Active Pursuits

The South Pacific 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 is popular everywhere, and Fiji has river rafting. There's good biking along the many roads skirting colorful lagoons. You can engage in these activities everywhere, although some islands are better than others. I point out the best in the following sections, but here's a brief rundown of my favorites.

Biking

Relatively flat roads circle most of the islands I cover 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, the Cook Islands, Samoa, and Tonga. In fact, 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. Live-aboard dive boats also operate in Fiji and French Polynesia.

Fiji is on every diver's list of world-class destinations for colorful soft corals. This is especially true in northern Fiji, where nutrient-rich waters bathe the reefs in the Somosomo Strait, between Vanua Levu and Taveuni islands. Here you'll find famous Rainbow Reef and its Great White Wall.

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, and Raiatea-Tahaa, but the best diving and snorkeling is in the huge lagoons of Rangiroa, Tikehau, Manihi, and Fakarava in the Tuamotu Islands.

The shallow lagoons in the Cook Islands and the Samoas are fine for snorkeling, but most diving is in open water outside the reef, where you'll see ample sealife swimming in caves and canyons. Tonga offers a mix, with lagoon diving off Tongatapu and Vava'u and open-water dives off the island of Eu'a.

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 Fishing

Charter boats in every country will take you in search of marlin, swordfish, tuna, mahi-mahi, and other game fish. For example, a lucky Australian angler recently snagged a record-breaking 328.8kg (723 lbs.) black marlin off Vava'u in Tonga.

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

Golf & Tennis

Most islands have at least one golf course, and some hotels and resorts have tennis courts, but generally this is not the place for a vacation consisting primarily of golf and tennis.

The one exception is Fiji, where Denarau Golf & Racquet Club is a modern complex with an 18-hole resort course and 10 tennis courts near Nadi. Fiji also is home to the region's most picturesque course, The Pearl Championship Golf Course & Country at Pacific Harbour. As we went to press, Fiji native Veejay Singh was designing a course at a new resort at Natadola Beach.

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

The Cook Islands have two 9-hole courses, one on Rarotonga and one on Aitutaki. Both are famous for their antenna guy-wire obstacles, which are in play. Samoa has two courses and Tonga one.

Hiking

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

In Fiji you can trek into the mountains and stop at -- or stay in -- native Fijian villages. Adventures Fiji, an arm of Fiji's Rosie the Travel Service (www.rosiefiji.com), has guided hikes ranging from 1 to 10 days into the mountains of Viti Levu, with meals and accommodations provided by Fijian villagers. On Taveuni island, you can hike a spectacular coastal trail to a waterfall or up to Lake Tagimaucia, in a crater at an altitude of more than 800m (2,700 ft.). It's home of the rare tagimaucia flower.

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.

Rarotonga in the Cook Islands is famous for its Cross-Island Trek, which runs across the mountains from coast-to-coast, as well as other trails. You can do the Cross-Island hike on your own, as part of a group, or with a guide.

Horseback Riding

Although I prefer sipping a cold drink, a great way to experience a South Pacific sunset is from the back of a horse while riding along a beach. You can do just that in Fiji, on Moorea and Huahine in French Polynesia, and on Rarotonga in the Cook Islands.

The ranches on Moorea and Huahine also have daytime rides into the mountains.

River Rafting

Only Fiji has rivers long enough and swift enough for white-water rafting. The best is the Navua River on Viti Levu, which starts in the mountainous interior and flows swiftly down to a flat delta on the island's south coast. Local companies offer trips using traditional bilibilis (bamboo rafts) on the lower, slow-flowing section of the river. The American-based Rivers Fiji (tel. 800/346-6277; www.riversfiji.com) uses inflatable rafts for white-water trips up in the highlands.

Sailing & Kayaking

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 lagoons, using these craft is not only fun, it's relatively safe. They are most fun where you can paddle or sail across the lagoon to uninhabited islets out on the reef, such as on Moorea's northwest coast and off Muri Beach on Rarotonga in the Cook Islands.

Sea kayaking is popular throughout the islands, especially among Fiji's many small islands. In Samoa, you can take kayak tours of the small islands of Manono and Apolima with Ecotour Samoa (www.ecotoursamoa.com). In Tonga, Friendly Islands Kayak Company (www.fikco.com) leads trips through Vava'u's islets.

The region's reef-strewn waters make charter-boat sailing a precarious undertaking. The exceptions are the Leeward Islands in French Polynesia and Vava'u in Tonga, where you can rent sailboats with or without skippers. Two leading companies, The Moorings (tel. 800/535-7289; www.moorings.com) and Sunsail Yacht Charters (tel. 800/327-2276; www.sunsail.com), have operations at both locations. You can charter boats with captains in Fiji.