Aranui also doesn’t enforce the same separation between passengers and crew that is prevalent on other ships—passengers and crew can freely mingle. After dinner, many crew members and officers end up in the bar for nightcaps right alongside the passengers. On my previous voyage with Aranui, to the Austral Islands, I joined an impromptu card game in the onboard pearl boutique and watched the head of housekeeping handily clean out the ship’s captain over the course of several hands of poker, all while we and the silken strands of Tahitian Pearls in the display cases bore witness.

When my only pair of sandals broke alighting from the landing craft on Ua Huka, Aranui staff directed me to the ship’s French doctor, who fixed it with tape from his medical bag. “Come back later onboard,” he said, “and we’ll do surgery on the shoe.” While I waited, I took great amusement with a large notice on the door of the ship’s infirmary, warning that many of the fruits served onboard and in the islands have “diuretic and laxatif (sp) effect,” urging passengers to consume in moderation. I wondered how many passengers had visited the infirmary over the years with the same complaint before they felt the need to put up a sign.

At the end of our stop on Ua Huka, we all gathered on the deck of Aranui V. We still had calls on the islands of Rangiroa and Bora Bora scheduled, but it was time to bid our goodbyes to the Marquesas in a traditional manner. A member of the onboard staff invoked a prayer of thanks for the voyage and fond farewell to these magnificent islands, which we did with armfuls of local flowers and plants cast into sunset-dappled sea to watch float ashore.

That, however, wasn’t the lasting image of the Marquesas for me. For weeks after my trip, I awoke each morning in a home that seemed suddenly foreign, recalling the smell of the straw hats, the taste of the baked banana, the green of the mountains, the red floral dress of the snacking mahu, and the pallets of coconuts and grapefruits stacked on the tiny wharf.