Tuesday, May 1st, 2012: Moorea, French Polynesia
Bob: Our entrance into the small harbor at Moorea was quite spectacular as we were headed straight at "Bali Hai" mountain in the distance. Such a pretty place! After taking pictures we had breakfast and hurried back to our cabin. |
Monika: Moorea is the "Bali Hai" of the movie South Pacific, and steaming into the lagoon, you could see why. It really was an enchanted island. Where Papeete had been a busy harbor, here we had nothing but serene water and mountain. We both stood enchanted at the railing, taking pictures! |
Bob: Since we had booked a snorkeling expedition from the ship for the morning, we packed our snorkeling gear in my backpack plus shampoo, sunscreen, water, and a couple of towels in the fold-up carry-all bag Monika had purchased at Woolworth's in Hornsby just before we left Australia. It all fit although my industrial-length swim fins stuck up out of the backpack a bit. Moorea is a tender port, so the ship's lifeboats ferried us over to the pier where we caught a catamaran power-boat to motor out to the reef. Although it was just after 9 a.m., the sun was strong and we were happy our boat had a canvas awning spread on top of it. |
Monika: We had signed up for a snorkeling excursion. So we packed our snorkeling gear, and were glad we had it, since the boat had masks and snorkels but no fins. Moorea was a tender port, so we enjoyed the tender ride over to the little village where we caught the boat that would take us to our snorkeling spots. The trip along the lush green forest was beautiful and close to our first stop was a resort with a lot of the cabins going out into the water. Imagine swimming and snorkeling right at your front door. I sure would like that! |
Bob: Our fist dive was just off a resort of some kind that featured bungalows built on stilts right over the water of the lagoon. We anchored in a sandy spot and clambered down the stairway in the bow to swim with the stingrays. These were, of course, the regularly fed and quite tame stingrays tourists usually see, as friendly as puppy dogs rubbing up against you in the hopes of getting a treat. Somewhat less puppy-like were the black-tipped sharks that started circling us as the stingrays were getting their meal of raw bits of fish. However, our guide reassured us that there was no record of a black tip shark ever biting a human, so we could relax and enjoy their very graceful, and very fast, swimming. I had always thought sharks swam with their dorsal fin sticking up out of the water, but the black-tipped sharks swam a couple of feet beneath the surface, so we could see no fin above the surface. The water was crystal clear, so we could see them fairly far off and get pretty good pictures as they swam by us and gave us the beady eye. |
Monika: Our first stop was a stingray spot. They sure knew they were going to get fed and immediately came over. But we had been told, that there also would be sharks around--black-tipped sharks--and that they were harmless. That maybe so, but they were also silent and very quick, and being suddenly encircled and stared at by a bunch of 8 feet long sharks is a surreal experience. I am glad my underwater camera was still working just fine, so we could prove that we really had been swimming with the sharks. |
Bob: Our guide called us in and we clambered aboard to motor a little ways further down the lagoon to a "motu", or little islet inside the lagoon. We were anchored beside a "coral garden" that led out to the actual edge of the reef where the surf was breaking. A moderate current was coming from the edge of the reef, so we swam out against the current and into the forest of coral. That proved to be trickier to do than it looked because there were only certain alleyways where the water was deep enough to safely swim above or between the coral, and the current kept trying to drag us into it. We persevered and got out near the edge of the reef when disaster struck. I was standing and trying to hold Monika from drifting into the coral, but she struggled and I hit the coral instead. It was a glancing blow, but I felt it immediately and not knowing how serious it was, we headed back to the dive boat. |
Monika: Our second stop was near a coral reef, and we had been warned that there was a current. So we were glad that we had brought our fins since that helped a little. The coral itself was beautiful was pretty fish swimming amongst it. But at times it almost came up to the top of the water and you had to carefully swim around it. At one stop, Bob tried to help me stand up and not get into the coral. Unfortunately I pushed him a little and he hit the coral. I did not think anything of it until we came back to the diving boat. |
Bob: I was hoping it was just a scratch, but once back on board the dive boat I noticed blood dripping down my leg and onto the deck, so I thought I'd better say something to Heinrich, our guide. (Heinrich, despite his absolutely German name did not speak any German but rather French and English.) He popped open the boat's first aid kit and we used the gauze pads to swab away the blood and then wrap adhesive tap around my leg to secure a large pad. I was glad we had already had the two dives we were scheduled to do as my diving was clearly over for the day because swimming among the sharks with an open, bleeding wound would just be foolish. Returning to the ship we had a belated lunch and then decided to go back on shore as my leg wasn't hurting that much and the medical center didn't open until 4:30 p.m. About seven or eight local vendors had set up their pavilions right off the pier, so the first thing we did was try to find some black pearls for Monika. Our port lecturer had mentioned that she thought the prices for black pearl jewelry was less on Moorea, and that jibed with our impressions so we were glad we had put off purchasing it until we reached Moorea. We ended up purchasing two single-pearl necklaces and a single pearl with a loop glued to its top that I thought I could make a necklace from, all in the $ 20 range. Part of the reason our selections were relatively inexpensive is that Monika prefers pearls that exhibit different hues of color rather than just pure black (boring!), and I prefer pearls that have some asymmetrical aspects to their shape rather than just a perfect sphere (even more boring!). For those who prefer the perfectly spherical, totally jet-black pearl, however, the same single-pearl necklaces would cost quite a bit more, at least in the $100 and up range. Necklaces comprised of matched perfect pearls are priced in the thousands. I also helped Monika pick out a colorful island dress that she tried on and then purchased. Having successfully shopped, an achievement for us, we ambled on back into the small, crossroads town located just beyond the pier. But it was by now around 2 p.m. and the sun was blazing down on us. Once again we were just hammered by the heat and humidity; the energy seemed to drain right out of us. Reaching the crossroads, we decided to retreat back to the ship and its air-conditioned comfort. |
Monika: But when we came back to the dive boat, Bob was really bleeding profusely. Luckily the boat was well equipped with first aid material and one of the guys bandaged Bob up. It did not seem to hurt, but we were worried about infection. So we could enjoy the trip back in comfort. We took the tender back to the ship for lunch and some rest. But since the Doctor's office did not open until 4:30 PM and Bob could walk, we decided to go back to the island to see what the local merchants offered. We had been told, that this was the best place to get black pearls at a reasonable price. So we went around to the different merchants and I did find three rather uniquely shaped pearls that we planned to make into a nice necklace back at home. We then walked along the little village, little more than a crossroad with a rather beautiful octagonal church. But then the heat did get to us and we retreated to the air-conditioned ship. |
Bob: If we return to tropical climes, I will attempt to beat the heat by wearing a Wick-A-Way or Cool-Max T-shirt and pre-soaking it with water before we leave the ship. That might sound odd, but having the hot breeze coming through a sopping wet shirt is the only way I think I can endure several hours in the noonday sun in those latitudes. I base this idea on the fact that when we got completely soaked by the downpour at the waterfall in Tahiti, we didn't really need the air-conditioning in the minibus as we drove back to the ship. We didn't feel hot again, in fact, until our polyester clothing dried off, which took about an hour. I did see the ship's doctor around 5:00 p.m. that evening, and the nurse applied a really spiffy air- and water-tight dressing around the wound, and the doctor prescribed a week-long course of antibiotics as the lagoon water typically carries a high bacterial content. We were late for dinner, but Nares managed to accommodate us and deliver our entrees along with those of our table mates, so we still had a nice mealtime with them before turning in for the evening. |
Monika: At 4:30 we went to the Doctor's office but had to wait, since some other people had minor problems. But the a nurse bandaged Bob rather neatly and the Doctor gave him a week's supply of Antibiotica that hopefully will prevent any infections. We watched the last tenders come back and then said a sad Good Bye to our last tropical island. |
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