You may be aware of a little hobby of mine, where I spin Google Earth around and stop at a random point, zoom in and learn about whatever I land on.
Today I'll continue, sharing any insight I come across.
The South Pacific
... is a big, big place. So it was no surprise that I ended up landing of all things on a big blue patch of open water. Except zooming in at random presented a less-than-empty results:
Indeed there was geological life down there... with names. If you can't see, those names are:
Ahurei, Raivavae, Mata'ura, Hauti, Mutuaura and Oneroa Village
Hidden behind that little yellow Google man is a much more recogniseable name: Cook Island. Yes, we're in the South Pacific French Polynesia. But which island to pick? I shouldn't use my bias, or I'd end up going to Oneroa village which sounds fantastical. No, instead I used the fool-proof method of 'Ip-dip-dip' and landed instead on Ahurei.
Zooming in a little more and another island appears, but a quick zoom into that showed it was nothing more than some boring rocks. Not worth sharing. So onwards to Ahurei. Now the way Google works for some reason, the 'capital' is labeled first, with the actual name of the island ignored until further zooming. As it turns out, the actual name of the island is Rapa Iti
Rapa Iti is actually the only inhabited island in what is called The Bass Islands. That's not saying much given that the Bass islands consist of 2 islands and I suppose the aforementioned dead rocks. The Bass Islands however are a segment of a larger group called the Austral Islands which make up the Southernmost islands of French Polynesia. For context in total there are about 118 islands in FP.
Back to Rapa Iti. It's inhabited, but only by about 400 people and from the looks of it, all in the one town of Ahurei including across the waterway, with a few spatterings of buildings fairly nearby (We'll get back to those shortly). That's it.
OR SO I THOUGHT
Cloud coverage had me fooled, for there is another named location:
Topui
Drat. A city in the clouds. Regular google had to come in here. Looking at an actual map, we find that the island isn't as boringly, stereotypically shaped as it first seemed. Those clouds tricked me once again:
Rather than a giant circle, it's more like a C-shape with a huge inlet of water... and a tiny island called Tapui. All the way around the island are more named, uninhabited islands so I think it's fairly safe to say that the dumb little rock is nothing more than just that. The island indeed consists of a single town.
That huge inlet gives clues to the island's geological activity, but not much. The whole island seems to be the top of a volcano, and that inlet would have been the caldera, now sunken and somewhat collapsed.
Some info
The Tahitian choir resides here, and consists of 1/3rd of its entire population. On the whole, though part of an island group, Rapa Iti people's culture, language and history are all somewhat different to their neighbours.
But, not that different... Even here is subject to its own little wars; with resources running thin, citizens formed over a dozen fortified clan settlements some centuries ago - Those spatterings of buildings I mentioned above. This clan rivalry presumably lasted until Europeans came in 1791. Naturally this killed off about 75% of the native Polynesian population, solving the resource problem once and for all.
Just in case though, Peruvian slavers came and gave them all Small Pox, further reducing the population from 2,000 to under 120. Now how can a war occur with 120 people? You're welcome!
Not to be outdone, nature decided to get itself killed off too. The astonishingly beautiful Rapa Fruit Dove is an endemic bird species that got itself attacked and classified as vulnerable due to an onslaught of habitat loss, hunting and feral cats. There are about as many doves as people to date.
Thankfully there are other more successful endemic species, particularly marine life such as the Rapa sweeper and the Rapa toby
Life
So what's it like living there? Who knows. There isn't much insight online, but one source says that of the 400 people there are many children, who are;
often spotted running after goats up the side of the mountains, helping out in the taro fields or next to the bread ovens, gleefully diving in the black water of the bay and scaring away the sharks.Source
Perhaps the island is very unlike its haunted neighbour, Pitcairn Island, which has a notorious history of incest and inbreeding, god fearing cultism, rape, assault and pedophilia from half the men on the island. Perhaps.
Sold! Let's go!
Alright cool! So first you need to get to Tahiti. After that you simply take a 50 hour journey via cargo ship - No airport - which come understandably infrequently. Assuming you've signed up to the highly desiried exchange program you'll be welcomed into Aruhei village. And you know what? It'd probably be worth it:
