KIA ORANA PACIFIC BLUE.
No, not the airline, but the incredible Aitutaki atoll 45 minutes north of Rarotonga, Cook Islands. We spent five days there after Rarotonga to discover why people kept calling it one of the most beautiful places in the world. The approach heading into Aitutaki was absolutely stunning.
The view, every morning from the front door. I can probably think of worse places to be.
Voted one of the top three reefs in the world, the best way to explore the gigantic lagoon was on one of the many cruises offered on the island. This incredible sand bank is part of the uninhabited “Honeymoon island”, at the southern end of the atoll. It took about 20 minutes to walk from one end to the other on ridiculously white sand. I’ve never seen such clear, turqoise blue water before in my life.
Aitutaki is also where they filmed Survivor: Cook Islands, for fans of the TV series. Depicted above are the last remnants of the set from the show, situated on a motu close to Honeymoon island. The production took about six months from start to wrap, and they commandeered not only one island in the Aitutaki atoll, but three. One for the main set, and two for support crew/staging points. Despite the ‘ruggedness’ they like to portray through the program, the scale of the production was so large that they paid and compensated all local tour operators and cruises to shut down for the entire time of production, had a couple of helicopters shipped over from Tahiti just to ferry crew/cast from island to island, as well as booking out entire resorts for the support crew and some of their families, including series founder Mark Bennett. As it goes, he was so overwhelmed by the locale that he flew his entire family over, who remained on site for two months of the production. The project employed hundreds of locals; not bad considering the entire population of the atoll barely exceeds 2000 people.
When in Rome… you know.
Bottoms up.
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