3 nights in Taha’a: Vanilla Island, Manta Ray, Coral Garden – French Polynesia Road Trip (4/4)
We were supposed to visit Taha’a then Bora Bora, but due to my complicated calculations, I preferred to put Bora Bora before Taha’a. That said, after snorkeling in Bora Bora, I wonder how Taha’a can beat Bora Bora in experiences since the island is so tiny. Fate works in mysterious ways because we’re ending our vacation with the best of the best.
Part 1: Travel Journal
Part 2: Practical Tips
Part 1: Travel Journal
If it were up to me, I would have stayed longer in Bora Bora but accommodation is still very expensive and considering the ferry schedules, if we stayed too long in Bora, we would have had only one night in Taha’a. So here we are for 3 nights in Taha’a. The island is tiny, there aren’t many agencies. To get to the famous coral garden of Taha’a (where you let the current carry you, a super fun activity), we have to:
- Either pay for a night at the Taha’a by Pearl Resorts hotel (Booking link) or get a day pass
- Or pay for a water taxi
- Or opt for a private excursion
Since I love luxury hotels, of course I tried to go to the hotel first. A month before, they told us it was possible to get a day pass (lunch at their restaurant). But a week before our arrival, they were fully booked and didn’t want outside guests. Apparently another trick would have been to book a massage. But fate works in mysterious ways. A “no” usually opens more doors.
We contact the agency Taha’a Activités for a private excursion but the person on the phone doesn’t reassure us about the weather. So it’s up to me to decide. I opt for September 10th even though the forecast is pessimistic. My intuition tells me the 10th will be perfect, not the 11th. I check the tide times (because the coral garden isn’t very deep). The guide advises us to go in the morning because from the afternoon, the wind picks up and it’s less pleasant for snorkeling. Since we can’t pay online, the guide advises us to withdraw money ASAP in Bora Bora because it’s difficult to withdraw money in Taha’a. The private half-day tour costs 29,900 XPF for two people, including breakfast.
The Bora Bora – Taha’a ferry only takes an hour but transporting a scooter still costs 10,000 XPF hahaha. The journey is always pleasant, especially with the sun.
Luckily we have our scooter with us because at the port of Taha’a: 0 taxis. People had arranged with their Airbnb beforehand. Taha’a has many more hills than I thought. Our 125cc scooter struggles in some places, but it’s okay. We arrive very early (9:30 am) so we prefer to drop our suitcase at our Airbnb, at the other end of the island (the blue house in the photo). Our room is already ready, it’s small but the rest of the house is spacious. We share the bathroom with two guests and the owners. But everyone is respectful so there’s not much waiting, no problem.
We have direct access to the lagoon with a canoe available and there’s a dock two minutes from the Airbnb, from where shuttles to Raiatea leave twice a day. Yes, there are shuttles (which can’t transport scooters) that regularly go back and forth between Raiatea and Taha’a. I didn’t know that. So without the scooter, we could have done the Raiatea – Taha’a round trip in a day, or opted for a day excursion combining snorkeling and island visits. Anyway, my schedule isn’t very logical, and it pains me to end up with such an imperfect plan. But for reasons of my own, ultimately it was the best possible plan. Largely thanks to the private excursion.
The weather is splendid so we do a full tour of the island.
I spot a ray in the water. We stop and observe it from the road. It comes a little closer to us then continues on its way. And suddenly, two fish chase each other at an impressive speed until one of them crashes into our poor ray. The impact causes a shock that stirs up the sand. Our poor ray doesn’t move at all. We think it’s injured or dead. Finally it moves again, and sulks. It leaves the shallow area to head to the open sea in a “I’m outta here, I’ve had enough!”mood. It’s such an extraordinary moment to observe her thought process. A little being we didn’t think was so intelligent. We felt sorry for her who was just swimming peacefully until then. We hope she didn’t think it was us humans who threw a projectile at her. Personally, I used to love ray wing dishes but since I’ve swum with them, seen how adorable and intelligent they are, it’s a dish I won’t eat anymore.
JB knows I was very disappointed not to be able to visit the pearl farm in Raiatea and takes me to visit two. The shops are unfortunately overpriced (more expensive than in Tahiti!). The explanations are rushed, but luckily there are grafters on site (come in the morning), we saw them extract pearls and graft others. And there’s no possibility to dive/snorkel to get your own mollusk. I think we’ll either come back to Raiatea or do it in Tahiti.
They insert into the mollusk, inside its reproductive organ to be exact, a bead from a Mississippi mussel, along with a small piece (2mm x 2mm) of sacrificed membrane from another mollusk. It takes two years for the mollusk to reach maturity and then two years to produce a pearl. If the first pearl is pretty, they will insert a larger bead. And so on up to 4 times. That’s why the largest pearls are the most expensive, because the mollusk must have survived 3-4 grafts, which is very rare. Then, depending on color, shape, and imperfections, there is a whole range of prices. Pearls are the only “precious stones” derived from animals, but at what cost. The farms here say they have between 400,000 and 2 million mollusks. They surely don’t live off tourists like us, but by exporting their pearls worldwide.
We spot the “cleaning station” for manta rays accessible from the road, which I already explained the concept here. I stumbled upon a video of Taha’a on TikTok and it has all the useful information to access it without getting yelled at by the “super annoying” lady (according to the TikTok video) from the house on the left. Between the pontoon of this house and the land on the right, there is a plot where you can park. Park in the middle, don’t go left or right, straight ahead. You see the boat, walk then swim to it. At this precise spot there are round shapes where manta rays find fish that clean their parasites. If you follow the “fault” towards the white buoy, you might come across one (or several) manta rays. And it’s free!!! We pass by this spot several times and see either a boat or a tourist with mask and snorkel. We ask if they saw one. They reply they might have come too late (afternoon). The spot is marked on my Google Maps at the end of the article.
We find a food truck near the port and get a huge burger. Since our Airbnb is at the end of the island, a bit far from the food trucks, we decide to eat light tonight, so at noon, we need to have a proper lunch.
We stop at a rum distillery (made from sugarcane). In the end, it’s the derived products that interest us most: tamanu oil (for spots and wounds), mosquito repellent oil (it works really well), vanilla… they buy raw ingredients and transform them into products because they have machines. However, there is much more sugarcane than they can process, so a large part of the sugarcane juice is shipped in containers to Moorea for the Rohui juice factory to handle.
It’s great that the weather is nice but sun + wind => I got sick. I nap all afternoon and apply tiger balm. I absolutely must be ready for tomorrow’s excursion.
I’m testing with my new micro SD card bought in a hurry in Bora Bora. My 360 camera doesn’t like the new card I got. But after several tests, I realized that if I only filmed two minutes at a time, there would be no problem, as long as I avoid make the “warning” message disappear. It would have killed me to learn after the excursion that the videos weren’t recorded. Don’t do like me, come with a maximum of ultra max quality micro SD cards! 256GB minimum.
Day 2
The guide picks us up by boat at the pontoon near our Airbnb (instead of the port, which saves us a good 30 minutes of driving) at 8am sharp. He seems very meticulous because as soon as JB puts aqua shoes full of sand on his boat, he is instructed to wash them ASAP. That’s how the boat is perfectly clean, very luxurious with faux leather seats. Two fluffy towels await us on the seat. Magnificent! We have a spot at the front of the boat, a spot next to the guide, and benches at the back. In total, we can be 8!
We briefed the guide on WhatsApp before the tour: we don’t want to stop for “land” visits (distillery, vanilla farm). The tour must be only for snorkeling and “if possible see dolphins”. He immediately tells us there’s 0 chance of seeing dolphins today, he picked us up a bit far from the pass. In the end it’s absolutely not a problem because two days later, the dolphins will come to our ferry at Huahine, about twenty dolphins! Nature plans better than me.
On the other hand, the manta ray, we’d love to see one. The guide is sad because he hasn’t seen a manta ray in 3 days. But I’m convinced we’ll see one. At worst, I know he’ll drop us near the bitter woman’s house. I’m not too worried. But he looks for the manta ray in the middle of the lagoon, at a “cleaning station” I don’t know at all. He doesn’t find it but we come across a school of fish that are super edible apparently, very big. He sighs: it’s when we’re not fishing that they’re here 😀 we see fins coming out of the water as if to wave at us and taunt us a bit.
The guide has good eyes because he already sees a stingray. And then when we circle around in another area (full of plankton apparently), he finally sees it, the manta ray !!!! She swims away. We circle around again and see her once more. This time, she lets us approach. She’s extremely graceful. We ask to get into the water. JB gets in too abruptly, and the ray darts away at full speed. JB doesn’t give up, swims much more calmly following the guide’s advice. And she lets herself be tamed a little as she comes back toward us. It’s when she heads toward the boat that I decide to get in the water too. Usually, I would have grabbed a vest or a pool noodle, but in the excitement, I get in with nothing at all and only realize it at the end. I’m a good swimmer but I’m scared of the ocean LOL. The fact that I’m this comfortable reassures me a lot. It means that when there are beautiful things to see, I won’t be scared at all anymore. What I hate is being in the middle, with several meters above and below me, without any fish. That was the case when we were visiting wrecks at PhilippinesBeing in the middle of the water like that wasn’t pleasant at all. It really encourages me to do a try dive later on.
This time, the ray has no pattern on its back unlike the two manta rays we saw in Bora Bora. It’s smaller too, I’d say about 3 meters wide. It might be a mobula. She came quite close to us and judging by how her horns open and close, she’s feasting on plankton. There are only two of us in the water, the guide follows us slowly with the boat. It’s a magical moment!
Our guide seems very proud to have found the ray, especially since he also found 3 small turtles (we didn’t swim with them) but they were coming up to the surface to breathe.
At one point, we found a leopard ray. In Bora Bora, they were at 15 meters so I couldn’t see the white spots on their backs. This time, I was able to get in the water and swim close enough to it (about 3 meters) to see the spots. But it moves so fast, I don’t have the courage to follow by swimming without fins and couldn’t film it.
In just 1 hour, we’ve already seen and swum with a manta ray, seen 3 turtles, big fish, and swum with a leopard ray !!! For me, the day is already a success, everything else is a bonus.
The guide drops us at a shark spot. Here, there are no rays, but the shark welcoming committee is something else!!! 14 sharks follow us. They love following boats.
When one arrives or leaves, the sharks definitely follow. No one feeds them, but our guide says someone must have done it secretly to keep them at this spot, otherwise they wouldn’t have stayed here since the ban on shark feeding in 2017. And the behavior of instinctively following boats isn’t normal for very skittish sharks.
The guide quickly realizes from our behavior that we’ve never been properly briefed for snorkeling. You shouldn’t follow the fish but swim very slowly; they come to us because they’re also very curious and want to know who we are. So, by staying perfectly still, we were able to observe many more sharks than usual, in calm.
The guide shows us a turtle and JB follows it for a long time. It’s when it starts eating that JB calls us. The guide and I come by boat. Except that when the boat leaves, the sharks follow us too. I’m watching the turtle eat with JB when suddenly I look up and realize we’re surrounded by about ten sharks.
I know there’s no risk, but it’s always very impressive to be surrounded by them. We leave the turtle alone and then go see a concrete turtle in front of a hotel (at 4-5 meters deep).
The guide then takes us in front of a motu. There’s a small coral garden and we snorkel there while he prepares breakfast for us. While snorkeling, I come across a trigger fish (the one that attacks if you get too close to its eggs). This one doesn’t attack me but its open mouth and two little teeth that look ready to bite aren’t reassuring, I flee the area ASAP. We find the “little blue fish” hiding in the corals and the “polka-dot” fish that we often see at our beaches in Tahiti, I like them because they’re very colorful and very cute. Other fish are there but rather gray or black so we don’t see them well on camera.
Breakfast is so good and the setting is magnificent. What a beautiful morning!
The agency Taha’a Activités has boats in Raiatea and Taha’a. When you leave from Taha’a, it’s often privatized like we’re doing today. The boats from Raiatea, when they do the full-day tour, stop at vanilla plantations, pearl farms, distilleries… things we can do with our scooter, so a half-day snorkeling trip like this is perfect.
Teiho our guide takes great care of us. For example, when I drift too far from the boat to follow the manta ray or the turtle, I just ask him to come get me and the boat will arrive slowly. No need to swim the Olympic 100m like with the Bora Bora tour.
Last stop of the morning: the famous coral garden near the luxury hotel Taha’a by Pearl Resorts (Booking link). Up close, this hotel is absolutely magnificent. If I had too much money, I would have spent thousands of euros here. A wedding is taking place on a tiny motu in front of the hotel and it’s our guide’s parents who are organizing the ceremony for the guests. All the boats around applaud etc. but during the ceremony, we were in the water so they just told us about it.
In the meantime, we have to follow our guide with our aqua shoes. We follow the right motu until we almost reach the ocean. We can see there’s a kind of path, i.e. areas with just sand, no coral. That’s the “path” you should try to follow. You can’t stop because the current carries you away, and swimming against the current is forbidden. The guide goes first and all you have to do is follow. It’s a real aquarium. The conditions are ideal: bright sunshine, little wind, the current is there but not too strong, the tide is coming in, the water is deep enough, but not too deep, so you’re still close to the corals. In short, perfect.
JB gets “eaten” by a small fish, the same one that cleans manta rays. It goes after his coral wounds lol.
The second stop is on a small sandbank to observe the anemones & the Polynesian Nemos (clownfish), it’s so so cute!!! When I told you I regretted not having seen any at Huahine, we find them here, more easily accessible. Go figure!
Exploring the coral garden while drifting with the current took about 15 minutes with the guide. We love it so much and ask the guide if we can do it one more time. Even though we’ve gone over time, he’s super nice and grants us another tour, without him. Unfortunately this time, without him, we didn’t turn right at the right moment. We end up taking a slightly less interesting path, with fewer corals. But it’s still very beautiful. In short, if I were at the hotel, I wouldn’t have been able to fully enjoy the coral garden. Because it’s really much better with a guide.
We come back with stars in our eyes. As expected, the wind picks up, lucky we did the tour in the morning when the water was calm. Don’t hesitate to leave a big tip for the guide. Such service fully deserves a warm thank you. We’re dropped off at the pontoon near our airbnb. We take a quick shower then have a snack because it’s too late to find an open food truck and breakfast was very filling. We’ve planned a meal at the airbnb tonight anyway (they offer half-board for 3000XPF including breakfast and dinner).
We take the scooter to go eat an ice cream at Fare Miti, which is a boat that serves drinks and tapas. It rocks a bit but the concept is very cool. Apparently the sunset is superb too. Many boats moor at its pontoon to visit the distillery right opposite.
Once again, we laze around all afternoon. But no guilt because we have to enjoy the last moments of vacation in peace and farniente 😀 Dinner is very hearty and very good. We have the opportunity to chat at length with our host. She’s from Maupiti and settled in Taha’a with her partner. They have two children.
Once in Maupiti, she heard, from her terrace on the motu, a whale singing in the middle of the night, it woke her up but the whale then dived, without reappearing. Her parents have a campground in Maupiti (available on Airbnb) and also rooms not offered on Airbnb. That’s perfect, I still haven’t given up on going to Maupiti to see manta rays. Her mother offers half-board packages too and her father excursions. I have a feeling we’ll go in November 😀
In the evening, we turn off all the lights and watch the stars. The moon is absent and we can make out the Milky Way.
Day 3
We follow TikTok’s instructions and go to the side of the unhappy lady (whose fame is international) to find a manta ray. I don’t get in the water because I’m not fully healed. We park very respectfully between the pontoon and the private property. But as soon as JB is in the water, the lady appears out of nowhere and gives him authoritarian instructions, claiming she’s part of the association for the well-being of manta rays. Yeah right, if that were the case, you wouldn’t have built a big ass bungalow in concrete right where the rays come to get exfoliated! Without knowing it, JB manages to get info from her to find the manta ray (since he almost went the wrong way ahahah the reverse uno). She’ll watch him for a good while, looking agitated, to see if he follows her instructions.
Honestly, do you have to be that bitter and on edge when you live in a corner of paradise like this? I understand being unhappy if people come with their music, walk on her pontoon, but here he’s not doing anything wrong.
P/s: Apparently JB isn’t the only one she lectures
In short, come here, be respectful but don’t be afraid, the water and the rays don’t belong to the lady. Don’t walk on her pontoon, from the pontoon you won’t see anything anyway. Slowly follow the channel until you come across a manta ray and enjoy! Don’t dive to avoid scaring the cleaner fish. If the ray is almost at the surface (there are areas with shallow depth), don’t get too close. Don’t chase it aggressively, they like to go back and forth and you’ll see them up close.
It starts to rain and we’re glad we didn’t do the excursion today. Yesterday, everything was perfect. We had good timing every time. We go back to the airbnb where breakfast awaits us in the kitchen.
We quickly check how much cash we have left. We couldn’t fill up in town because we left without the wallet for snorkeling. If we had to go back to town to withdraw money to pay for half-board at the airbnb, we risk having very little gas left. And who says we’ll actually be able to withdraw money from the ATM? Seeing 15,000XPF left in the wallet, we breathe a sigh of relief. Not only can we pay for last night’s meal but also tonight’s meal! Yessss! all while having 3000XPF of pocket money (about €24). So rich!!
Vanilla Prod’s
When it stops raining, we walk to the vanilla plantation right next door. This time, the explanations are much more organized than at the man’s place in Raiatea—you can tell they’re used to repeating the same spiel to tourists, it’s less off the cuff. We get a better understanding of the production steps (which I already explained here). What’s more, the lady is kind enough to show us a live hand-pollination. There are quite a few derivative products in the shop.
The tours seem to come here between snorkeling trips, so I don’t know if many tourists stop to buy. Personally, if you don’t get the chance to go to Guy and Odette’s in Raiatea, this vanilla plantation will do just fine too (Vanilla Prod’s).
Taha’a Gourmet
It’s just a 3-minute walk to Taha’a Gourmet, a takeaway ice cream vendor. Just honk, or scan the QR code so a WhatsApp message alerts the owner. The coconut ice cream and vanilla ice cream are great; personally I prefer the vanilla ice cream. Expect to pay 500XPF for a fairly generous tub.
We run into our Airbnb host and ask her questions about vanilla. She says Taha’a is nicknamed the vanilla island because it has a history linked to vanilla. Out of 5,000 inhabitants, there are almost 500 producers; the farm is passed down from generation to generation. Each year, 3 foreign buyers come, and the prices are the same for all three (about 15,000XPF/kg). The producers come with about thirty bags of green vanilla pods each. The buyers handle the preparation of the vanilla (to mature it) themselves. Once dried, the pods lose at least 50% of their weight.
The well-matured vanillas ready for consumption that you see for sale here are meant for tourists and local consumption. If foreign buyers come and some vanillas aren’t ready to be sold (too small), they’ll be sold throughout the year to local buyers who, as we saw at the distillery, will handle the preparation themselves. That’s why there are people whose job is also to prepare vanilla (without necessarily having a farm). Increasingly, there are vanilla burglaries. The burglars come from Taha’a and they ransack the plantations, stealing the entire harvest. One of them worked for a foreign buyer—who has since been fired. Others haven’t been found; we don’t know how they unload the stock. In any case, when foreign buyers come, they also inspect the farms to estimate production, to prevent one from stealing from another. She tells me they’ve tried planting vanilla on other islands in Polynesia, but apparently Taha’a and Raiatea are more compatible than others. It’s fascinating!
In the evening, she serves us another delicious dinner. And in the morning, a delicious breakfast. Before we load everything onto our scooter and head to the ferry.
The journey to Tahiti is long, long, long… but at Huahine, as we enter the port, I spot about twenty dolphins. This time, I have binoculars with me and plenty of time to observe and count them. As we approach Tahiti, unfortunately, no whales were spotted, nor any dolphins. But there are plenty of spots where about fifty birds were circling in the middle of the ocean—a sign that there were surely lots of fish below.
Thank you for following our adventure at the end of the world. If you haven’t read all the episodes, start with Raiatea, Huahine, then Bora Bora. The experiences build up crescendo. It wasn’t intentional, not planned, but chance helped us. There had been small hiccups, micro-frustrations, but everything worked out in the end. There’s only one thing I couldn’t do: the pearl farm in Raiatea, but who knows, I might come back. Each island had something unique. If you have time, visit all 5 islands (including Maupiti).
- In Raiatea: the pearl farm & vanilla plantation at Guy & Odette’s.
- In Huahine: the beach of the former Sofitel, its Bahamas-style public beach, its dolphins that follow the ferry.
- In Bora Bora: rays swimming peacefully at Matira beach; the manta rays.
- In Taha’a: manta ray accessible from the road and the coral garden where you float with the current.
- In Maupiti: manta rays, “end of the world” vibe
Part 2: Practical Tips
For filming underwater, I highly recommend going with a 360 camera like mine; I have the X4 Air (link), but you can get the X6 (link). You absolutely must get the dive case otherwise the camera will struggle to reconstruct the 360 in post-production. And you should always keep the main subject IN FRONT of the lenses, not on the sides like I did. In any case, having this camera means you no longer worry about what you’re filming, you enjoy the moment, and choose the camera angle later in post-production. By using my links, you’ll get an extra gift depending on the camera chosen (automatically added to the cart). Don’t forget to bring extra batteries and plenty of micro SD cards V30.
Budget Taha’a
- Airbnb in Taha’a (link): 156€
- Add 3000XPF/person for half-board
- Bring lots and lots of cash when you come here
- Private tour: Taha’a Activités 29,900 XPF for two people, half-day
- You can come by ferry or shuttle from Bora Bora and Raiatea
Overall budget
From Tahiti:
- 30-day unlimited ferry pass: 24,000 XPF per person
- Crossings for the scooter 10,000 XPF per crossing, so 50,000 XPF in total
- Accommodation 13 nights: €1342.28 for two people, sometimes with a shared bathroom
- Wellness offer at Intercontinental Moana Bora Bora: 22,300 XPF per person
- Full-day tour in Bora Bora: 12,000 XPF per person
- Half-day tour in Taha’a: 29,900 XPF for two, private tour
- Vanilla 100g: 10,000 XPF
- Food: around €1300 for two
- TOTAL: €4,344 for 13 nights, 14 days for two people
Points of interest and the itinerary for the Leeward Islands are available on this map Google Maps
