South Seas beckoning

"I looked up and ... there was the place I'd been looking for all of my life." - W. Somerset MaughamSouth Seas islands.Paul Gauguin is famous for his paintings of Tahiti's "earthly paradise." Robert Lewis Stevenson wrote the children's story, "Treasure Island," set in the South Seas. James Michener's first best seller was "Tales of the South Pacific," and Herman Melville penned his famous novel, "Moby Dick," about the whale who lived in the South Pacific.My adventures on Moorea, Tahiti, one of the many Society Islands in the South Pacific, will always be vivid in my mind. When my son and daughter-in-law went to Bora Bora in September, the 10-days I'd spent on the sister island, Moorea, came flooding back in Technicolor detail.We took a small, private plane from Papeete to Moorea. As I stepped from the jitney at my hotel on the edge of Cook's Bay, I was so moved that tears rolled down my cheeks. The jagged peak of the ancient volcano, Moua Roa, peered down at me from the end of the bay. I immediately recognized it as Bali Hai, the mountain filmed for the musical, "South Pacific," and about which the song was written.Everything on that French Polynesian island enthralled me. Vanilla plantations, many multi-hued lagoons, white sand beaches, black pearls from the oysters grown there, spectacular flowers, coral reefs everywhere and water so blue it is impossible to describe.The Society Islands, named by Capt. James Cook, include the islands of Tahiti, Moorea, Raiatea, Huahine, Taha'a and Bora Bora.James Michener called Bora Bora the "most beautiful island in the world." Raiatea is the cultural, religious, royal and political heart of Polynesia. Huahine is known as the Garden Island for its lush rain forests. Spinner dolphins, rough-toothed dolphins, and pilot whales abound in the Moorean waters outside its spectacular lagoons.After a chain of volcanoes erupted millions of years ago, the lava collapsed and each volcano sank into the sea, leaving islands with perfect conditions for coral to grow. In addition to the coral, the waters are now filled with more than 500 species of sea life. Some of the turtles living there evolved more than 100 million years ago. Imagine, they watched the dinosaurs come and go. I remember meeting an older American woman one evening who had lived on Moorea for many years. She "boat-sat" yachts and sailboats for their owners who flew in once or twice a year to sail the South Pacific. What a life.And then my memory of a disastrous adventure returned, much to my dismay. My companion and I decided to take one of the Tahitian lagoon-style canoes across Cook's Bay to an intriguing, uninhabited beach. The blunt-style canoe was built for two with rigging on one side only. We were past the point of no return when a fierce wind came up, waves appeared from nowhere, and our canoe sank. Along with our wet money, wet passports and ruined cameras, we swam the boat to the distant shore. I had to squeeze my toes hard with each kick to keep my $5 sandals on. Somehow, they seemed valuable at the time. Once the wind died down, we made it back across the lagoon without sinking the rigger-canoe again.The Polynesian people are friendly and happy. They measure their wealth, not by how much they have, but by how much they can share. Everywhere I went on Moorea, the people had the same Tahitian attitude, aita pea pea, "no problem.""The first love, the first sunrise, the first South Sea island, are memories apart ..."- Robert Louis Stevenson- Lincoln resident Sue Clark teaches fiction and poetry writing and enjoys ghostwriting books for clients. She is also president of the Poets Club of Lincoln. Clark has owned many businesses, including her Literary Agency of 23 years, and a travel agency in downtown San Francisco. She is an avid traveler.