Tahaa – the island of vanilla and rum – Halls Aboard

90% of the world’s vanilla comes from the South Pacific, and we were lucky enough to sail to the island of Tahaa which produces three quarters of the Polynesian production.

Entering the pass into Tahaa and our protected anchorage

Noah guided us round the island, showing us the flora and fauna of where he was born and brought up. We learnt about the lengthy process for growing, harvesting, fermenting and drying vanilla. We even got to pollinate the vanilla flower, something which took the west 300 years to work out!

Vanilla flowers and pods in the plantation

We bought mangoes, ranbutan, and pamplemousse from roadside stalls and ate bananas, star fruit and coconuts from the trees we passed.

Sampling the local fruit, sugar cane and seeing copra production

We learnt about the medicinal properties of tamuru and sugarcane and saw the Pari Pari rum distillery in action.

Vanilla and passion fruit are added to various rums

We even broke down when Noah accidentally drove a wheel off the track up the mountain, but by the time we’d eaten our picnic lunch and walked the remains of the way up the hill to the viewpoint, he had roped in some friends to pull us out and get us on our way.