Some of you may know about my five year trip around the world by sailboat which we are calling the Tahina Expedition. As part of a partnership with Google, I’m taking photos of the Earth in some places along the way just like what you see in Google Earth. Only, some of the photos are even better than what you normally see because we are flying a camera only a few hundred feet above the ground with a kite!
Back in May, we visited a beautiful Tuamotus atoll in French Polynesia called Manihi. We had a wonderful time visiting there, and one day we had perfect conditions to fly the kite. My goal was to capture parts of the village near the pass into the lagoon. We had time to walk down the main street on the north side. There were electric poles and wire and trees, so we couldn’t quite capture the entire street. It was a really unique experience because the local kids and some of the adults all came out to find out what we were doing. We asked the kids to help us when we had to bring down the kite.
Google just recently published our photos of Manihi in the latest imagery update. You can see the results below in Google Maps, or in Google Earth 
Make sure you zoom in close to see all the amazing detail. It’s way better than the surrounding satellite imagery for the rest of Manihi.
You can read about the day we did the shooting or just watch the slideshow below for more photos showing the entire Manihi village from the air, and pictures of the kids who helped us.
View full-sized slideshow
Watch the slideshow in the post about BBQ Island for pictures of how we do the aerial photos. And, you can see another island we did in Google Earth called Petite Tabac. Special thanks to Stewart Long of Gonzo Earth who did all the processing of the photos and stitched them together so they could be delivered to Google for their database.