What we forget, in our constant bashing of the UK as a former Colonial Power and the strangler of the Commonwealth – is that France is still a colonial power. It owns islands in the Caribbean plus (according to Wiki) over 121 other islands. It is interesting reading. It is an account, after the spread by water across the Pacific, of a series of European explorers, adventurers, mappers, and exploiters successively claiming various islands in the name of their sovereign/sponsor. What then follows is more than 400 years of arguments, fighting, government changes, political games – all interrupted by a major war or two.
We docked today at Papeete – the largest city in the archipelago. According to Wiki – the population is about 135k. As a comparison – both Berkeley and Heidelberg have more population. The city is located on Tahiti which is also the most populated island. As was obviously by the amount of land and shore devoted to shipping, ocean transport is key to the populations survival.
I was actually surprised at how little grumbling I head about masking requirements. In fact there are a significant number of passengers making at least a token effort to wear masks on an ongoing basis. Anyway…
a significant portion of where we were docked was devoted to shipping, extensions of docks, and more extensions full of containers as well as ferries and the occasional fancy ship. Paul Gauguin comes to mind as well as Windstar (which was not in port with us today.
there is active construction
as well as a harbor full of fancy sailboats, a couple of rather significant fancy vessels for charter. Looking up into the hills , I watched as the rain rolled in.
