Active Pursuits

The islands are a dream if you're an active traveler, and especially if you're into diving, snorkeling, swimming, boating, and other watersports. You can also play golf and tennis, or hike into the jungle-clad mountainous interiors of the islands. Kayaking on the lagoons is popular everywhere. There's good biking along the many roads skirting colorful lagoons. You can engage in these activities virtually everywhere, although some islands are better than others.

Biking

Relatively flat roads circle most of the islands covered in this book, making for easy and scenic bike riding. In fact, bicycles are one of my favorite means of getting around. It's simple and inexpensive to rent bikes on all the islands in French Polynesia. Many hotels and resorts provide bikes for their guests to use.

Diving & Snorkeling

Most of the islands have very good to great diving and snorkeling. Virtually every lagoon-side resort has a dive operator, and many will let snorkelers go along. The live-aboard dive boat Tahiti Aggressor operates in French Polynesia.

French Polynesia is famous for its bountiful sealife, from harmless tropical fish to hammerhead sharks. You'll see plenty of creatures at Moorea, Bora Bora, Huahine, Raiatea, and Tahaa, but the best diving and snorkeling are in the huge lagoons of Rangiroa, Tikehau, Manihi, and Fakarava in the Tuamotu Islands.

Most resorts offer dive packages to their guests, and the American-based PADI Travel Network (tel. 800/729-7234; www.padi.com) puts together packages for divers of all experience levels.

Deep-Sea Fising

Charter boats on many islands will take you in search of marlin, swordfish, tuna, mahimahi, and other game fish.

French Polynesia has two ways to cast your line while living aboard in luxury. Based in Bora Bora, the Taravana is a 50-foot sail-powered game-fishing boat. In the Tuamotus, Haumana Cruises (www.tahiti-haumana-cruises.com) uses a 17-cabin yacht.

Golf & Tennis

Frankly, this is generally not the place for a vacation consisting primarily of golf and tennis.

At press time, French Polynesia's lone course, on the south coast of Tahiti, was about to be joined by a new set of links on Moorea.

Hiking

These aren't the Rocky Mountains, nor are there blazed trails out here, but hiking in the islands is a lot of fun.

Tahiti and Moorea have several trails into the highlands, some of which run along spectacular ridges. You'll need a guide for the best hikes, but you can easily hire them on both islands.

Horseback Riding

Although I prefer sipping a cold drink, a great way to experience a glorious South Pacific sunset is from the back of a horse while riding along a white-sand beach. You can do just that on Moorea and Huahine. Ranches on Moorea and Huahine also have daytime rides into the mountains.

Sailing

All but a few beachfront resorts have canoes, kayaks, small sailboats, sailboards, and other toys for their guests' amusement. Since most of these properties sit beside protected lagoons, using these craft is not only fun, but also relatively safe. It's most fun where you can paddle or sail across a lagoon to uninhabited islets out on the reef, such as on Moorea's northwest coast.

You can rent bareboat yachts (that is, without captains) in the Leeward Islands, where The Moorings (tel. 800/535-7289; www.moorings.com) and Sunsail Yacht Charters (tel. 800/327-2276; www.sunsail.com) have operations based on Raiatea.