, because there wasn’t.

When you think of Papeete, you think of thatched roofs and Geaughin-ish sarong clad wahines. Forget that. Papeete stretches for miles along the waterfront and sparks uphill wherever it is not too steep to build on.

Security blocks the walk straight to the street and instead

Superficially all the islands in Polynesia are alike: densely wooded basaltic monuments to volcanic processes. There it ends. Compared to Raiatea, Bora Bora was

Five sea days from Hawai’i to here in French Polynesia. It is a stratovolcano like we have in the PNW only much steeper. The gentlest rise is 45 degrees and vertical bluffs