Some of the sweetest island havens – the Seychelles, the Azores, St Lucia – beckon with a seductive whisper. Not Bora Bora. This extraordinary miracle of nature, a cluster of jagged peaks erupting from an opaline lagoon, beats like a drum.

On a cruise through French Polynesia, around the volcanic Marquesas and the pancake-flat Tuamotus islands, I hear the percussive call of Bora Bora, our final port of call.