Moorea

Moorea is perhaps the most beautiful of the Society Islands.  There are two exceptional bays in the north. The entire island is surrounded by reefs, offering up tranquil aquamarine lagoons close to shore. The majority of islanders live along the coastline, and there is only one road, which circles the entire island along the coast.  A rutted dirt road takes you up to Mt Rotui where you can look down the side of a volcanic crater where lava once flowed into lush green valleys full of pineapple plantations and fruit trees.  There are no cities, just small settlements or villages. Most residents work on Tahiti, which is 12 miles across the channel and is only a 30 minute ride by ferry.  Herman Melville, the author of "Moby Dick," was a famous resident of the island. 

The ship anchored in Cooks Bay, one of two large bays that indents the north side of the island. The morning started out warm and sunny, but dark rain clouds obscured the craggy mountain tops. 

We went ashore via tender and found local vendors had set up shop under portable canopies -- and all of them sold the same things -- black pearls.  I was so good.  I am not buying any souvenirs on this trip. But I do reserve the right to change my mind when something comes along that I can't live without. 

There wasn't much to see here and nothing to do, so we went back to the ship for lunch. I had an excursion to ride a catamaran and go swimming, so I returned to shore while Michael stayed aboard since he didn't have an excursion. 

Well, wouldn't you know it, it was the same catamaran from yesterday with a different skipper but same first mate. We all boarded the boat and sat there while the French speaking skipper with a very thick English accent could not get it started. After 15 minutes of him trying this knob, going down first one hatch than another, he finally got the boat started and off we went.  Ah, a lovely day in paradise...except the storm clouds were gathering, growing darker and coming right toward us. And boy, did it pour and pour some more. We finally huddled inside the cabin trying not to knock each other over. We went across the reef into open ocean and watched the waves break from behind, throwing up lots of spray. That was really cool but I didn't take pictures because everything was too wet and the rain kept a coming. Crossing back into the lagoon, the skipper dropped anchor so we could swim and snorkel. No thanks, it was still raining.  Not fun.  We had an hour to swim, that was on the schedule so we sat and only one person decided to swim. But then, it stopped raining, the sun came out and a few more hardy folks jumped in the water.  Dammit I came to swim!  So in I went. It was lovely.  On the way back to the ship, it rained again. Timing is everything!