Temae Beach

Temae is on the north-eastern corner of Moʻorea, a few minutes from the airport and the Tahiti ferry terminal. It is the longest continuous stretch of white sand on an island whose beaches are otherwise short, dark and mostly attached to hotels.

It has a particular value in French Polynesia: it is public. Moʻorea's shoreline is largely fringed by private property and resort frontage, and Temae is the beach islanders themselves use — a public plage with a car park, shade and space, which is a rarer thing here than the photographs suggest. Across the water, seventeen kilometres off, Tahiti rises, and the view of it at sunset is the reason people stay late.

The sand is white coral on a lagoon protected by the reef, with shallow, warm, calm water and a gradual entry. Snorkelling from the beach is decent; the reef pass at the northern end has a well-known surf break that works on a north swell and is not a beginner's wave.

Development is minimal: a public car park, shade trees, toilets in season and a golf course inland. A luxury hotel occupies the far northern section, which is private, and the public beach runs south of it. The public beach ends where the hotel's frontage begins, and the boundary is obvious on the sand; the golf course behind occupies what was a coconut plantation and is the reason the road runs where it does.

The best public beach on Moʻorea, white coral sand on a reef flat with Tahiti across the channel. The pass at the northern end has a current. Most of Moʻorea's shoreline is private or rock, which is what makes a public beach of this size worth recording on an island this famous. The ferry from Papeʻete takes half an hour and runs through the day.