The Brushstrokes of Paul Gauguin


Anthony Nicholas reports on a blissful journey around the South Seas world of the famous French painter


D 70 WORLD OF CRUISING I Spring 2011


awn at anchor off Bora Bora. Early morn- ing mist rolls like a silent flood through the vast tracts of dense, rolling jungle foliage that tower over the Paul Gauguin.


With sunrise just minutes away, the lagoon is tinted a surreal shade of gunmetal that appears smooth as silk. In the distance, the still, sharp, black outline of a small freighter seems frozen like a fly in amber. The water below my balcony is disturbed by a pair of longboats, each manned by a quintet of locals engaged in some light-hearted race. Their wakes leave a brief trail as they swish rapidly by be- low. Then they are gone, and the first pale crimson rays of daylight blink shyly from behind the vast, basalt bulk of Mount Otemanu.


There is fresh fruit and steaming hot breakfast coffee at hand, and life seldom seemed more intense than in those first mellow moments of a Polynesian dawn thousands of miles from home, and a million more from reality. I had wanted to do this much-lauded cruise


around French Polynesia for several years. The scen- ery has to be some of the most stunning on earth, and the Paul Gauguin has built up an enviable reputation over the years as the only luxury ship to actually make the beguiling waters of Polynesia her home. In fact, so integral is the Gauguin to the economy of the islands, she has actually become one of them herself; small, perfectly formed, exquisite and welcoming.


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