Club Outposts in Tahiti

“Hokay! Today we gonna learn the tamure! Is sexy Tahitian dance! You gonna love it, my darlings!”

The chef de village at Club Med on Bora Bora resembles Sean Connery with perhaps 40 pounds and 20 years of naughtiness attached. And a gold earring. And a bandanna wrapped pirate-style around his balding head.

“Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap!” he shouts, swinging a brown Buddha-belly and twitching narrow hips wrapped in an orange and white cotton Polynesian pareu from side to side.

The occasion is the club’s twice-weekly picnic on a motu, a small island along a reef off of a larger island. The chef takes the stage flanked by a couple of thatch shelters that shield an array of barbecued chicken and fish, a dozen salads, platters of fruit, kegs of wine and punch from the sun.

A chorus of flower-crowned Tahitian singing grandmothers and insufferably handsome young Tahitian men on drums and ukuleles supply the music. The sand is supernaturally pure white and soft. Dolphins cavort in the curls of the reef nearby. The peaks and buttes of Bora Bora brood in the background.

Can this much beauty and pleasure be legal?

At Club Med it’s not only legal, it’s inescapable.

Particularly at the club’s outposts on Bora Bora and Moorea in French Polynesia.

First, Club Med Moorea: Tropical flowers in bamboo holders deck the open-air Club Med bus that meets arrivals at the Moorea airport, the air is moist and warm, the sea dazzling tones of blue. After an 8 1/2-hour night flight from Los Angeles, arriving at dawn in Polynesia is like awaking in Eden.

The ride to the club winds past tranquil lagoons, hand-carved outriggers, mist-topped pinnacles and wetly green canyons. The road passes near Moorea’s two deep harbors, Cook’s Bay and Opunohu Bay, where the 1984 remake of “Mutiny on the Bounty” was filmed and where the real sea dogs, Capt. James Cook and Capt. William Bligh, are said to have anchored more than 200 years ago.

Arrivals (and departures) are a big deal at Club Med. Incoming G.M.s (gentil membres) are decked with a fresh flower lei, and assorted Tahitian G.O.s (gentil organisateurs) with fern and flower crowns and ukuleles belt out a Tahitian song of welcome.

Tropical Gardens

Set among gardens of oleander, croton, ti and coconut palm, the new fares (Polynesian-style cabins) are green-log cabins with cedar shake roofs, wood floors, ceiling fans, wooden louvers and extra large twin beds (if you don’t arrive with a roommate, the club may assign you one of the same sex).

The bathroom features a high-pressure hot-water shower and a louvered door that allows you to dry in the trade wind, a big improvement over the steep A-frame huts of the original club in Moorea, where breezes couldn’t enter but bugs often did.

The dining pavilion is a thatched, open-air affair decorated with garlands of dried wild fern, cowrie shell chandeliers and wooden fish traps, surrounding a lily pond.

The main complex consists of office, bar, boutique, library and theater surrounded by a moat filled with water hyacinth and fish, the entrance a dramatic porte-cochere with columns of Chinese lacquer red.

Luscious ropes of tiny white cowrie shells form the chandeliers, and mynah birds dip and yak among the open beams of the ceiling.

Because of distance, the Moorea club attracts many New Zealanders, Australians, Japanese and Americans and proportionately fewer Europeans. New routes from Argentina have just opened, however, and on this visit several dozen middle-aged and elderly Argentinians were whooping it up everywhere from the water ski pier to the disco.

The water is so shallow that it’s possible to walk part way out to the motus. Swim the rest of the way or catch one of the frequent outriggers from the club. (On the far side of one of the motus is a nude beach.)

On Bora Bora as well as Moorea, herons and sandpipers stroll the soft cornmeal-sand shores, and a reef keeps the cobalt blue sea at bay from the gradations of turquoise inside it.

Scuba and snorkeling are not to be missed at the clubs in French Polynesia, but fair-skinned visitors should wear a T-shirt even in the water because the tropical ultraviolet rays are intense. It’s a good idea to take along a pareu (wraparound) for sun protection everywhere.

Ride to the Reef

At the Moorea Club Med you may take out a pirogue (canoe), ride out to the reef on the club’s big catamaran, bring in a marlin or barracuda on the deep-sea fishing boat, water ski, play tennis (day or night), enjoy a quiet board game in the shade or read up on nature and the history of the islands from books in the Tiki (the old headquarters, now a waterside restaurant).

You may watch sea life through the hull of the glass-bottom boat, strike post-card poses in your bikini on one of the club’s amiable Polynesian horses or gallop through the surf and sand. But the best activity of all may be to loaf and marvel at the land and sea, especially at sunset.

“Last night they played Vivaldi at sunset on the beach,” said an Australian businessman. “I just walked out and sat there and watched the colors on the reef. Nobody talked, we just looked.”

After sundown and dinner the evening’s entertainment is provided by G.O.s, sometimes with Polynesian dancers and drummers. Still, Club Med is nothing if not a camp for grown-ups, and so there is always a camp song. Each night’s cabaret show begins with a silly action song led by the chef de village.

The club offers a variety of day trips. A bus tour of Moorea (about $10) includes a ride to the green interior past vanilla plantations and ancient temples to Roto Nui, an overlook with beautiful views of the bays.

You can visit Marlon Brando’s all but deserted atoll, Tetiaroa, too, a one-of-a-kind opportunity to scuba or explore Bird Island, a motu where thousands of tropical terns, boobies and gulls nest. The lunch is excellent, the hospitality first-rate.

Brando, who took a liking to the islands during the filming of the 1962 version of “Mutiny on the Bounty,” is sometimes in residence in the island’s huts, which feature thatch roofs, hand-lashed timbers and bathroom washbowls made from giant clams.

Dance and Feast

Other options include a sailing trip on a 70-foot schooner or a Polynesian dance and feast at a major hotel with dinner.

Most Club Med packages split the stay between Moorea and Bora Bora, the latter island that James Michener rightfully called “the most beautiful island in the world.” From the moment the plane touches the Bora Bora reef airstrip for the ferry ride to the club pier, there’s an air about Bora Bora that is intoxicating, enchanting and not a little enigmatic.

The Bora Bora fares are similar to those on Moorea, but--oh heaven!--several stand on posts over the water. The current tumbles shells and sand gently beneath your deck, and you can lie on your stomach to watch the reef fish just a foot below.

Much of the time it’s enough just to be on Bora Bora with the faint roar of surf on the reef, the breeze through the uru and pandanus trees, the cry of mynah birds and the brush of waves beneath the over-water fares.

Regular activities include windsurfing, snorkeling and a twice-weekly picnic on an islet with “the mamas” (a clutch of elderly Tahitian women who make the couronnes or flower crowns and leis for the club).

A glass-bottom boat heads out from the pier each morning to the reef. You can tour the island by outrigger, truck or bicycle.

The long stretch of lunch counter at Moorea offers 24 varieties of hot and cold salads each day. Late afternoon saw free hamburgers, omelets and club sandwiches available in the bar area along with cubes of freshly opened coconut, ham, cheese, chips and olives.

Wine, Beer and Juices

Wine at mealtime is free, the Club Med bars on both islands are open generous hours, and the Hinano brand Tahitian beer and fresh juices are especially worth trying.

If you’re tired of mingling with tourists, the restful and warm La Guingette, 1,000 meters from Vaitape on Bora Bora toward Matira Beach, is a 15-table cafe with a great selection of taped music, excellent paella and a very cordial owner, Marcien Navarro.

Faaa Airport in Papeete, the capital city on the island of Tahiti, is an 8 1/2-hour flight from Los Angeles. Moorea is 10 minutes by plane from Faaa, Bora Bora about 40 minutes from Faaa.