Most of the shops were closed but we did manage to find a bar which also was a micro brewery and stopped with Mike and Maree from Australia for a pitcher or two. One of the great parts of a cruise is meeting lots of new people and on this cruise again we were lucky to have a great group at our dinner table.
The next day we set out on a circle island tour to check out the sites and learn more about Tahiti and its people. This bay is where the Mutiny on the Bounty happened and also where several of the movies were filmed.
Our tour guides were very well informed, especially about the native flora and we stopped at several waterfalls and botanic gardens.
The plants were very colourful as you can tell by these huge blooms.
The next stop, within the same chain of islands in French Polynesia, was the island of Moorea which we knew very little about but turned out to be even more beautiful than Tahiti. Jude and I thought we would start out with a similar island tour but as the old van we were riding in started to chug up the steep hill to the Belvedere Lookout point, a rad hose blew and clouds of steam started to spew out from under the hood. We started to panic and at one point almost began to walk back towards the ship but I filled up some water bottles at a nearby stream and the van managed to run well enough to chug back down the hill and get us back to port. Not wanting to risk another tour (although the same guy convinced a new group to head off with him!) we grabbed a jeep taxi to a beach a few miles down the road.
This proved to be a wise move as the beach was gorgeous with shallow blue water, pure white sand and even a coral reef to snorkel on. Here, with the help of Photoshop, I put together a panoramic view of the spot.
In the afternoon we headed out in a covered boat to the edge of the reef for a tour that was a little more adventurous than we expected. We knew that the area had wild Stingrays that would congregate to be fed their daily meal of fresh fish but we didn’t expect them to be that aggressive as you stood in the waist high water with dozens of the creatures coming right up and actually running right into you.
The guide was also very knowledgeable and showed us how they move, how they eat and where the stingers were located on the tails. If that wasn’t enough what followed next freaked out Jude and mostly everyone else a bit as a dozen or so black tipped reef sharks moved in for their share of the fish as well.
Here I am diving down to get a closer look at these scary looking fish that were circling just off the shallow sand spit we were swimming on.
I didn’t think Jude would ever go out and swim with the sharks but she took to it really well so I wanted to get a blog worthy video to commemorate the event. All I asked was that she back up a bit so I could get more of the sharks in the frame but when a gave her a very gentle push in the right direction she didn’t seem to appreciate my help and mumbled something about the value of her insurance policy into the mouth piece of her snorkel. Oh well, I did manage to get some decent shots despite her uncooperative nature, women!
(I will publish the video when we get back on Hawaii, I tried from the ship and it wouldn't quite work).
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