These Lesser-visited South Pacific Islands Are Finest Seen by a Small-ship Cruise

Unfriendly clouds loomed because the Star Breeze eased out of the lagoon. The wind and the swells picked up, and the seas turned a milky blue. I used to be chatting concerning the impending climate with another passengers when Captain Simon Terry’s voice came to visit the P.A.

“The tropical storm has developed right into a cyclone,” he introduced, including that it will quickly lash the Society Islands — precisely the place we had been headed. “It’s going to be very windy, very moist, and never very nice,” he intoned. “So we now have taken the choice to go for an inaugural name within the Marquesas.”

It was the third night of an 11-night sail out of Tahiti, and abruptly the journey was turning into an journey. This is able to be no informal change: even for frequent cruisers, the Marquesas are nicely off the overwhelmed path. The closest continental landmass is Mexico, which sits 3,000 miles to the northeast. We’d be diverting from our deliberate course by tons of of miles, heading for an archipelago famend for its isolation. 

This kind of detour isn’t frequent. In my a long time of writing about cruises, it’s solely occurred to me as soon as earlier than. Improbably, that journey additionally befell aboard the Star Breeze. What’s it about this small Windstar ship? It’s not that the vessel has any notably noteworthy navigational instruments that make vital adjustments simpler. Quite, it’s the pliability and improvisational talent of the crew that make such on-the-fly revisions doable. 

After a day at sea — which my husband, Chris, and I spent watching the waves and rapidly finding out up on the Marquesas — we lastly sighted the island of Nuku Hiva. It’s the biggest of the group, and it appeared on the horizon like a brooding massif wreathed in darkish clouds. However as we ready to go ashore, a large rainbow got here and went with the slight drizzle, although the sharp summits above the principle city, Taiohae, remained out of sight. It jogged my memory of Dominica, within the Caribbean: steep, inexperienced, and bathed in mist. 

Very similar to Hawaii, the Marquesas are the product of a volcanic “sizzling spot,” a magma chamber that birthed a series of volcanic islands because the Pacific Plate adjusted, abandoning towering, fertile peaks. A gaggle of us from the ship took benefit of a tour across the island in a convoy of 4 x 4s, piloted by a crew of principally feminine drivers who spoke French and a Marquesan dialect — however no English. Fortunately, the pure magnificence wanted no translation.

Our subsequent cease, the island of Fatu Hiva, was much less profitable. Heaving surf made it unsafe to go ashore by tender, so we settled for admiring the small island’s unbelievable profile from the Star Breeze. Razor-thin ridges dropped into deep valleys, whereas the tiny village of Hanavave supplied a way of scale. Given the situations, the ship’s busy crew recalibrated once more. Quite than spending a full day Fatu Hiva, we’d as an alternative make for Hiva Oa, one other island within the chain.

If the title faintly rings a bell, it’s seemingly as a result of Hiva Oa was the place the painter Paul Gauguin spent the final two years of his life. After relocating from France to Tahiti, he ultimately moved to this small island, the place he labored till his dying in 1903. Throughout my day and a half there, I hiked as much as the small Calvary Cemetery, the place Gauguin is buried amid frangipani bushes. Although accounts of his time within the islands — and what students have described as his “predatory” relationship with their individuals — have led to a reassessment of his work, it was nonetheless fascinating to expertise the sense of solitude that originally drew the artist to this place.

On one other Hiva Oa tour I visited Atuona, the island’s major settlement, the place I walked alongside a black-sand seaside. From shore, the bay appeared darkish as espresso, and I hesitated to dive in. However a number of islanders had been swimming — as had been a handful of my fellow passengers. I made a decision to go for it and found that the ocean was really crystal clear: what I used to be seeing was the iridescent black-sand backside which added an otherworldly colour to the lake-calm water.

Again on board, company had been invited to observe a plaque-exchange ceremony between native port officers and the crew, commemorating Star Breeze’s first-ever go to to Hiva Oa.

The Marquesas are the type of place you’ll by no means attain by chance. And but, we did. It helped that the crew was prepared to do all the things doable to rearrange actions ashore and on board. (Our resident Tahitian cultural ambassador, Pearl Manate, was a specific delight, educating ukulele, skirt weaving, and a number of the native language.)

By the tenth day, we had been in a position to resume our unique itinerary, hitting Bora Bora for an abbreviated go to despite the still-stormy climate. Given the rain, Chris and I elected to remain aboard and benefit from the moody view from the consolation of the ship.

That night, phrase went round that there could be a number of empty cabins on the following cruise, a seven-night itinerary that may keep on with the Society Islands. The unplanned diversion to the Marquesas had been a uncommon alternative, and but Chris and I hadn’t actually seen what we had initially come for. “Nicely, I’m retired,” Chris stated, placing to relaxation any debate over whether or not we must always keep aboard. Becoming a member of us had been 18 different company who had additionally elected to maintain the journey going.

Quickly sufficient we had been snorkeling in Moorea and swimming in Taha’a. We even got here again round to Bora Bora. Approaching the island within the glowing daylight, we anchored within the aquamarine lagoon and set about exploring. I went for a scuba dive and, via the crystalline sea, noticed a inexperienced moray eel. On my first sighting, I solely seen the creature’s toothy, gaping jaw. A couple of minutes later I noticed the whole seven-foot-long animal slithering its method from one rocky hideaway to a different, skipping, like us, throughout the ocean.

A model of this story first appeared within the December 2024/January 2025 challenge of Journey + Leisure beneath the headline “On the Rainbow’s Finish.”