LARK GOULD: Travel Tahiti: Beyond the beach in French Polynesia

Stay the night at Manava Suite Resort, with its apartment-style guest rooms and heavenly views of Moorea across the South Pacific. Rates run around $292 per night and, as a full-service property with pool, bar and fine and casual dining, guests will find the Manava to be a great place to hub and return to should they want to sample several of Tahiti’s islands.

Mysterious Moorea
Bloody Mary, in the “South Pacific” film production, was looking at Tohive’a — the most photographed peak on the island — when she sang of “Bali Hai.”

Shaped like a heart, Moorea is considered the island of love by the locals who will take you on hikes or ATV safaris to stony cliff views that will send you back hundreds of years to the HMS Endeavor and Bounty through evocative panoramas.

Your romantic adventures can take you deep into the interior, up Three Coconut Trees Pass to explore the Opunohu Valley that opens to the legendary Belverdere Overlook (see various film versions of “Mutiny on the Bounty” in these waters and note that it was an actual anchoring spot used by Capt. Cook), and thundering waterfalls at Afareaitu. Plenty of local safari and guided land tour operators are available for full- and half-day customized excursions.

Stay in an overwater bungalow off the InterContinental Hotel’s 10-acre, white sand lagoon and order room service. Your Poisson Crue — raw tuna steamed in coconut milk with tomatoes and onions served in a coconut shell– will be delivered to your room with champagne to toast by a maiden right out of the paintings of Gauguin via hand-carved, hand-rowed outrigger. The property also harbors a dolphin lagoon for sweet encounters of the friendly cetacean kind, and a refuge spot for green turtles.

Another option is the Moorea Pearl Resort, part of the South Pacific Management collection. This is the location of the island’s first hotel, the circa 1961 Bali Hai. The current resort has 94 rooms and bungalows (28 Over Water Bungalows) and several private garden bungalows with their own plunge pool. But guests enjoy the hotel’s infinity swimming pool, the largest one of the island. Premium overwater bungalows are set right above the reef drop for fabulous snorkeling.

Those travelers who may have recently taken the plunge and targeted Tahiti for the honeymoon may want to add a little adventure to the mix. Head out to sea and you’re in shark country and the large lemon variety, with their eight-foot heft, take meal times in the Tiki pass quite seriously. But daring duos will have these sharks eating out of their hands, and keeping their digits if they do it with a skillful dive guide through Club BaliHai. Add stingray feeding (surprisingly soft and friendly creatures) to the menu plus a picnic on a quiet motu to these half-day adventures for a satisfying and full Tahiti experience.

Marriage, Tahiti-style
Not married yet? No problem. Marriages, too, can be an escapade on Moorea. Whether you want to pre-wed or re-wed your mate, try a Tahitian wedding at Tiki Village. For a quickie ceremony, couples dressed in white Tahitian wraps exchange flower leis and head crowns before a native priest, and receive a “tapa” or sacred certificate. Singing and dancing follows while the sun sets and champagne pours. It’s not a paper you can take to the U.S. courts but the locals will call you Mr. and Mrs.

More elaborate ceremonies at the Tiki Village decant the island charm. Couples arrive by outrigger canoe as costumed villagers line up on the beach to greet them under the strums of a ukulele. The bride-to-be heads to the bamboo hut (or “fare”) where the women of the village prepare her for the big moment by massaging her body with traditional “monoi” oil and dressing her like a Tahitian princess.

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