Mehetia


Meheti'a or Me'eti'a is a volcanic island in the Windward Islands, in the east of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. This island is a very young active stratovolcano east of the Taiarapu Peninsula of Tahiti. It belongs to the Teahiti'a-Mehetia hotspot.
The island has an area of and its highest point is 435 metres. Meheti'a's well-defined volcanic crater contains a very active hot point. In 1981 the island was the centre of earthquakes.

History

Tahitian oral tradition holds that navigators stopped at Mehiti'a, which was regarded as sacred, on their long voyage to New Zealand.
The first European sighting was by the Spanish expedition of Pedro Fernández de Quirós on 9 February 1606, that charted it as Decena. Later on it was sighted by Samuel Wallis in HMS Dolphin 1767 and Louis Antoine de Bougainville in 1768. It was also sighted by Spanish navigator Domingo de Boenechea on November 6, 1772 on ship Aguila. He named this island San Cristóbal.

Administration

Meheti'a is administratively part of the commune of Taiarapu-Est and of its easternmost commune associée Tautira. The island is uninhabited and doesn't have much vegetation but has a small coral reef on the underwater slopes.