Honeymoon in Huahine, October 2000

Huahine is located 170 kms North-West of Tahiti.It's a volcanic island rising approximately up to 700 meters. The island is protected by a coral barrier.

The islands are impregnated with legends. In the old language, Huahine means the woman's genital. - The legend of Huahine tells us that a warrior found the princess Motu Hiva stranded on the beach inside a sacred drum, in which she had embarked according to her father's vision. The king of Huahine married her. The couple had 8 sons (The king had already 2 sons), which gave their names to the 10 villages of the island (now only 8 villages). - Hiro, god of the robbers, fishermen and travelers, cut with his dugout the island of Huahine in two: Huahine Nui and Huahine Iti. These two islands are connected between them by an isthmus. The rock of the mountain represents the Hiro's sex, drawn up towards the sky. - During sacrifices ceremonies,a goddess designated victims. Once, against the usual practice, designated a woman who had her menstruations. The servants of the priest, were splashed with blood from the impure woman. Since then, women were saved sacrifices. 

As soon as we arrived in Huahine, a mini bus drove us to the pier of the hotel, where a boat-shuttle brought us to the Te Tiare hotel, located further south in a bay. It's isolated. No road reaches it.

170 kms North-western of Tahiti	The Pier of the hotel	Our shuttle	Welcomed by the sound of the horn	Our over water bungalow
3 geckos live in our bungalow			On the left, bar, salon, restaurant
Ready for the discovery of the island...	peppers and Alpinia red...	"Paradise's birds"		A tropical shower
The wind was really strong	Terrestrial crab : Cardisoma Carnifex	And the sun shines again a few minutes later
On the right, a uru (breadfruit tree )	A vanilla plantation	My "Vahine"		This dugout was really fast
		Some exercise	Halt at our bungalow
Some Maoris vestiges and maraes, at the village of Maeva: they are stones constructions,some held ancestral worships, sacrifices and archery contests with high symbolic meaning. One can find a great concentration of maraes at the edge of the lagoon of Fauna Nui. The FARE is the traditional wood construction, covered with a roof made of coconut tree leaves or better, in pandanus leaves: the interior decoration is in braided plaits and bamboo. Today, the traditional fare is seen as luxury.
One marae				Fare with its roof in pandanus
	Fishing for the next meal	The Motus:coralien reef...	on the edge...	of the deep pacific
The marae of the princess Manunu	Old fish traps, 500 years old...	made with stones and coral, V shaped	Sacred eels, more than 1 meter long	Look at its large mouth
This flower has...	the brittleness of glass		A ginger plant	called "réa moeruru"
In the vanilla plantation	A superb group of banana	vanilla is an orchidea that needs a ...	living tree as tutor	Vanilla beans
Often at night on the beach, we observed white crabs (Ocypode ceratophthalma), named ghost crabs. They have a claw larger than the other. On the rocks during the day, we could see some other black colored crabs. Further inland, the green and red crabs (cardisoma carnifex) haunt the littoral, and they come out when it's raining. Small Bernard crabs, the hermit, wandered slowly on the beach.
And the sun...	sets at the horizon	They ate the bread crumbs from our hand
Some rest on our bungalow terrace			Loclas using fish traps	transparency of the coralien waters
Alone oarsman	Decorated dugout	Rosewood Tree...	and its flower
	Here is the bay where whales deliver the new borns	Hiro's mount
The capital of the island: Fare, in the shade of the almond trees and the acacias. It is also the main island harbor.
The Island bus	Splendid Totem	A "real-still-life" Gauguin painting, on the beach	Small market of Fare
Encounter with the black tail sharks from the reef. One of the sharks will come several times very close to me. Is this because of the cut  I got recently on the local corals not fully healed? That day, we saw 12 sharks,but no manta rays .
Blacktip reef shark	called : Mao Mauri	Its length was between 1,45m...	to 2m. That day the...	biggest was apparently 1,65m...
I will remain more than  30mn...	with them in the water		Under the shark, a remora
Dancing with the sound of the youkoulélé. The flowers, as body ornament, is a fundamental part of every day life.
			I need more training!!
		Restaurant,no windows here	The bar with a chandelier made of shells
The raw fish marinated in coconut milk is a traditional dish and that's amazingly  tasty.

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