Moorea (mow-a-ray-ah),
the Bali Hai of the South Pacific
Well you haven’t heard from either of us for a couple of
days. Yesterday we were in Tahiti and today was our last stop in French
Polynesia having seen and been on 3 of the 130 islands comprising French
Polynesia.
We were scheduled to take a catamaran trip today In Moorea.
When we departed the ship yesterday in Tahiti we saw some friends who suggested
we take a snorkeling, shark and sting ray adventure today with them saving us
$200. But we had to cancel our Princess shore excursion tickets for today which
isn’t easy to do if you don’t cancel by their cancellation date.
Jim was first in line when the office opened at 5:00 pm
yesterday and they said if they could find someone on the waiting list who
still wanted tickets then we wouldn’t be charged. Otherwise we would have to
stay on our scheduled trip and not go with our friends.
We were notified about an hour later they found someone so
we were excited to join our friends today on the snorkel with the fish, sting
rays and sharks.
Moorea is a beautiful island full of tall mountains and
green trees and vegetation. It is called the "yellow lizard". During
the day the greens turn a yellow color due to the clouds, sun and shifting
rays. The water goes from light green, deep blue, turquoise and indigo. All
around the island hotels have taken over the huts built on the water and Hilton
has quite the hotel as well as many other hotels. All around are those huts
that range from $700 per night upwards. It is definitely a place I would do to
get away from it all.
Our first stop was feeding and swimming with the sting rays.
They are very, very gentle having been fed by the tourists for years. I
actually kissed a couple of them and their eyes are so beautiful. Their eyes
look almost an amber color and they actually look like they are looking right
at you. They swim through your legs, swim right up to you and if you aren’t
watching they try and nuzzle you of course looking for food. Now the sharks on
the other hand were black tipped reef sharks or yellow finned reef sharks….or
something like that. Once the guide threw fish at them they came swimming and
thrashing trying to get the food. Though we remained about 5 feet from them in
the water, when I put my mask into the water to get a close up look at them I
didn’t feel as comfortable looking at them as I did the sting rays. NOR did I
try and kiss the sharks either.
We left there to go snorkeling and were taken to a highly
popular reef. We were given only masks; no breathing tubes or flippers. Unfortunately I did not have water shoes and
my flip flops broke immediately leaving me barefoot to walk on the coral. There
wasn’t the sandy beach we were promised and the best I could do was float to
the nearest sandy spot while skimming over broken coral formations. The water
had a strong current and without a way to plant my feet I was left to the mercy
of the water gods. There are good, great and wonderful snorkel spots and by far
this was the absolute worst spot I have ever snorkeled in. There was no way to
leisurely snorkel as the coral and reef was so close to the top that it made it
impossible to swim lazily along viewing the fish. I was just doing my best not
to get deep cuts thus bringing those sweet reef sharks to feed on me. There was
no shade on the shore and though we had signed up for 4 hours we were glad to
be on the boat 2.5 hours later. We both feel that the shark and sting ray part
was the best and we could have stayed there the entire time. The snorkeling was
bad. Barefoot and worn out we got back onto the ship and jumped into the pool
to cool off some more. We leave in a couple of hours and head to Hawaii which
is 5 more days at sea.
Yesterday in Tahiti
We docked in Papeete (pa-pee-et-tay). In contrast it is a
bustling city. Most high school kids travel by ferry from Moorea to Papeete for
school every day. Moorea is only 9 miles away from Tahiti so it is an easy
ferry ride.
We got off the ship in Tahiti and immediately looked for a
way to get to the famous black sand beaches. Well a cab ride there would be $80
ROUND TRIP. Not wanting to go that route we looked for a bus to take us there but
by now we were both sweating profusely from the high humidity and lack of cool
breezes. We window shopped a little, went back to the ship for a dip in the
pool and spent the rest of the day looking for internet. The ship’s was out and
most of the internet sites were very expensive and McDonald’s doesn’t offer
free Wi-Fi. So we went back to our ship with the air conditioned rooms and
spent the rest of the night indoors.
Tahiti would be a place to visit as long as you know that
all of the French Polynesian islands are very expensive and negotiating prices
isn’t accepted. So you take their price or don’t. It is as simple as that.
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