Unfriendly clouds loomed as the Star Breeze eased out of the lagoon. The wind and the swells picked up, and the seas turned a milky blue. I was chatting about the impending weather with some other passengers when Captain Simon Terry’s voice came over the P.A.
“The tropical storm has developed into a cyclone,” he announced, adding that it would soon lash the Society Islands — exactly where we were headed. “It’s going to be very windy, very wet, and not very pleasant,” he intoned. “So we have taken the decision to head for an inaugural call in the Marquesas.”
It was the third evening of an 11-night sail out of Tahiti, and suddenly the trip was turning into an adventure. This would be no casual switch: even for frequent cruisers, the Marquesas are well off the beaten path. The nearest continental landmass is Mexico, which sits 3,000 miles to the northeast. We’d be diverting from our planned course by hundreds of miles, heading for an archipelago renowned for its isolation.
From left: Courtesy of Windstar; David Swanson
This sort of detour isn’t common. In my decades of writing about cruises, it’s only happened to me once before. Improbably, that trip also took place aboard the Star Breeze. What is it about this small Windstar ship? It’s not that the vessel has any particularly noteworthy navigational tools that make significant changes easier. Rather, it’s the flexibility and improvisational skill of the crew that make such on-the-fly revisions possible.
After a day at sea — which my husband, Chris, and I spent watching the waves and quickly studying up on the Marquesas — we finally sighted the island of Nuku Hiva. It’s the largest of the group, and it appeared on the horizon like a brooding massif wreathed in dark clouds. But as we prepared to go ashore, a giant rainbow came and went with the slight drizzle, though the sharp summits above the main town, Taiohae, remained out of sight. It reminded me of Dominica, in the Caribbean: steep, green, and bathed in mist.
Much like Hawaii, the Marquesas are the product of a volcanic “hot spot,” a magma chamber that birthed a chain of volcanic islands as the Pacific Plate adjusted, leaving behind towering, fertile peaks. A group of us from the ship took advantage of a tour around the island in a convoy of 4 x 4s, piloted by a crew of mostly female drivers who spoke French and a Marquesan dialect — but no English. Thankfully, the natural beauty needed no translation.
Our next stop, the island of Fatu Hiva, was less successful. Heaving surf made it unsafe to go ashore by tender, so we settled for admiring the small island’s incredible profile from the Star Breeze. Razor-thin ridges dropped into deep valleys, while the tiny village of Hanavave provided a sense of scale. Given the conditions, the ship’s busy crew recalibrated again. Rather than spending a full day looking at Fatu Hiva, we’d instead make for Hiva Oa, another island in the chain.
If the name faintly rings a bell, it’s likely because Hiva Oa was where the painter Paul Gauguin spent the last two years of his life. After relocating from France to Tahiti, he eventually moved to this small island, where he worked until his death in 1903. During my day and a half there, I hiked up to the small Calvary Cemetery, where Gauguin is buried amid frangipani trees. Though accounts of his time in the islands — and what scholars have described as his “predatory” relationship with their people — have led to a reassessment of his work, it was nonetheless interesting to experience the sense of solitude that initially drew the artist to this place.
On another Hiva Oa excursion I visited Atuona, the island’s main settlement, where I walked along a black-sand beach. From shore, the bay looked dark as coffee, and I hesitated to dive in. But several islanders were swimming — as were a handful of my fellow passengers. I decided to go for it and discovered that the sea was actually crystal clear: what I was seeing was the iridescent black-sand bottom which added an otherworldly color to the lake-calm water.
Back on board, guests were invited to watch a plaque-exchange ceremony between local port officials and the crew, commemorating Star Breeze’s first-ever visit to Hiva Oa.
The Marquesas are the kind of place you would never reach by accident. And yet, we did. It helped that the crew was willing to do everything possible to arrange activities ashore and on board. (Our resident Tahitian cultural ambassador, Pearl Manate, was a particular delight, teaching ukulele, skirt weaving, and some of the native language.)
By the 10th day, we were able to resume our original itinerary, hitting Bora Bora for an abbreviated visit in spite of the still-stormy weather. Given the rain, Chris and I elected to stay aboard and enjoy the moody view from the comfort of the ship.
That evening, word went around that there would be a few empty cabins on the next cruise, a seven-night itinerary that would stick to the Society Islands. The unplanned diversion to the Marquesas had been a rare opportunity, and yet Chris and I hadn’t really seen what we had originally come for. “Well, I’m retired,” Chris said, putting to rest any debate over whether we should stay aboard. Joining us were 18 other guests who had also elected to keep the adventure going.
Soon enough we were snorkeling in Moorea and swimming in Taha’a. We even came back around to Bora Bora. Approaching the island in the sparkling sunlight, we anchored in the aquamarine lagoon and set about exploring. I went for a scuba dive and, through the crystalline sea, spotted a green moray eel. On my first sighting, I only noticed the creature’s toothy, gaping jaw. A few minutes later I saw the entire seven-foot-long animal slithering its way from one rocky hideaway to another, skipping, like us, across the sea.
A version of this story first appeared in the December 2024/January 2025 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline “At the Rainbow’s End.”
Read the full article here