Moorea, the island you look at from inside

1. The two bays are a crater

Moorea is a shield volcano of the Society hotspot chain. Its subaerial activity is dated between 1.72 and 1.36 million years by the potassium-argon method; another source takes it back to 2.15 million years. We give the range: on this point the datings do not yet agree.

The original edifice collapsed and opened northwards. What remains of its caldera is not a geologist’s curiosity: it is the entire landscape of the north coast. Cook’s Bay — Pao Pao — and ‘Ōpūnohu Bay are valleys cut into the crater wall and then invaded by the sea, separated by Mount Rōtui, 899 metres, protected from erosion by very hard rock dykes.

At the Belvedere you are not admiring the caldera: you are standing inside it. That is Moorea’s peculiarity, and the reason the view from that point is unlike any other view in Polynesia.

The summits: Tohiea rises to 1,207 metres, Mou’a Roa to 880, Mou’a Puta to 830 — the last pierced by a hole that legend attributes to a spear thrown from Tahiti. The island covers 133 km².

Moorea is older than Tahiti and its barrier reef is more mature: it goes right round the island, which Tahiti’s does not. One caution, though: that does not mean its lagoon is “the biggest” — on that point sources contradict each other and we will not settle it.

2. The lagoon, the rays, and a rule to know

The lagoon covers about 5,000 hectares, behind a 61-kilometre barrier reef pierced by twelve passes. Motu Fareone and Tiahura, to the north-west, close the picture postcard.

The stingrays and blacktip reef sharks of the north-west lagoon are the island’s most requested outing. One thing deserves saying: that concentration of animals is not spontaneous — it grew out of feeding that began in 1995.

Feeding wild animals has been forbidden since 2017 by country law, and sharks are fully protected. An operator offering to feed the rays is breaking the law. Serious outings take you to see animals, not to bait them.

Humpback whales pass through from July to November. The Polynesian economic zone has been a marine mammal sanctuary since 2002, and approach is regulated: authorised season from 20 July to 20 November, 7:30 am to 5:30 pm, one hundred metres for licensed vessels and three hundred for private boats, fifteen metres for swimmers — six in the water at most — three boats per zone, and entering the water is forbidden in lagoons, bays and passes. Operators are licensed.

3. ‘Aimeho, the marae, and the pineapple

The island was not always called Moorea. Its old name is ‘Aimeho, in a fuller form — ‘Aimeho i te rara varu — translating as “of the eight tentacles”: the eight mountain ranges. Cook and the missionaries wrote it Eimeo. The name Mo’orea, “yellow lizard”, took hold at the end of the 18th century.

The ‘Ōpūnohu valley preserves more than five hundred recorded structures, excavated by R. C. Green in the early sixties and restored at the end of the decade. The Titiroa marae measures some forty metres by seventeen; occupation of the site goes back to the late 16th century.

Moorea played a particular part in christianisation: it is here that Pōmare II took refuge after 1808, here that in 1815 the high priest of ‘Oro burned the idols of the Papeto’ai marae, and here that the country’s first printing press was set up in 1817 — Pōmare II pulled the first sheets himself.

Later came the pineapple. Around a hundred hectares, more than eighty growers, and a factory created in 1981 to absorb the surplus — the one whose juices you will see all over the country.

Cook did not anchor in Cook’s Bay. On 30 September 1777 he entered through the Tareu pass into ‘Ōpūnohu Bay. The neighbouring bay bears his name without his ever having dropped anchor there.

4. Getting there, getting around, what to do

There is no longer a flight. Air Moorea, whose hop lasted seven minutes, ceased all activity on 1 November 2010, three years after the crash of flight 1121 which killed twenty people. Since then the link is by sea: Aremiti and Terevau connect Pape’ete to Vaiare in thirty to forty-five minutes depending on the vessel, several times a day.

• The ‘Ōpūnohu Belvedere, at 240 metres, looking over both bays and the Rōtui.
• The Three Coconut Trees pass, 385 metres, an hour and a quarter to two hours depending on the route — only one coconut tree is left, incidentally.
• Mou’a Puta, six to seven hours from ‘Āfareaitu, with cabled sections: a guide is required.
• The public beach of Ta’ahiamanu, free, at the entrance of ‘Ōpūnohu Bay.
• The ring road, some sixty kilometres, which really does go round.

Something few visitors know: the CRIOBE, a research station here since 1971, makes Moorea’s lagoon one of the most studied coral reefs in the world. When you swim over the coral, you are inside a measuring site.

5. What people get wrong

• The bays are not two craters. They are drowned valleys, cut into a collapsed edifice. The caldera is the whole basin.
• You do not feed the rays. It has been forbidden since 2017, and serious operators no longer do it.
• You do not fly to Moorea. No commercial line since 2010: it is the ferry.
• “Moorea, island of the yellow lizard” is not the historic name. The old name is ‘Aimeho; Mo’orea is late.
• “The biggest lagoon in Polynesia”: avoid it. Sources contradict each other on the comparison with Tahiti. What is true, and enough: its barrier reef goes right round the island.

For the origin of the Polynesian people, the canoe crossings and navigation by the stars, see Where Polynesians come from.