Prelude

The South Pacific. It conjures up visions of pristine beaches and coconut palms swaying in tropical breezes. It’s been the inspiration of artists and writers for centuries - entirely captivating the heart, mind, body and soul of Gauguin.  For some it reminds them of music from Rogers’ and Hammerstein’s 1949 Broadway musical of the same name (the production was later released and popularized as a Hollywood film in 1958).  And the production itself was based on James Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific, a collection of stories written during Michner’s tour in the South Pacific during WWII. 

And for others, the South Pacific is a painful reminder of the terrors and agonies and suffering of that global war as world powers clashed for dominance and control of these volcanoes, rocks, reefs, and atolls.  And for still others, it represents the indignity of being relocated from your homelands so world powers can contaminate them in the name of research and progress as the entire Pacific Ocean became the testing grounds for nuclear ambitions with some 318 nuclear devices being detonated in the Pacific from 1946 to 1996 when it finally stopped. We hope.

But what is The South Pacific? About the only thing that people agree on is that it consists of roughly 11 million square miles of salt water dotted with volcanic islands - some nearly as big as continents - and a vast collection of coral reefs and atolls.

According to the website Law Insider:

South Pacific means the region comprised of Australia, Christmas Islands, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Norfolk Island, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Wallis and Futuna Island.

A pretty wide net, but Christmas and Cocos Islands are west of Australia and are closer to Madagascar than to New Zealand. And Kiribati lies north of the equator - although the Hawaiian Islands, not even mentioned in the Law Insider’s definition but considered by most to be “South Pacific” islands, also lie north of the equator - over 20 degrees north.

Tripsavvy.com defines a much smaller South Pacific composed of three distinct regions - Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia, each with their own linguistic and cultural traits.  For such a large geographic area, this seems entirely reasonable, although I’d include the Solomon Islands in their Micronesia group.

Polynesia - The easternmost region is defined by a massive triangle with the Hawaiian Islands at its northernmost apex, Rapa Nui on the east, and the Tonga group on the west.  Enclosed within that triangle are French Polynesia, Cook Islands, Samoa, American Samoa and hundreds or smaller islands. 

Some sources, e.g. Britannica, list the region as extending all the way to New Zealand but, from a geologic perspective, I’m not sure I agree. That being said, there is evidence from Enderby Island - some 275 miles south of New Zealand’s main islands - of a Polynesian settlement radiocarbon dated to the 1300s - which largely coincides with the arrival of the Maori in New Zealand. There was no agricultural activity noted at the site (probably not possible because of the temperatures at those latitudes) and it appears the inhabitants, for however long they lasted, subsisted on birds and marine mammals - quite different from their cousins to the north. Perhaps New Zealand and the islands immediately surrounding it should be classified as their own region within the South Pacific.

Melanesia - The west region contains the four independent nations of Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, and the Solomon Islands.  What I like about the boundaries of this definition is that it excludes New Caledonia and New Zealand, both of which, according to current theories, are the highest points of the largely submerged 8th continent of Zealandia, geologically distinct from both Melanesia and Polynesia.

Micronesia - The northern region has literally thousands of small islands, many north of the equator. Guam, Kiribati, and Palau are the best known, but it also includes Yap - where they still use stones for money.

This South Pacific cruise will pass through Polynesia and Melanesia but focus on just one of the regions - Polynesia, making port calls in Hawaii, French Polynesia, and American Samoa.  Although these islands share cultural and linguistic similarities, they have developed their own flavors, due in large part due to influences of the last 250 years.

Polynesia - Many Islands

The western name is, of course, derived from Greek and it describes a triangular expanse of water, coral and rock bounded by Hawaii on the north, Rapa Nui on the east, and Tonga on the west (some include New Zealand - - witness the Tonga eruption of 2022, which, according to the Washington Post, was more powerful than any nuclear blast ever detonated,  The resulting tsunami killed people as far away as Peru and some researchers believe that it has been a major contributor to this year’s warming trend.

Tonga and Samoa sit on the infamous Ring of Fire, at the Kerrmadec-Tonga Trench (the 2nd deepest trench on the planet), so volcanic activity is to be expected there in the western part of the Polynesian Triangle. The islands within that triangle were constructed by some pretty powerful and violent forces that are still very active today Polynesia.  But the volcanically active Hawaiian islands are thousands of miles from the Ring of Fire and they are a classic volcanic chain.  You can see the march of the epicenter of volcanic activity throughout the Hawaiian archipelago in geologic time from the creation of Kauai in the far west 5 million years ago to the forming of the Big Island in the east which began 500,000 years ago and continues today. Its peak, Mauna Kea, as measured from its base below the surface of the ocean, is 33,484 feet tall - over 4,000 feet higher than Mt. Everest - and the volcano is still spewing lava.

But the Polynesian Islands were not created by fire alone. Water played a role, if only to provide the habitat for countless coral colonies to live and thrive in these tropical waters for many millions of years.  As time erodes the dormant cones of extinct volcanoes, they collapse and create shallow basins and small reefs.  In Polynesia, and elsewhere, these coral colonies populate the rims of these submerged, dormant volcanic cones.  Over time, as the underlying coral structures are broken and reformed, they blend with the debris from collapsed volcanic cones and islands are born.  

The resulting atoll, a ring of coral surrounding a shallow lagoon, supports a variety of plant life which in turn attracts birds and other animals - and there are hundreds of them dotted throughout Polynesia.  According to the NASA Earth Observatory, the world's largest chain of atolls is in French Polynesia.  The Tuamotu Archipelago consists of 73 true atolls (coral islands encircling lagoons) and a collection of other land structures such as raised coral islands and barrier reefs. The archipelago, formed between 65 million years ago in the west and 36 million years ago in the east, provides the visual record of volcanic activity in eastern Polynesia.

Fire and water,  Even without considering flora, fauna, weather, and human habitation the many Islands of Polynesia have their distinct personalities forged at birth. But the one thing they share is that they are all pretty new by geologic standards - around 80 million years at most, although some, like Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai in the Kingdom of Tonga, were created much more recently. The island was created by volcanic forces in 2015 . . . only to be obliterated by the same forces just 7 years later in the Tonga eruption of 2022. Ahhh, Pele giveth and Pele taketh away, such are the dynamics of Polynesia.

The Polynesians - Descendents of the Lapita

So these islands started forming several million years ago and then, sometime later, seafaring people arrived. According to the New York Times, The American Journal of Human Genetics reports that the early Polynesians, the Lapita people, began migrating from the Southeast Asia mainland 10,000 years ago, possibly transited through Taiwan, and arrived in Papua New Guinea (Melanesia) 6,000 - 8,000 years ago. According to the World History Encyclopedia, this migrant group reached Fiji, Tonga, Samoa around 800 BCE - a mere 3,000 years ago. From there, the migratory path of these early seafarers took them north to the Hawaiian Islands around 900 AD, around the same time they are believed to have arrived in Rapa Nui where, 500 years later, the first moai were believed to have been erected. A group of these seafarers, calling themselves the Maori, are believed to have reached New Zealand between 1200 and 1300 - just a few hundred years before the first westerner, Abel Tasman, set foot on the islands in 1642. 

I find it curious and a bit ironic that New Zealand, the most recently populated country on the planet, is a mere 2,500 miles from Australia, which has sustained an aboriginal population for over 50,000 years.  But there are other curiosities with regard to timelines and a clear lack of consensus as to who went where when. The National Park Service asserts that the first inhabitants of Hawaii came from the Marquesas between 1100 and 1200.  And Thor Heyerdahl, proved his theory that it was possible for indigenous people to sail to Polynesia from South America when in 1947 his balsa and natural materials boat, the Kon-Tiki, survived 101 days at sea and smashed onto the reef at Raroia atoll. To bolster Heyerdahl’s assertion that, for at least eastern Polynesia, there was the possibility of a western migration from South America instead of or in addition to an eastern migration from Asia, the journal Nature published a paper in 2020 confirming genetic and cultural elements impacting Polynesia due to South American contacts. That might be the first of many outside influences that, over the last few hundred years, have molded the cultural peculiarities on the many islands that comprise Polynesia

Polynesian Culture - Dispersed but resilient

There is a patch of garbage in the Pacific Ocean between the California coast and Hawaii.  The Eastern Garbage Patch, also known as the Eastern Pacific Trash Vortex, takes up an expanse of ocean about twice the size of Texas and it’s filled with trash and microplastics.  There’s another one in the western Pacific at the same latitude off the southeastern coast of Japan. Now I seriously doubt that the Majestic Princess will even come close to the trash vortex so I’ll not see it, but it’s there. The thing about plastics, and the reason why the trash vortexes exist, is that they break down into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic but, for the most part, they still retain the characteristics of the plastic itself - they retain their plastic-ness.  

So it is with the Polynesian culture - although much more beautiful and inviting then the vortexes swirling outside its triangle. As the migrations fanned out and spread throughout the region, the seafarers had to deal with a variety of issues such as weather patterns, whether their new home was volcanic or a low-lying atoll, the prevalence of fresh water, the type of vegetation, and the list goes on. As a result, the cultures of each island group developed their own distinct characteristics but, at their core, they are all Polynesian, and they share some significant commonalities.

Cultural Similarities  - Even though isolated by vast areas of ocean

The timespan from the first Lapita seafarers from Southeast Asia, into Polynesia around 800 BCE, to the time Western explorers first visited the islands when Samuel Wallis landed in Tahiti in 1767, is fairly short. As such, and in the absence of significant improvements in technology during that time, the shared norms, values, and beliefs of Polynesian culture had very little time to evolve and those values became established traditions, most passed down orally, in the seafarers' new homes, thousands of miles away from their source.

But Western colonialism has had a profound effect on these islands and its people and the result is fractionalized societies with a common ancestry.  France, Germany, New Zealand, Chile, and the United States have all laid claim to parts of Polynesia.  Some of those colonial structures still exist - American Samoa, for example.  Then there are nations, French Polynesia, that thought they were independent but that illusion crumbled in 2013 when the United Nations relisted all of French Polynesia as a Non-Self Governing Territory after France feigned its supposed autonomy for decades. But, at least the French have stopped nuclear testing in Polynesia and the rest of the Pacific, the last country to do so, in 1996.  According to Pace University, from 1946 to 1996, 318 nuclear tests took place in the Pacific - over half were in Polynesia.

Despite the influences from The West, some of the more durable traditions and aspects of Polynesian culture and society, such as a commitment to family and community, a strong sense of spirituality, an obedience to a hierarchy, and a mastery of the seas live on.  These traditions were absolute necessities in a new and sometimes harsh environment and those characteristics, values, and skills, although later diluted by Western colonialism, still hold true for many Polynesians.

The missionaries who followed the Western explorers have also affected the trajectory of Polynesian culture.  Possibly because of a strong cultural sense of spirituality, hierarchy, and a belief in the supernatural, Polynesians readily embraced Christianity, and elaborate churches, by island standards, were erected on many islands as a show of faith. Today, about 84% of Polynesians consider themselves Christian, but maybe with some of the underlying beliefs of their animistic ancestors.

Polynesian art also has some common themes and elements distributed throughout the region.  A recurring motif the Lapita culture brought with them to Polynesia is a series of small, intricate, geometric, decorative elements arranged in patterns that sometimes create or embellish a central figure.  We see this motif throughout Polynesia in their wood carvings and especially in their tattoos which, in themselves, are a common cultural link for many Polynesians regardless of which island group they’re from.

Then there’s the ocean and the Polynesian tradition of exploring vast stretches of open water. Polynesia spans 50 degrees of latitude and a staggering 110 degrees of longitude. To put that into perspective, comparable numbers for the continental United States are 23 and 68 - but at a higher latitude so the area of the Polynesian Triangle is as much as double the size of the continental United States. You had to have a strong belief in the supernatural to even attempt such a feat, to plunge into such a vast unknown, yet for these early seafarers it was commonplace. In the migration of humans, there is no parallel to their island-hopping style of establishing new communities across such a vast area in such a short time.  

Superb skills in boat building and navigation made it possible. And those skills evolved quickly because as the seafarers ventured further and further east the distances between islands became greater - first tens of miles, then hundred of miles, then, to reach the eastern and northernmost parts of Polynesia, thousands of miles.  What they did, thousands of years ago, boggles the mind.  Reasons unknown compelled them to gather a dozen or so of their closest friends and family along with all of their worldly possessions, jump into a wooden canoe, and venture into a vast unknown.  No safety net, no plan B - it was to survive long enough to find a habitable island or perish. They trusted in their skills, in each other, in a higher power that ultimately controlled their fate. Family, community, spirituality, obedience to their “captain”, mastery of the seas.

They started with simple canoes, later, sails and outriggers were added for greater speed and stability. By the time the seafarers were expanding throughout Polynesia, the standard sailing canoe for long voyages was about 50-60 feet long with twin hulls lashed together with cross beams and fitted with a platform or net between.  This allowed them to carry extended families of 12-15 people, provisions, livestock, food, tools, and planting supplies over long distances.  A long steering sweep protruded aft and port and starboard steering blades, as well as the skills of the operators, kept the craft on its intended course.

And that course was determined by a combination of keen observations the seafarers made of their watery world, the sky above it, and the creatures in both - day and night. The seafarers used “star compasses” and memory of the rise and setting of specific celestial bodies.  Some star compasses have as many as 150 objects.  Some researchers believed they carried frigatebirds. Frigatebirds’ feathers are not waterproof, so if they land on water they will drown and the birds know this so they stay aloft until they find land.  The theory is that the seafarers released a frigatebird then simply followed it.  Ocean swells also provided clues as to the location of archipelagos as they break up the big ocean swells.  They even noted nuances in the color of clouds as light reflecting off the vegetation of an island would in turn reflect off of clouds, giving the slightest of green tinges - and a guide for the travelers to follow.

So, that’s painting cultural similarities with a pretty broad stroke.  It is the foundation on which the distinct characteristics of each of these island communities are built.  As I write this, I have, at the moment, about zero first-hand knowledge of any of these islands - with the exception of Tahiti, but my stay there was brief and it was a half a lifetime ago.  My most vivid memory of Tahiti?  A multi-colored croton - I’d never before seen a plant with such colorful leaves, just growing on the side of the road by the airport. But before I even get to the first scheduled port, Honolulu, I have to sail in my own bubble of ocean and sky for four days - and I believe that will be a journey in itself - although a much more comfortable one than the Lapita’s I hope.

Just a few weeks before my departure to the South Pacific. It’s an odd trip in that there are only 4 port calls (aside from start and end) in over 3 weeks at sea - and one of them, Tahiti, I visited over 50 years ago.  How did this excursion come about?  Well, I’ve grown weary of all the things travelers (me) must deal with when choosing air travel - and we’ve forgotten it is a CHOICE. And I don’t mean choosing between which airline, I mean choosing air or land or water and all their various combinations.  

Yes, for most travelers, time is paramount.  They have a limited time for their vacation and they want to maximize their pleasure, which means getting to their destination as quickly as possible.  If speed is of the essence, then air travel is the price - and the cost far exceeds the base fare.  No need to go into details, just read the news. Rude airline personnel, even ruder travelers, flight cancellations, missing luggage, missing items from luggage, tarmac waits, TSA.  The list goes on.  Do you really want to start your holiday on a high-stress note and then end it on the same, hoping that it’ll be different this time? Hoping for an empty middle seat? 

You might have to and, if so, so be it, my prayers and well-wishes are with you. But if time is not of the essence, why not enjoy the destination AND the journey?  For continental destinations, there’s rail and road.  Traveling by rail is not much cheaper than air travel - and often it’s more expensive - but some of the lines go through scenic natural beauty that you miss from the air.  And while the glamor days of rail travel are long gone, you can still get private rooms and sleepers which makes for a relaxing journey.  The benefit of road travel is that, unless you take a bus, you can get into some out of the way adventures on your way to your destination and it’s all on your schedule.  Pretty flexible and you don’t even need to put wear on your car - rent one.

Any travel that requires navigating water though requires a boat or a ship. Short cruises have been growing in popularity and demand post-Covid is higher than ever.  The same is true of river cruises - which, by the way, can be an alternative for intra-continental travel.  But what about long cruises?  Earlier this year I encountered someone coming off a 14-day Transatlantic cruise from Ft. Lauderdale to Barcelona and he was visibly disgusted with the journey.  I didn’t learn any of the details of his trip but it was clear he was happy to disembark.  Was it the duration?  What about longer durations?  Rough seas? Or was it merely a series of unfortunate and uncommon events and mishaps that befell him?  Only one way to find out.

I scoured through my resources and found a 21-day cruise from Los Angeles, CA to Auckland, NZ.  It was characterized as a repositioning cruise and those usually have some very good discounts.  What made this even more attractive was no single supplement.  Because of time constraints I’d still have to fly back to the US but I’d be able to get a good read on the practicality of using sea as opposed to air in the post-Covid era to get from point A to point B.  

And speaking of Covid, it’s still very much of a concern, especially as fall creeps in and cases are projected to rise.  It could be especially significant on a ship headed for New Zealand because they have had some of the strictest Covid controls of any country.  It would not surprise me at all that if the number of Covid cases on board exceeds a specific threshold, that docking could be denied.  It’s happened before, to many ships, during the height of the pandemic.  It might be a factor in assessing the practicality of cruising as a means to get to a destination.

This cruise leaves from one of the closest ports to me here in Arizona. Los Angeles (technically, the passenger port at San Pedro) is the second closest port - San Diego is the closest.  I could have driven or railed or even bussed to Los Angeles but I decided to fly.  It’s a short hop, early on a Sunday morning, no middle seat (only two seats in a row), and no connecting flight, so it should be as smooth as it can possibly get.  Besides, old habits die hard.

The Majestic Princess aka Grand World/Grand Spirit. 

If you take a cruise, you’ve got about a 45% chance it’ll be on a Carnival ship.  They own the market. Royal Caribbean with 35% and Norwegian with 20% round it out - although Viking, the leader in river cruises, is now venturing into blue water and I suspect they will be eating market share across the board.  This excludes some small but very good niche companies like Star Clipper and Windstar.  In addition to Carnival’s Big 3 (Carnival Cruise Line, which caters to families; Holland America, which caters to an older crowd - and by that, I mean traffic jams of scooters on board; and Princess Cruises - the “just right” of the porridges) they have a host of others under their umbrella including Seaborne, P&O, Costa, and even the legendary, nearly 200-year-old, Cunard Line. The Majestic Princess, you guessed it, sails under Princess Cruises.

According to Princess Cruise Lines, the Majestic Princess’s maiden voyage was on April 4, 2017 - a fairly new ship. The tonnage is 143,700 which is about an average size cruise ship, which still means big.  But to put that in perspective, the largest passenger ship in service as of this writing is Royal Caribbean’s Wonder of the Seas.  With a tonnage of 236,900 it can carry nearly 7,000 passengers. And in early 2024, Royal Caribbean is expected to put the Icon of the Seas into service - its tonnage is 250,800 and it can carry 7,600 passengers.

But the Majestic Princess has a maximum capacity of about half that at a much more comfortable 3,560 - but still large when compared to a ship like the expedition ship Ocean Endeavour which carries about 200.  Built in Italy, the Majestic Princess was originally designed for the Asian market and even has a Chinese name - Sheng Shi Gong Zhu Hao which, according to Princess, means “Grand World/Grand Spirit”. , , although the Google translation comes out as Majestic Princess.  The ship is 1,083 feet long, draws 28 feet of water, and has a cruising speed of a surprising 22 kn. So, about 400 steps to walk the length of the ship, call it 800 for a lap.  With a target of 10,000 steps a day, that means I’ll only have to do 12.5 laps on sea days.