French Polynesia
"TAHITI FAAA" was what the sign over the entrance to the terminal in Papeete said as we left our plane. We artived in our Tahitian Princess stateroom in time for a late dinner. Activity started the next day with a 4-wheeling tour of the Papenoo Valley on the north side of the island of Tahiti. Our madcap driver, Lynngo (4th panel immediately below), loved to swerve off the narrow, rough road, plunge down a hill and dirve up the river for a ways. An evening sail for Huahine (pronounced hoo-ah-hee-nay) gave us the first sunset from our open veranda as we broke into the stores of "two-buck-Chuck" we had smuggled on board. To view any of the pictures ful size, just click on them. To return to this page, use your Browser's BACK button.
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We had an early breakfast on the veranda next morning as we sailed into the Huahine harbor. Once ashore we found that the main village, Fare (pronounced fah-ray), closed completely at 11:30 in the morning (it was Sunday). Back aboard the ship, we enjoyed a fine afternoon dance performance by the "Huahine Mamas". Two nights and a day of sailing brought us to the Cook Islands (Rarotonga) and a marvelous snorkeling beach. Another day and two nights at sea and we were back in French Polytnesia at Raiatea (RAH-ee-ah-TAYa) and its sister island, Tahaa (ta-HA-ah). We toured a vanilla plantation and a black-pearl farm on Tahaa and were treated to a fine shipboard performance by the Raiatea Dancers.
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A short cruise the next morning and we were anchored in the Bora Bora lagoon.. It was too late to do anything big that day so we strolled the streets of Vaitape. At the large gift shop next to the dock, Bernie found her magnificent Black Pearl. The following morning we set off for snorkeling in the lagoon, swimming with the sharks outside the reef and, oneof the high points of the entire trip, swimming with the rays. They were so used to being fed, they'd swim around you, rubbing against your legs like a housecat.
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Dawn the next morning found us sailing into Opunohu Bay on Moorea (moh-oh-raya), where Captain Cook had put in about the time of the American revolution. For some reason, the other bay on the north side became known as Cooks Bay. The itinerary had been well planned as Bora Bora and Moorea were the most spectacular of all the islands. We had one last day in Papeete before boarding the plane for home. We finally found the elusive breadfruit Captain Bligh had come for. The Captain didn't have to worry about Customs, but it was a matter of concern to us. Accordingly, I extracted two slices from the center, squared them off, stacked and sliced them diagonally, finally wrapping them in a sandwich-like bag (see last pictur, below). We carrried it in our hand luggage. One of the Tahitian customs ladies looked at the "sandwich" and said, "Oh....ulu!" (the Tahitian word for breadfruit). We did make it home with the "sandwich and fulfilled a long-standing dream by frying them up in butter and eating them (it was actually pretty good, prepared that way; rather like a potato, I thought).
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