S1-E42: Tahiti: The War Fleet

Podcast 15 October 2025

After eight months adrift in the Pacific, HMS Resolution returns to the shores of Tahiti in April 1774. What Captain Cook and his crew find is a world both familiar and transformed: abundant fruit, rebuilt homes, old friends—and a red-feather economy in full bloom. But beneath the island’s charm, a silent armada is gathering.

Episode 42 of Voyage2Go History brings us back to Matavai Bay and the historic Point Venus. While tents rise again on the beach for science and trade, the return of Maheine becomes a cultural homecoming, and Georg Forster watches from the cabin window as Tahitian life unfolds below.

Red parrot feathers—ura—emerge as currency more valuable than iron, pigs roam the decks in numbers unthinkable on their last visit, and even the king is more open and generous. But the mood shifts when a fleet of 159 double-hulled war canoes—carved, feathered, and formidable—lines the shore in eerie silence. Warriors in triple-layered cloth and towering helmets stand ready for a campaign against Eimeo.

159 hulls. Thousands of rowers. Warriors in red, white, and brown stand beneath feathered helmets—silent, waiting. On the shores of Tahiti, war is not chaos but ceremony. – Click on the image to listen to this episode on YouTube.

From the warmth of Polynesian hospitality to the discipline of a nation preparing for battle, this episode explores how an island once broken by war reclaims strength—and how its people balance joy, power, and beauty in ways the Europeans struggle to comprehend.