One family treks off the beaten path, on the lookout for some truly special encounters with nature.
My 10-year-old son spotted it first as we snorkeled in Taha’a’s sunset-lit lagoon. I saw Talon dive abruptly, yellow fins flashing, before noticing the creature gliding below us with its enormous half-moon mouth and 10-foot wingspan. “Manta!” I cried, waving my sister over.
It was the last night of our charter in French Polynesia. We’d been hunting for megafauna for nearly three weeks, sailing a 40-foot Bali Catspace to remote anchorages in search of dolphins, sharks, turtles, and rays. The manta was the crown jewel in our wildlife treasure chest. It was also the top animal on my son’s must-see bucket list. But an up-close experience with a manta had proven elusive—until now.
Sure, we could have sailed to Bora Bora and joined dozens of other tourists on a guided tour for a guaranteed sighting. But our family was committed to finding wildlife the old-fashioned way: all by ourselves. It gives us an extra zing when we are able to track down a rare animal in the wild, perhaps akin to early explorers spotting a new island.
Plus, while Bora is spectacular (my husband Rob and I had sailed there 12 years before), it was also spectacularly busier than the less-visited Society Islands of Raiatea and Taha’a. We hoped to avoid the crowds and to show our children, six and 10, the magic of a more wild French Polynesia.
The wilder the better, as far as we’re concerned. As Montanans, we are spoiled with abundant wildlife right out the back door—quite literally. This past fall, Rob and I awoke one night to banging in the backyard. Hustling out of bed, we turned on the patio light and illuminated a chunky black bear standing on its hind legs just 10 feet away. Our kids are sometimes late to school because a mountain lion likes to hang out in a tree near their bus stop. Deer regularly wander by my office window, and we keep a scope in our living room to watch a herd of elk across the valley. At my favorite anchorage on Montana’s Flathead Lake, bighorn sheep come down from the hills to drink water while I sip coffee in the cockpit a stone’s throw away.
All that to say: we’re big fans of watching charismatic megafauna. And we usually avoid places with lots of humans in order to have the best chance of spotting wildlife. In French Polynesia, this meant deviating from the typical charter itinerary. During our briefing at the Dream Yacht Worldwide base on Raiatea, the manager outlined a recommended route—brief pit-stops in Taha’a en route to popular anchorages in Huahine and Bora Bora, each of which entailed a 50-mile round-trip sail. We had other ideas.
“You’re just going to stay in this lagoon?” asked the manager, eyes incredulous. “For the entire three weeks?”
“We like to go slow,” I explained. “Really get to know a place.”
What I didn’t tell him is that members of our family have the tendency to strip naked and dive off the transom anytime a cool animal swims by. Our enthusiasm for skinny dipping with sharks gets tricky in a packed mooring field.
