One morning I joined a day trip to the Blue Lagoon, not to be confused with Iceland’s immensely popular geothermal spring of the same name. Rangiroa’s Blue Lagoon is more than an hour’s boat ride away from the main island, across the lagoon to an isolated cluster of sandbars and tiny specks of land called motus. At stops along the way, we put on snorkeling masks, jumped in and drifted with the current over dense coral reefs. Once we got to our destination, we walked between the motus, small blacktip reef sharks swirling around our ankles in hundred-strong schools. Under towering palms, we ate raw fish tossed in coconut milk and shared tallboys of Hinano beer.

Visiting the motus around the Blue Lagoon, I found myself disoriented. Circles of blue, different shades but all of them vibrant and glowing in the sun, extended in every direction. Palm trees served as the only landmarks until they all began to look the same. But the locals I was with seemed to know every grain of sand and every rock perfectly shaped for splitting open a young coconut.

“It’s too loud here,” our guide Gigi, a barrel-chested man with long curly hair, said. “When we like to get away from Rangiroa, we go way further out by boat — for two weeks at a time.”

If you go:

There’s no way around it: Tahiti and its neighbors are expensive. Even a casual lunch for one at a beachside “snack” can easily run you the equivalent of $40 and those prices — a result of the islands’ isolation but also an intentional targeting of high-end tourists — extend to everything, including hotels. Be ready for either a major splurge on a luxury overwater bungalow (I stayed in one on Moorea), or a minor one at an Airbnb or “pension,” (small, family-run accommodations like the one I stayed in on Rangiroa), which have the added benefit of letting you get to know local people.

For island hopping, you’ll be relying on Air Tahiti (a domestic airline not to be confused with the international Air Tahiti Nui). Note that because the planes are small, baggage weight restrictions are strict. One tip: if you’re a certified scuba diver, show your card to get an extra 11 pound allowance.

If Rangiroa was all about the water — the island is just seven and a half miles long and 300 feet wide — Moorea, my next stop, was about the land. Even staying in the overwater bungalows of a four-star resort (with five-star prices), I found myself drawn to the tree-covered mountains that rose rapidly from the sea. As a shroud of clouds descended over the horizon, I walked out of the resort, crossed the street and rented a motorbike.