[photography] is life in Polynesia
On this day in 2000 we were sailing from our beloved Fare, Huahine to Moorea. Before we departed we watched Fare go from a sleepy polynesian village to a full blown event center accommodating 5000 visitors. It was insane. We had to move our boat from the prime anchorage on the reef across from Fare Pass to down the lagoon away from town. As we set sail en route to the next island we watched the start of the Hawaiki Nui Va’a which is the event everyone had come in by sea to experience.
I loved Fare and we have some fond memories of hanging out there with the other cruisers. Jim surfed an amazing wave that was an easy dinghy ride out from the boat and I had an unbelievable dive in the pass where I saw a huge manta ray and tiger shark. The tiger shark thankfully was a good distance away – 50 feet – but the manta swam right by and nearly brushed my shoulder. It is impossible to explain an experience like that.
It has been 9 years now and I feel the draw back more and more every day. I have started working on a series of photography books that cover the various portfolios of my archived work. Maka‘i is a photographic book about our life on the ocean. “We lived on the ocean, we swam in the ocean, we surfed in the ocean, we ate from the ocean. These are some of the images that came alive on film while we were on our sailing adventure.”
Kristianne Koch specializes in portrait photography for the contemporary family and child.
