Gambier Yacht Charter

The Gambier Islands sit sixteen hundred kilometres south-east of Tahiti, at the very end of the Tuamotu chain and effectively at the end of French Polynesia. Almost no one comes. A single enormous lagoon, some forty kilometres across, encloses a cluster of steep volcanic islands and a scattering of motu along the reef, and the whole of it is usually empty.

What makes the Gambier extraordinary is the collision of three things that rarely occur together. First, the water: cooler and clearer than the Tuamotu, with visibility that can exceed forty metres and coral in unusually good health. Second, the pearls. This is the birthplace and still the finest source of the Tahitian black pearl, and the lagoon is worked by small family farms whose oysters produce the deepest and most metallic colours in the industry.

Third, and least expected, the architecture. In the nineteenth century missionaries raised an astonishing quantity of coral-lime stonework here, and much of it survives. St Michael’s Cathedral at Rikitea, built for a population that no longer exists, is the largest church in the South Pacific. Smaller chapels stand on Taravai, Akamaru and Aukena, several of them restored, most of them empty, all of them silent.

For a yacht this is close to ideal cruising. The lagoon is large enough to explore for a week, sheltered enough to remain comfortable throughout, and shallow in the right places for long undisturbed anchorages. Villages are tiny and welcoming, supply is limited, and the horizon holds nothing at all. Few guests ever reach the Gambier. Those who do rarely describe it in the same terms as anywhere else.