Tikehau Photo Gallery

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Tikehau is a small coral atoll located in French Polynesia. The name Tikehau means "Peaceful Landing" in the local Tuamotuan language.

It is located 340 km northeast of Tahiti and approximately the same distance east of Bora Bora.

Bora Bora has long been our favourite travel destination and we decided to stay there for a third time in May 2014. Since the scuba diving in Bora Bora is poor, we arranged to spend part of our trip in Tikehau. According to our research, Tikehau was supposed to have some of the best diving in the Pacific. (more on this at the bottom of this page)



Tikehau's oval-shaped lagoon is 27 km long and 19 km wide surrounding two major islands and numerous islets (locally called motos). The flat sandy motos are covered with coconut palms and other tropical vegetation.

Tuherahera, with a population of about 500, is the only town in Tikehau.

There is only one major resort and a few smaller resorts and pensions. Therefore, while staying there, you have the impression that you are on a stereotypical "deserted tropical island"!










While there, we stayed at Tikehau Pearl Beach Resort. The resort has since been rebranded as Le Tikehau. To the right you can see an aerial picture of the resort and the neaby motos.







Pearl Beach is an excellent four star resort consisiting of beach bungalows, overwater bungalows, overwater suites, an excellent restaurant, a bar and a small scuba dive shop. We were lucky to be assigned one of the nicest over water suites in the resort. It faced east toward one of the many small motos. Our deck was completely private. Below you can see the peaceful view from our deck. We spent many hours there reading, talking and relaxing. We even managed to have the occasional drink! (Well, maybe several some days.)


Gary wanted to do a little diving on our 2014 trip to French Polynesia. Bora Bora was our primary destination but based on our previous visits, the diving in Bora Bora is poor. Our research told us that diving in Tikehau was excellent; therefore, we planned this as our second destination. Apparently, Jacques Cousteau's research group made a study of Tikehau's lagoon and they discovered that it contained a greater variety of fish species than any other place in French Polynesia.


However, this didn't turn out as expected. While the diving was good, it didn't live up to this billing. There was a reasonably good variety of fish life but there was a distinct absence of small critters like Nudibranchs (Gary's favourite). In addition, there was a limited number of dive sites and the visibility varied greatly.

Please excuse the lower quality of the underwater pictures. While I may not be the greatest photographer, these pictures are not up to my usual standard. My strobe (U/W flash) was acting up during the trip. Therefore, the colours and clarity are below par.


Share our experience in the following pictures:

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Diving



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