Luxury French Polynesia Voyages

The most famous lagoon on earth still stuns in the flesh, Mount Otemanu's basalt fang rising sheer above water banded jade, teal and sapphire. Snorkel the coral gardens, glide alongside manta rays and blacktips, and circle the island by tender to grasp it's impossible palette. As evening falls the day-boats melt away, and at anchor with the marina open, SeaDream III lets you swim in that legendary water beneath a sky set ablaze with stars.

A UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, Fakarava is diving legend made real. At the southern Tumakohua pass, hundreds of grey reef sharks hang motionless in the current, the famous wall of sharks that draws divers from across the globe. Snorkel powder-pink motu, watch manta rays glide the shallows, and toast the day with oysters straight from the pearl farm. SeaDream's shallow draught and marina put this fragile paradise within reach, well away from the fleets of liveaboards.

One of the largest atolls in the Tuamotu chain, Hao is entered through the dramatic Kaki pass, where the tide sluices like a river and the drift-snorkeling is exhilarating. Once a remote French support base for Pacific testing, it has settled back into a sleepy world of coconut groves, pearl farms and stalking reef herons. From the swim platform, kayak the shallow flats and cast for bonefish before an evening ashore among genuinely welcoming villagers. Swimming and non-motorized craft only here; motorized watersports need the local authority's permission. Discover with SeaDream.

The Gambier's serene lagoon, ringed by jagged emerald peaks, is the cradle of Tahiti's legendary black pearl. Marvel at the coral-and-shell Cathedral of St Michael, raised by Pere Laval's converts to seat more worshippers than the whole archipelago's population, then visit a family pearl farm to watch the nacre lifted dripping from the water. Overnighting here, you trade the crowds of Tahiti for a lagoon that feels entirely, unhurriedly your own.

Moorea is the postcard Polynesia dreams of: two cathedral bays, Cook's and Opunohu, gouged deep between spires of green. Climb by 4x4 to the Belvedere lookout above the pineapple plantations, snorkel with blacktip sharks and stingrays in warm waist-deep shallows, and watch the last light soften the ridgeline of Mount Rotui. From the marina you can paddleboard straight off the yacht across a lagoon the color of melted turquoise.

Polynesia's beating heart, Papeete rewards the curious. Lose an hour in the Marche de Papeete amid tiare garlands, vanilla pods and iridescent black pearls; trace Gauguin's palette and Bougainville's landfall at Pointe Venus, with its black-sand beach and white lighthouse; then dine dockside at the beloved roulottes as ukuleles drift on the warm day air. Berthed in the very center, your yacht becomes a serene retreat from the island's lively pulse.