Sailing the South Seas – Part 2

Sun in the South Seas

When we booked our flights to Tahiti some time last year, we knew that we would be connecting through the San Francisco airport. We had memories of this kind of connection through San Francisco when we went to Australia in 2011 and almost missed our flight due to huge lineups through security and immigration. As it turned out, our worries were misplaced as there were no delays and we made out connection to Papeete, Tahiti on Sunday night. Even better, our hotel was about a 10 minute ride from the airport.

We’re in Tahiti for 4 days, then on Thursday we will transfer to our cruise ship where we will spend the next 15 days, sailing to various places around the south seas.

As a French Polynesian country, most of the local people have a French accent so Barb and I have been able to practice our French while we’ve been here. The local Tahitian people are the most friendly we have ever met. often being greeted with yo rah na which is hello and we hear it many times a day from all of the staff.

In the Water

Barb and I splurged a bit when booking at this resort and have an over-water bungalow. There is a staircase leading down to the water and we hoped to be able to swim into the water when we wished to cool off. I should mention that so far it’s been sunny and warm every day, around 25-26 and warm enough to wear shorts for dinner, but hardly any humidity so it’s very comfortable. But back to swimming off our bungalow, when we checked in we we warned not to swim in there open water as it was too rough. So we’ve been using the swimming pool and today used the lagoon for snorkelling.

On this trip, Barb and I both brought our masks and snorkels from home. Neither of are sure when we bought them but it was definitely over 25 years ago. The lagoon in the resort have a number of coral reefs and as a result attracts lots of colourful fish. We were both swimming around the lagoon and my mask kept filling up with water, uncertain what was causing this. I eventually realized that the beard I’ve been sporting since retiring was the very worst thing to have with a diving mask as it doesn’t seal properly and lets water get in. I’ve grown to like having the beard so there’s no good solution and swallowing seawater is not fun.

More in the Water

I have a photo above of a guy paddling his outrigger canoe past our bungalow. Over the past few days, many things have gone through the water past us. Lots of large sailboats, a few massive yachts but most interestingly, this morning a large manta ray swam by us under the water. The sunlight is in the perfect position to light up the water and the manta was gone long before I could get my camera.

Today is Wednesday and it’s the last full day we have here before we board our ship tomorrow. One of the first stops will be the island of Moorea, which we have been looking at every day as the large island right across from us.

By now I’ve started to upload my photos from our south seas trip, on my photo website here.

Baden