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Introduction As I recall this next phase of the Sofia’s Pacific crossing, I am revisiting a magical period. Waves of sun-drenched images wash over me. This was an interlude forever set to music, a spell that swayed in gentle tempo with the blissful throngs that congregated in what the travelogues designate as “the most beautiful islands in the world.” The Sofia followed the sun along its equatorial path. Consequently, those aboard were able to create an illusion of perpetual summer, ignoring the passage of time. Not since childhood had I stood on the brink of a world brimming with such secret promise. The Sofia was a downwind ship on her best heading when following the trade routes about the belly of the planet. All seemed right, deliciously youthful and rapturously exclusive. The Society Islands live in my memory as a dream, out of place and out of time. The landscape was sumptuous, the climate forgiving. Our sailors numbered many, and they were ecstatic. The ship arrived in good shape, physically and financially. The necessary repairs and routine maintenance promised to be quite manageable in the affluent, cosmopolitan port of Papeete, Tahiti. In contrast, the lavish sprinkling of outlying islands and motus (Polynesian reefs with vegetation) assured any Sofian weary of the activity aboard ship an alternative of relative isolation and anonymity. The only matter of any concern for us was hurricane season. We planned to c h a p t e r 8 The Most Beautiful Islands in the World The Societies Nothing ever tasted any better than a cold beer on a beautiful afternoon with nothing to look forward to but more of the same. —hugh hood 201 ride it out in safe harbor in French Polynesia in the glorious summer of 1980, during the most festive of celebrations in all the South Pacific.  journal entry Papeete, Tahiti Society Islands French Polynesia The Tuamotus are our gateway to the Societies. This arch of dazzlingly beautiful atolls that borders the famed islands of Tahiti, Mooréa, Bora Bora, and a smattering of smaller, lesser-known islands, serves as an appropriate foyer for the grandeur that lies beyond. Atolls are circular bands that rise just above sea level in the open ocean and are found primarily in the Pacific. They are either built up on a submerged bank or formed on the crater edge of a volcano that is resting just beneath the surface of the sea. Microscopic animals take up residence on the ridge, constructing homes of living coral that break through the surface to combine with the tropical sun and moist air. This fertile union begets a landmass that sits smack dab at sea level and extends only twenty to thirty feet up, to the tops of the loftiest palm trees. That’s it—no soaring mountain peaks to snatch passing weather systems, so there are no clouds. No bloated waterways stream down cliffs and through valleys, amassing mud, silt, and other organic debris to be deposited into the ocean and thereby creating murky, turbid shallows. The water is utterly transparent. Visibility on all fronts is sublime. Pink coral, blue sea, green palms, white sand, purple lagoon— tropical colors fitting together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle yet in startling contrast to one another.TheTuamotus are warm, breezy, clear, sunny, and perfect, perfect, perfect. Our port of call in the archipelago is Rangiroa, the largest atoll of the group. The Sofia rides in on a cresting wave that has been barreling along unharnessed and unobstructed for thousands of miles.We just have to hang on as the beast gushes through one of only a handful of channels carved through the reef by eons of battering torrents of water. All Sofia’s 123 feet of tall ship shush through a cut so narrow that great slabs of cobalt blue sea—from the wedge she slices out of the wave—rise in rooster tails above her cap rails. We slalom between jagged flanges of coral before being slickly deposited onto a still, velvet-green lagoon. As though we’ve slipped through the looking glass, the raging ocean is transformed into a tranquil 202 The Societies pool. The roar of massive breaking seas is muted to an echo, a hollow drum of distant thunder that resonates somewhere in our bellies and mimics the numb, mumbled whooshing sound that you hear when pressing a seashell to your ear. Inside the...

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