On June 17, 1994, OJ Simpson was hiding in the backseat of a White Bronco, while his pal, AJ Cowlings, was driving them on the freeways around Los Angeles, evading the police who were chasing them. I lived in Long Beach, California, at the time, but I was oblivious. I was in French Polynesia, on a solo vacation that took me to the islands of Tahiti, Moorea, and Bora Bora.
I don’t have a lot of photos from that trip, and none that include me, but I did keep a journal, which has been fun to re-read (OJ isn’t mentioned at all). In Moorea, I stayed at the Hotel Bali Hai, which had been founded by three Orange County California guys, nicknamed the Bali Hai Boys (you can google them), who created the first over-water hotel rooms back in the 1960’s (you can google that too). One of them – “Muk” – manned the bar each night at the hotel, regaling us with stories and, on Monday nights, hosting crab races (I lost on all my bets).
In Bora Bora, I stayed at the Bora Bora Beach Club and ate twice at “Bloody Marys,” what was then an American-owned restaurant (Rick, born in Montreal, raised in CA, who I chatted with at the bar) that is famous enough that they have a huge board out front listing celebrities that have been there (Kareem, Cyd Charisse, Keven Costner, among others) as well as a wall of Polaroid snapshots of celebs (Dick Van Patten!).
Papeete, on Tahiti, is the capital city, and I spent a few hours wandering the Municipal Market there, which looked like, and had the vibe of, large local markets across the world.
The islands – beaches, mountains, foliage, lagoons, motus, people – were beautiful; the water was warm and a wide range of blues, and the mosquitoes were omni-present. The storms rolled in quickly and loud, then disappeared just as quickly. It felt like paradise.
