Pacific Princess

She is an energetic and engaged mother of four, a loving and passionate wife to Michael (her husband of 15 years), a lively and funny hostess in a household of controlled chaos, and the author of Breadfruit, a deceptively simple book of prose about a woman's life in Tahiti. Celestine Hitiura Vaite lives in Ulladulla, NSW, in an unprepossessing house overlooking the sea. For this issue's Mouth to Mouth, she has written about her changing relationship with the ocean and her enduring love of the coast.

I'm a Tahitian, a writer, the wife of a fanatic surfer, the mother of three boisterous boys and a sensitive daughter, and we live in a beautiful town on the South Coast of NSW - by the beach. My best-loved place of the house is the balcony from where I see dolphins chase each other, whales migrate, fishermen return to the quay, and sailors pass by. When the surf is up, I watch my husband and our oldest son ride waves, and I say, "I wish it was me on the wave." In the three years we've been living here, I have seen the many faces of the ocean. Calm and transparent green, wild and dark blue, and, sometimes, disappearing behind a cloud of mist. When it does, I say, "I'm never going sailing."

I love the ocean but it scares me, even when it's hot and inviting. Last Christmas, Michael, my husband, bought me a boogie board but not once have I been out the back. My feet have to touch the bottom. So, I just stand up, holding my board, and when there's a wave coming, I lie on the board, and let the small wave push me to the shore not far away. Most of the time I sit in rock pools with the youngest children of my tribe, or I do chit chat with the other mothers whilst our children borrow each other's bucket and spade. And when there's a little fight, one of us says, "Share."

I love the beach when it is filled with children and colourful beach umbrellas and all that you hear is laughter. And you lie on the hot sand and get ideas. I love the beach in the early morning when it is deserted, except for an old couple strolling with their dog. I walk with my eyes closed and I sing Tahitian hymns and peace always comes to me. Sometimes I get sad thinking about my family and I hide behind a sand dune and cry until I feel better.

I love the beach when it is nearly dark and the sky is orange; when lovers kiss on the rocks and embrace. I'm with my daughter because Michael is looking after the children, but it's nice to be with my girl - she tells me secrets. I love the beach. Full stop.

Growing up in Tahiti, the beach was accessible only to very rich people with private access to the water, to people who had fishermen ancestors (and thus land by the sea), and to people who had means of locomotion. My mother was single with no driver's license, the descendant of Tahitian farmers, and we lived in a fibro home next to the airport, behind the petrol station, not far from the church and the cemetery.

Her favourite beach was behind the petrol station where she could dig mussels and her kids could splash in the knee-deep muddy water. But, one day, a bad-mood gendarme told us to vacate the area immediately and weeks later my mother went to court for trespassing on private property.
She took us to another beach next to a hotel but we quickly felt uncomfortable with the foreigners who were sunbaking by the hotel pool, drinking cocktails, and staring at us on the other side of the grilled fence. She found out about another beach, a bit further away; another white-sanded beach with palm trees but much quieter. We packed bread and cordial and caught the truck to the next suburb. There was a "tabu" sign nailed to a tree at the entry of the path leading to that beach and my mother stopped for a moment, undecided.
"God owns the sea," she finally said. And we marched on. A woman watering her plants called out to remind us that our feet were walking on private property.
"Look here Madame," my mother said, "I'm just taking my kids to the beach. All we want is a little swim." The woman had two big dogs and we went home. There were more beaches around the island, beaches and rivers, but the trucks didn't go that far on weekends. So we were stuck behind the airport and, when it was hot, I soaked in a bathtub to refresh myself. One day I built a pond with tiles that an auntie had given us but it didn't work out as it did in my plan. The water kept escaping between the tiles. And I was always dreaming of the ocean. It was no wonder that I fell in love with a man of the ocean; a surfer, an Australian spunk visiting Tahiti - famous for its waves and women. I really didn't mind his good-looking face, the salt on his tanned skin, his thinking and his motorbike. I was sixteen years old.

We toured the island, stopping here and there and I watched my Australian boyfriend surf beach breaks, reef breaks, and with every good wave I cheered like a groupie, and when he got hammered, I said, "Non!" Many times Michael tried to get me into surfing and my answer was, as always, "Tomorrow, maybe." And I went on collecting stones, rocks and driftwood. I would have got into surfing had I been a confident swimmer and not so afraid of the ocean. I was only confident and unbeatable when running. But swimming - even in the school's pool, I was hopeless. My swimming teacher called me a false Tahitian.

The fact was that my first swimming lesson became my nightmare for many years to follow. My godmother's husband pushed me out of the canoe and into the deep lagoon with the words, "Swim or you drown." I was seven years old and my mission was to get a shell from the bottom of the ocean. I really don't know how I managed to get that shell. I know from all the swimming lessons I've taken my children to that swimming is a step-by-step process.
Years later, my godmother pulled me out of a whirlpool by my hair. Years later, again, and this time with my Australian boyfriend, I swam from a motu [islet] to the island - in a fast current. I remember looking to the sand moving so fast and thinking that showing off and pretending I was this hot-hot swimmer was sure going to cost me. Months later, Michael said, "I'm marrying you."

We got married in Bowral during the Easter holidays and my aunties and mamas went on and on about how Hitiura's eldest daughter "went to Australia to see her boyfriend and the country and then married that fella without even asking her mother's permission!" My mother framed the wedding certificate and that was as good as a blessing, and I went back to school to prepare for the baccalaureate exam. Life went on with my Australian husband in a tiny fibro home on top of a hill overlooking the island of Moorea, the airport and the ocean. A framed baccalaureate paper, teacher's college, two children, and emigration to Australia. I've been here for twelve years. I've read countless women's magazines to practise my English, worked as a bank teller, a sales representative, lived in a barred terrace in the city, a haunted house in the suburbs, and had two more children. I'm now 34, only four years away from earning the respectable title of Mama. And this summer I'm taking swimming lessons and, by 40, I want to be surfing with my husband and my kids.

Breadfruit, $19.70, is published by Random House Australia and is available from good bookstores in Australia and New Zealand.

For the full story, see the Nov/Dec edition of Australian Coastal Style Magazine