Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/250756
A Bountiful Future A vendor sells grass skirts, garlands and gifts at Papeete's public market. (below) A wooden statue at Papeete's Notre Dame de L'Immaculée Conception Cathedral depicts the Madonna and Child – with breadfruit. coconut milk. Similar delicacies abound at Papeete's nearby two-floor Municipal Market. I inhale every savoury scent while passing tables full of mangoes and bananas, bakers hawking coconut bread and pineapple pie, and women in pink tank tops selling glistening slices of tuna. Upstairs, I browse through mother-ofpearl necklaces, handcrafted ukuleles and carved tiki idols, sacred human forms common to many Polynesian cultures. These stone statues reputedly have mana (intangible power), and families still keep them for protection. For lunch, I drive to Chez Nous, a small restaurant with a pandanus-thatched roof. The mutineers would have been envious. Not only do I get poisson cru – a hefty platter of white tuna cooked with lime juice and coconut milk and served with fresh vegetables – but I also taste my first bottle of Hinano, Tahiti's signature beer, with its lovely red-clad island maiden on the label. That primes me for a visit to James Norman Hall Museum, 15 minutes away in Arue. Visiting this replica of the Tahiti home of the Iowa-born Mutiny on the Bounty co-author fulfills a childhood dream. As requested, I remove my shoes before entering the viridian green house, which is surrounded by tropical foliage. A scale model of the Bounty greets me, and a warm, middle-aged Tahitian woman named Hina gives me a personal tour of the place. I take in Hall's First World War veteran memorabilia, portraits of the captains who presided over the 1792 court martial for the captured mutineers, and Hall's study, with his original desk and Royal typewriter, plus bookcases brimming with translations of his 20-plus books. In the gift shop, adorned with a huge Brando movie poster, I buy a $15 biography of Hall and Nordhoff. Hina kisses me on both cheeks before I leave. To wrap up my day, I drive to the Fa'auruma'i Waterfalls. Vaimahutu, the highest, cascades majestically down a greenerystrewn basalt cliff. Then, heading to the seaside, about a kilometre north, I marvel at the Arahoho blowhole. Its ocean spray, produced by compressed air, is so powerful it once blasted a hole in the now-closed road that runs overhead. At nearby Point Venus, a Bounty memorial erected in 2005 marks the ship's 1788 arrival here, in Matavai Bay. A bronze plaque lists the Bounty crew names. Mutineer descendants from Pitcairn Island attended the unveiling. It was from this lighthouse-graced peninsula that Captain James Cook, with whom Bligh sailed on Cook's final voyage, observed the transit of the planet Venus in 1769. Tonight, though, ironwood trees and coconut palms rustle in (opposite, hms bounty) aubrey dale, (breadfruit) istock, (other photos) darryl leniuk p22-27_Tahiti.indd 25 If all goes according to plan – Captain Bligh found out how perilous that can be in seafaring endeavours – Tahiti will host more Bounty-related events in the near future. • Dates and details were still to be confirmed at press time for the island's annual International Bounty Festival, but at last year's inaugural edition, guests met Bounty family descendants, learned about 18th-century navigation techniques and ate traditional dishes with breadfruit and other Polynesian staples. They also discovered the Bountyrelated books of Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, and enjoyed screenings of such documentaries as Julian McDonnell's Take Me to Pitcairn. The festival is co-organized by Swissborn Beni Huber and his wife Thérèse Rattinassamy-Huber on behalf of the Junior Chamber of Tahiti. • Huber's also gunning to finance the building of a new Bounty, which will launch in 2017 or 2018 and serve as a local tourist attraction. (Another Bounty replica, built in 1960 for the Marlon Brando movie, tragically sank off the North Carolina coast in Hurricane Sandy in 2012.) The ship will cruise along the coast to Matavai Bay during the day and moor in the Papeete harbour as a restaurant and lounge in the early evening. Then, tourists can overnight in 12 rustic but comfortable cabins while sailing around neighbouring Moorea, with breakfast included in the morning. As well, Huber is marketing breadfruit flour under the Bounty label. • Tony Probst, a Novato, Californiabased expert on the Bounty 's mutineers and their descendants, plans to celebrate leader Fletcher Christian's 250th birthday (September 25, 2014) on Pitcairn Island. He organizes trips to that remote British overseas territory and is behind its recently issued set of stamps that depict the island's Ship Landing Point. titaniccollector.com –L.A. S p r i n g 2 0 14 | w e s t w o r l d 25 14-01-23 10:57 AM