An Island At Sea (Page 3)
"Welcome to my motu!"
Mahea Lichtle spreads his arms wide as he watches me wade through clear water and make my way onto the dry sand of Iva Iva, the small island, or motu, in Bora’s lagoon he calls home. His smile is wide, he wears nothing but a pareo, and sun and sand have styled his hair into a look that works way better for him than it did for Tom Hanks in Castaway. Mahea is a descendent of King Puni and some of the European sailors who stayed in Tahiti a few generations back; he spent ten years in Paris as French Polynesia’s cultural attaché, wearing a suit, then returned home and worked with Mehiti as her first cruise director. Now he’s gone troppo and lives in a small hut on the beach, spending his days fishing and diving. Not that he’s left glamour behind, though, because, after all, this is Bora. "Sharon Stone was here last week," he says, as we talk about living the pared-down life. "I saw these guys and said, ‘Hey, what are you doing on my island?’ and they said, ‘We’re going to take pictures of Sharon Stone for Vanity Fair,’ so I said, ‘Well, OK.’" He laughs.
You can understand why any art director back in Manhattan would want to use these vistas: calm iridescent waters, Bora’s Mount Otemanu rising lush and steep across the lagoon, light that paints everything more vivid. A trip to Iva Iva is the first adventure of the week off the Ti‘a Moana: a time to snorkel, explore, revel in the heat. After a dip in the sea, I talk with Mahea about theories of Pacific migration. I’ve come here from Hawaii, an easy five hours by plane, but I’m still conscious that I’m retracing a centuries-old route in this ocean. Mahea’s conscious of it, too. He grabs a stick and draws the Polynesian triangle on the beach, then quickly, expertly, offers a mini-seminar on the journeys that have come before, making holes and lines—islands and routes—in the wet, soft sand.
