Gambier Islands

Antoine's view

This small archipelago, at the far end of the Tuamotu islands chain, preciously maintains some of yesteryear's Polynesia.

Composed of a few high islands, surrounded by a vast reef, the archipelago boasts surprising historic remains, and Nature here has managed to keep its rights.
It's here that I filmed, in 1977, one of my very first videos, a black pearl farmer's day on the small island of Taravai.

In this small archipelago, under the lead of Father Laval, settled in 1834 the first catholic missionaries in Polynesia. They barely avoided, during the first days, being killed, but less than one year later, they had succeeded in converting the whole population of the archipelago, that was then home to 7000 people. The missionaries then enlisted al the valid inhabitants to build on each island a church of excessive proportions: Rikitea's cathedral has room for a congregation of 1200, while the archipelago today has a smaller number of inhabitants. Father Laval established here a kind of theocracy with very strict rules, destroyed all the ancient idols (the Tiki), and was not appreciated by the sailors who were attracted to fish the mother-of-pearl, the lagoon's riches.
During the years 1965 to 1980, a number of visitors were brought here to man a military post, a rear base for the nuclear test sites in Mururoa and Fangataufa.
The works undertaken in some atolls in the Tuamotus, and in the Gambier, to build airstrips for these military bases had the consequence of upsetting the underwater flora's balance, causing the growth of a microscopic seaweed eaten by small fish, themselves eaten by larger fish, in which concentrates a toxin causing -Ciguatera- or -Gratte- (-Scratching-), a dangerous illness that makes most of the fish species in the Gambier improper for consumption.
Today, it's the black pearls that brings the island's wealth, thanks to the initiative of a French man, Jean-Claude Brouillet, then of a very enterprising Chinese businessman of Tahiti, Robert Wan, a true pioneer, who has created a modern pearl farm whose beautiful black pearls are now exported in the whole world..

Yet life in Mangareva remains peaceful : For the long distance cruiser, it is a little of yesteryear's Polynesia.

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Gambier Islands

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