Tuamotu Diary, the fragile archipelago

Imagine the fragility of these atolls. 

Mere rings of sand and coral in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  A coral ring, formed as a fringing reef around what was once the coastline of a volcanic island.  The now-sunken volcano – that erupted tens of millions of years ago – is gone, worn away. Only the ring of coral remains. 

But no, they’re not rings. Not really. Not anymore. Most of the atolls – all but one, in fact – are partly submerged. No longer fully enclosing their lagoons. What’s left of the fringing reefs are more like punctuation marks – commas, accents grave, cédilles, parentheses.  Fakarava is the number 7.

The shape of each atoll, the part that we see as land, is composed of the motus – small islands or islets, bumps of coral emerging from the sea, where little vegetation grows.  Intermittent. Dot art. The motu dots rise barely above sea level. The rest of the coral ring now submerged. 

Very little soil. Mostly sand and coral. Little vegetation, not much grows here. A few hearty indegenous shrubs. Coconut trees have been successfully cultivated, but not much else. No rivers or strems, no underground springs. No water. Inhabitants collect rainwater, not plentiful but mercifully falls more or less regularly throughout the year.

Go to the highest point of a narrow atoll, from where you can look left to right and see the lagoon on one side and the open ocean on the other.  To the east, see ocean that stretches 5000 miles to South America. Look west, 4000 miles of ocean to Australia. To the south, Antarctica, 3000 ocean miles away. To the north, 6000 uninterrupted miles of ocean to Alaska. And there you stand, on this motu, just a few miles long and 100 metres wide. Just 0,5 metre above sea level!

These atolls have existed as home to generations of Polynesians – Ma’ohi in their language – sons and daughters of the South Pacific, of Oceania, their ancestral home for thousands of years.  

Vulnerable, but durable.  Durable, but not invincible. These atolls are pounded, but also protected, by the steady ocean waves and the tidal currents that created them – beaten by relentless rolling swells but also reinforced by the predictable oscillating rhythm of the sea. Still, a major ocean event – say, a cyclone, or a tsunami triggered by an earthquake or volcanic eruption thousands of miles away – could arrive with a wallop and reduce the atoll to coral rubble. Infrequent, but devastation is not unheard of.   

From late 1800s to early 1900s, tropical cyclones wreaked much havoc in the Tuamotu Archipelago and claimed thousands, of lives – a big dent in total population (today) of just 15,000. A few atolls were reduced to veritable death traps, and vivid memories of these events persist today. The cyclone winds blow up to 180 kph and can last 24 hours. But it’s the storm surges (aka tidal waves) that follow and last for days that pose the most serious threat to these low islands, ever vulnerable to the sea.

The 1903 cyclone struck the entire archipelago.  Fakarava was one of the hardest hit.  The main village of Rotoava was flooded by storm tides, and the villagers – those who survived – took shelter for days in a schooner, held down in the lagoon by three anchors facing windward.  The village at the south end of Fakarava was completely destroyed, no survivors. The 1905 and 1906 cyclones brought similar storm surges and flooding to Fakarava – as well as familiar survival efforts – inhabitants attempting to swim out to vessels still afloat in the lagoon, or heading to (marginally) higher ground and climbing coconut trees. The 1906 cyclone was among the most severe in the last century, completely obliterating one atoll and leveling villages on 10 others.   

Some atolls diminish gradually over thousands of years, worn down by wind and waves. A few disappear all at once, in a matter of hours or days. And then perhaps something in between – imagine your atoll, your homeland, drowning imperceptibly under the rising waters of climate change. 

The ocean shapes the land.  The land shapes the people. 

I’ve heard boat neighbours describe the local Ma’ohi people as lazy – the American author Herman Melville used the same word to describe the Taipi people in his 1842 autobiography Typee.  Admittedly, there is virtually no agriculture on the island – little wonder though.  Visitors and locals alike, we all wait for the weekly supply ship to bring fresh fruit and veggies, and everything else, and the supply of fresh produce last only a day or two.  Why not grow local produce, why not make stuff, take commercial advantage of all the yatchies who pass through, why not bring in more from Tahiti, grow some local trading businesses? 

It does get crazy sometimes. When the weekly supply ship is unloaded. Yatchies and locals alike, crowd into the little store at the dock to angle for the best spot to snag a tomato. Boxes are brought out one-by-one, and emptied out in mere seconds. Deploying with my pointiest elbows, I managed just one carrot.

I’ve heard the locals described as purveyors of misinformation – unreliable – can’t accurately tell us when goods will arrive, when the shop will re-open, what’s on the ship, so much misinformation.  Sometimes intention-to-deceive is implied.  It’s true that we’re told the fuel will be ready at 3 o’clock, but only by chance do we all race over to the dock at 11 am to find that the fuel is already flowing.      

I’ve heard the local Ma’ohi described as aloof – keep to themselves, not easy to get to know, not inquiring of our needs or eager to serve. 

But somehow these descriptions – lazy, unreliable, aloof – they don’t ring true. 

Admittedly, it’s hard to engage with the locals. But when you do, however fleeting, they show themselves to be super helpful, super reliable, hard working, joyful and kind. The Ma’ohi women in particular – attentive, hard-working, productive. Just not in the competitive or ambitious or greedy way that we’re used to.

These women seem genuinely content to take what they need, without yearning for more, or for more than their neighbour.  They make do with what they get, with gratitude and without resentment.  Even without resentment towards us, the yatchies who are grabbing for ourselves this week’s supply of fruit and veggies.

In the local Ma’ohi people who live on these atolls, I observe an attitude, or a personality type – maybe call it a spirit – that is so different than our own, that it’s hard to recognize and, I think, easy to misinterpret.

Their casual relationship with time – meaning, the clock, the particular time of day – it’s true, there’s flexibility there, or so it seems – but not what I would call misinformation. Their imprecision is about not wanting to disappoint, not wanting to inconvenience -knowing that in this harsh and remote place, it is folly to count on too much – underpromise and overperform, if you can. The locals don’t share our great reverence for strict timetables. They are governed moreso by the sun and the moon and the stars, by the tides, by the rainfall. It’s hard to find fault there. At least from where I sit, loving the rythym of these days and this place.

Ambition and profit and competition are what we value and how we measure success.  Our lives are busy, pressing, productive, urgent – or that’s the goal.  But here, in this land, on these motus, in these communities, it feels like those values are missing.  Not just denied or lamented, as we often do at home.  But actually absent.  Replaced with a deep sense of modesty, respectfulness, patience, gratitude.  And it makes sense, in this place. 

How could you live in this place of vast oceans and endless skies, over generations, this sparsely populated place of your ancestors, without coming to understand, modestly and deeply, just how puny you really are? 

How could you live in this fragile place, without coming to respect Nature’s gifts and without learning to be frugal with her bounty?

How could you be blessed with all this space, alone every night with the pounding surf and the moon and the stars, without an immense appreciation for your own vast personal space and deep respect for the privacy of others? 

How could you live in these small remote communities without deeply and acutely understanding that your wellness is the same as your neighbours’? 

I struggle to gain a glimpse of this fragile land and these modest people. I feel, without question, that this land has shaped these people. Beautiful land, beautiful people.

Not that I could live here.  I am not of this place. Our own beautiful peeps – our families, our friends, everyone we miss – are at home in our beautiful land.