Tikehau

20 km² • 589 residents

The Cousteau team came to study this lagoon in 1987 and recorded more fish species here than in any other Polynesian lagoon. Forty years later, fishing canoes still set out at dawn from Tuherahera, a village filled with flowers. The beaches in the south have a distinctly pink hue, and an almost perfect ring of coral encloses the entire atoll.

Access

55-min flight from Tahiti

Lagoon

An almost perfect 26 km-wide ring, pierced by a single pass.

Good to know

Not only it has the lagoon with the greatest abundance of fish in French Polynesia, but Tikehau also has a Motu home to numerous colonies of birds such as red-footed boobies, crested terns and blue-grey terns.

Ideal for

Diving, relaxing, charming guesthouses, short extensions.

Not to be missed 

• The pink-sand beaches on the southern coast
• Motu Puarua, the Bird Island
• the flower-filled village of Tuherahera
• The manta ray park
• Tuheiava Pass
• A pearl farm
• The fishermen’s fish park

Image credits
1, 8 – ©TAHITI TOURISME/Lei Tao
2, 3, 5, 6, 7 – ©TAHITI TOURISME/Grégoire Le Bacon
4 – ©Philippe Bachet