PARIS: The giant clams in the crystal-clear waters of Tetiaroa Lagoon in the South Pacific have rarely been so happy. But their happiness has come at a price.
Marlon Brando's 13-room hotel on the atoll used to have 14 employees. Now they have been sent off Tetiaroa, and the world's most exclusive holiday paradise - where guests are allowed to stay no more than three days - is shut.
The only people living there now are Tarita Teriipia, whom Brando met when he was shooting Mutiny on the Bounty in Tahiti in 1962, and the son they had together, the hotel's manager, Simon Tehotu. They have the only phone on Onetahi, one of 13 islands in the atoll, and they were not answering it on Saturday.
The pair have, in effect, stranded themselves on a desert island. On Jan 29, Air Moorea, the only airline serving Tetiaroa, suspended its twice-daily flights, saying landing was unsafe. The company said French Polynesian civil aviation officials had found the airstrip to be 54 metres shorter than declared when it was built in 1972.
Air Moorea director-general Freddy Chauseau said: "Brando owes us about euros 400,000 in charter fees. If he invests in lengthening the runway, I guarantee we will resume flights.
But I get the impression there isn't much money left." Brando himself has not set foot on the island since his daughter, Cheyenne, killed herself there in 1995, said Chauseau.
A spokesman for the French Polynesian Civil Aviation Authority said the runway's declared length was 591 metres, but was in fact only 537 metres long. "Air Moorea fly Twin Otters, which can handle the shorter length of runway as long as they are not carrying too much weight.
But in aviation terms, weight is a commercial as well as a safety issue. We have not banned flights to the airstrip. If the airline considers it to be unviable to reduce the weight of their aircraft, then that's up to them," he said.
The compacted coral airstrip still stretches the full width of the island. "It has probably shrunk due to erosion," the spokesman said. -Dawn/The Observer News Service.
