Blue Book of Boats

On the second day at Bora Bora I took things easy in the morning. In the early afternoon Phil and I went ashore to find a Lagoon tour. There was one on offer at the dock, but they needed at least 4 people to go and Phil and I were the only ones. Phil then went around the docks trying to convince two more people to come. I went to talk to the boat captains and found one about to leave. $75 for 3 hours so I grabbed Phil and we hopped aboard. This was about a 25′ aluminum boat with a glass panel in the bottom, and a single 115 HP outboard.

Phil and I were the only ones from the Amsterdam on board, the other passengers 3 French couples and a pair of honeymooners from California, American-Chinese. All the men and half the women were kind of out of shape, a bit chubby and soft, in contrast with the Tahitian crew who were muscular, tattooed and hard as rock.

We were provided with masks and snorkels. There were flippers too but none big enough for my feet!   We stopped 3 different places. The first, just outside the reef, was populated with trigger fish and black-tipped sharks. we also spotted a few lemon sharks, bigger but further away, they never came close.

At the second location we were surrounded by Rays. The crew seemed to know them and after observing them awhile I could see that each one was different. One had a damaged, stumpy tail, another an exceptionally long sharp tail. I began to recognize them as they swam by. I took quite a few photos in both locations. Phil has a fancy SLR camera, but didn’t bring it so I will have to give him some of my photos. If you touched one on the nose he would rise to the surface right in your face, expecting to be fed. I couldn’t help feelin that we were in a sort of Marine Petting zoo!

The third location was inside the reef, with lots of coral and many kinds of colorful reef fish. By then my battery was dead so I left the camera on board and just enjoyed swimming around.

On the way back we stopped at the Hilton resort to let off the most glamorous of the French couples. This place is $1000 a night and up, and they were pretty young so maybe they were rich and famous, but we didn’t recognize them.

Back at the ship I showered with everything on including camera and sandals to get all the salt off.  Here’s another photo of a Bora Bora sunset.

In the evening the concert was a Beatles group which joined the ship at Papeete. This was their first show on board. They dressed as “early Beatles” with neat suits and ties and bobbed hair. They really are form Liverpool so have the correct accent. Looks not so much, although they did call each other John, Paul, George and Ringo, or we wouldn’t have known which was which. Who knew my mother was a Beatles fan? She was screaming with the best of them.

The sound was pretty good on the first few tunes, like “All my loving” and “I want to hold your hand”. If you closed your eyes you could believe it really was the Beatles. Later on they began to slip bit and sound like a cover band. Still not bad. All older tunes, the most recent being “Hey Jude”. They tried to get the audience to sing along on a few songs, without great success.

We arrived in Papeete early this morning. This is a modern industrial port, but with a fairly attractive waterfront. The guide book say Tahiti’s population is 170,000 but you might guess at more. But the city is wide but not deep, very spread along the water.

We took the local bus from Papeete to the Gaugin museum which is on the other side of the island. It is a series of lovely open side building right near the water, with good explanations of Gaugin’s life and work in both French and English. However the reproductions of his paintings (there are no originals here) are of variable quality, many quite faded and dull,only a few show the bright palette he is known for. But the museum itself is worth seeing. Adjacent is a 130 Hectare botanical garden, but sadly we didn’t have enough time or energy to explore it after a long Tahitian lunch in the excellent adjacent bar/restaurant.

Getting back to Papeete was a bit of an adventure, as we waited a long time for a bus, and when one came it was only going to Taravao, which is where the main island joins Tahiti Iti. We took it any way and waited there for a Papeete bus. It would have been a long wait as a local came along and told us that the last bus left a 2:30PM. It was 2:45 at the time! However, if we walked on to the next Church, there was a place where the last bus to Papeete went at 4:30 PM. I asked when the NEXT bus was and he said “4:30 PM”.  We walked a kilometer or so to the church and just managed to catch a bus which left at 3 PM. Local knowledge is still a bit weak here, or perhaps it was his English and my French…

The ride around the Eastern coast  or Tahiti was exiting, with many switchbacks and hills. At one point the bus turned up a steep side road and climbed up to a school where a large group of happy Tahitian children, ages about 8 to 12, boarded. They were delightful, polite but also full of mischief. A little boy beside me poked the (much bigger) kid in front of him, then when he turned round the little brat pointed at me! Laughter all round.

The pictures above is Papeete harbor as we came in, and a river near the Gaugin Museum.

I’m going ashore again to walk around the town in the evening and observe the street life. There is a Tahitian show onboard tonight at 10 PM (the one at the hotels cost $75) and it is free so I’ll come back for that.

Day 2 of my trip to Australia on MV Amsterdam   It is now 11:30 AM and we are off the Oregon Coast south of the Columbia River. Weather grey and drizzling,wind 25 knots from the SW.

Looking forward to arriving in  LA on  Wednesday at 7 AM. Next stop after that Nuku Hiva land of Melville’s Typee!

I have tried my Spot messenger twice, it doesn’t seem to work out here. I have done a few circuits of the ship for exercise, and climb up and down the stairs rather than use the elevator.

I guess the weather will improve as we near LA.