Tahiti – Dolphins, Turtles, Sun, Sea and Surf!

3^rd to 7^th February, 2020

At Sea again

A long haul this time crossing the Equator and heading for Tahiti. We have had one sad event in that one of our table tennis crew, Jim, had a stroke, whilst playing table tennis. He had had a stroke some 7 years before and was a bit physically impaired, but wonderfully cheerful and upbeat with a welcome smile and greeting for everyone. The prognosis, sadly, is not good and they will see whether they take him off in Papeete, Tahiti tomorrow. Unfortunately I do not think we could have been further from land when it happened.

Val and I have had a bit of a cough and a cold and I ended up confining myself to my cabin yesterday to get better, which I am, I am glad to say. The ship does have multiple hand sanitisers at every location, but the chances of catching something is, of course, higher. At least we are not stuck in port for two weeks and not allowed out of our cabins due to the Coronavirus. That said, the ship was due to visit Shanghai and Hong Kong on its round-the-world tour, but they have now been cancelled and there are rumours about Singapore and Malaysia too, the latter being where we are supposed to be going later in our trip, so we shall have to see what the FCO is advising once we disembark in Auckland.

I am going snorkelling in Tahiti tomorrow and maybe we will try a quick tour of the islands afterwards – and of course we will try and post this latest blog. I can’t believe we still have about 2 months before we are due back in Blighty.

More soon.

8^th February, 2020

Tahiti – Dolphins, Turtles, Sun, Sea and Surf!

Finally we have made it to our unintended destination, French Polynesia and, more specifically the city of Papeete, Tahiti. Tahiti is the largest of the 118 islands of French Polynesia, which collectively occupy a land area about the size of Kent, but are set in a sea area some 1,000 times larger. Tahiti is the largest of the Windward group of Society Islands and is REMOTE! 4,100 miles from Los Angeles, 3,800 from Sydney and 5,900 from Tokyo.

Tahiti comprises two almost circular islands – Tahiti Nui, the larger and Tahiti Iti joined together by a narrow isthmus. What is most striking are the mountains rising sharply from near the coast to a height of 7,352 feet. Notable visitors and expatriate inhabitants include Captains Cook and Bligh, Gaugin, Somerset Maughan and Rupert Brooke although the original people first arrived in about 850 AD possibly originating from various parts of Asia or maybe South America. First European contact was in 1767 when Captain Samuel Wallis in HMS Dolphin claimed it for Great Britain. He was followed the next year by Louis de Bougainville, who claimed it for France. Captain Cook arrived in 1769 to observe the Transit of Venus across the sun and so calculate the distance from the earth to the sun.

And, of course, one of the most famous (infamous?) visitors was Captain Bligh on the Bounty in 1788, some of whose crew were so smitten during their 6 month stay by the paradise that the islands are and the beautiful ladies of Tahiti that they mutinied 3 weeks after leaving. Bligh and 18 crew members were set adrift and survived 6 weeks at sea before reaching Indonesia.

The islands became formally French in 1843 and is a French Protectorate sending 2 senators and 2 deputies to Paris.

We arrived in rather gloomy conditions in Papeete (meaning ‘water basket’). James A Michener wrote in 1951 ‘To those who insist that all picturesque towns look like Sienna or Stratford-on-Avon, Papeete will be disappointing, but to others who love the world in all its variety, the town is fascinating’.

 Val and I departed the ship around 0900, walking past our welcome choir and on to the usual area of local artefacts, where there were terrific dancers and another band.

We wandered into the town in search of WiFi, but not before a quick visit to the market (of course), which looked nice, clean and very colourful. Lots to photograph not least the myriad faces of the locals.

Best of all, we were able to have a coconut, which regular readers of this blog will know, is one of Val’s favourite drinks. Next we walked back to the ship as I was booked on a boat trip which was entitled Discover Wildlife and Snorkelling. Initially I was wondering if it was going to be one of the more expensive boat trips I have had as we travelled on, apparently trying to avoid some rain that was hovering over one part of the island. There is definitely some money in Tahiti if the hotels and yachts are anything to go by…

We avoided the various and many reefs that seem to surround much of the island, which also affords the opportunity for surfers. Hard to photograph something that is moving from something that is moving as well, but this one came out OK.

Now the great hope was to spot some dolphins, but initially that looked like a forlorn hope, though we did get excited at one point, but it turned out to be a snorkeler! However our trusty captain advised that he knew a bay where the chances were 80% in our favour – and he was right! Bottlenose dolphins by the score diving in and around the boat. As with the surfers a bit tricky to photograph and I will spare you the many photos of water where the dolphin had just been, but here are the pick of the bunch (or pod?).

We then moved off a bit and got set up for some snorkelling of our own. This I had much anticipated because of my recent birthday present of a little, but very effective Go-Pro type camera/video, which also works underwater. First up, it occurred to me that I had no way of ensuring I didn’t drop the camera to the bottom of the ocean, so I begged a bit of rope from the boat captain which he very kindly lent me and I tied it to my wrist and off I went.

It was excellent – quite a few fish and best of all, a turtle. Unfortunately it is all on video and therefore I cannot actually show you, but it was great fun and I could have spent a lot longer there, but it was time to climb back aboard and head back to the port. A couple of photos on the way..

We got back just after 1.00 pm and Val was waiting for me as we thought we might squeeze in a quick tour of part of the island before setting off again. I don’t suppose we will be coming back to Tahiti any time soon so we bit the bullet and paid over the odds, but it was well worth it. It is worth mentioning that Tahiti is very expensive. As someone mentioned it is 5 star prices and 3 star quality, though there looks like plenty of 5 star quality, but then that presumably costs 8 star prices (if you get my drift). Even one coconut was $4, which is going some, considering they do actually grow on trees (ok, palms). Just a warning if you are heading this way!

Our guide, Mana and his Belgian fiancée led us to his pick-up truck and Val and I climbed into the back and sat on the padded bench seats with the side flaps rolled up as we headed East out of town for our 3 hour trip.

First of all we went up a bit of a dirt track – VERY bumpy to see a bit of the interior. It is very, very lush, hardly surprising considering the amount of rain they get here. We followed a river, admired the impenetrable jungle and wondered at the many waterfalls coming off the mountains until we came to a rather rough and ready bridge, which we crossed before executing a U bend and coming back over the river via a ford.

We had a brief stop whist Manu reached behind him in the driver’s cab for some baguettes. Aha, thinks I, the French influence in Polynesia, time for an afternoon snack, but no – he wanted to show us the very large and rather ferocious eels that lived in the river!

Next stop was the Faarumai Falls (I think), a very impressive cascade from a great height availing the opportunity for a corny photograph!

Then it was on to a local attraction, the Arahoho Blowholes where waves force themselves through a tunnel in the rock and out through a hole at the top of the cliff, all over the unwary traveller. Val gamely offered to stand near it, but only got a bit of spray luckily. It was interesting that there were many guppies that would use the waves to land on the rocks above.

The beaches on Tahiti island itself are not the lovely white sands that you might see in the photos as the island is volcanic and therefore has black sand instead – if you want white sand you need to go to Moorea, 11 miles away.

Finally we stopped at Point Venus, Tahiti’s most northerly point and where the majority of the early navigators landed and where a sequence of the 1962 version of Mutiny on the Bounty was filmed.

And then back to the ship. As you will have realised by the lengthy silence from the blog, I messed up a bit in Papeete and failed to leave enough time to post the Hawaiian post, so apologies for that, but all in all, a great day out.

OK, second post today. I will update the rest in due course – including Hobbiton!