While I was away in New Zealand Nigel and Ted sailed the boat down to the western end of Tahiti, not a great distance only 5 miles or so. They'd spent most of the time cleaning the boat and snorkeling during the day and visiting the bar at the marina not far from the anchorage.
They'd chosen a fabulous spot, from our anchorage we looked directly over to Moorea (that's the picture with the yachts from my last blog entry). Moorea is one of the most scenic islands in the world, its where they filmed South Pacific and most iconic views of the South Pacific are shot here. The outline of the island is magnificent and looked incredibly beautiful as the sun went down behind it in the evenings.
My first morning back saw Nigel drag me out of bed at 06:30 to go snorkeling, we loaded up the dinghy and rowed the short distance from Honalee to the edge of the reef. For those of you that aren't familiar with the layout of French Polynesia all of the islands are surrounded by coral atols. This means that outside of the reef it can be incredibly rough and very deep, whereas once you are inside the reef its calm and the sea is the most stunning tourquoise blue and reasonably shallow.Apart from the Galapagos which was teeming with fish this is the most magnificent place to snorkel, so much coral, so many fish. It was like swimming in someones tropical fish tank, you expect to see a treasure chest laying on it's side with jewels spilling onto the sand. Heck of a way to spend the morning, infact we were out there for 3 hours, we did the for the following couple of mornings and didn't see the same thing twice.
Before we departed for Moorea we did another 4 WD drive adventure into the mountains in the middle of Tahiti. Nobody lives here, just as well really as the road is incredibly steep and rough and prone to landslides when its been raining. We had a blast despite the enormous potholes which at times felt like you were falling into the abyss whilst lossing any fillings that you had at the same time.
We crossed rivers and fords, saw some incredible waterfalls, infact everywhere you looked there was a waterfall, I've never seen so many in all my life. Just before we stopped off for lunch we took time out to swim in one of the rivers, crisp clean cold mountain water, just what you need in 30 degrees of heat. Only myself the tour guide and one other took the plunge, but after some short deliberation Nigel decided not to let the side down and finally joined us - he's such a woosy where cold water is concerned. The rest of the day saw us travelling through countyside that came straight out of the The Land that Time Forgot and Jurassic park, lush rainforest and mountain pastures.
We had an amazing day, after the heat and dust of Papeetee it was chicken soup for the soul to be up in the peace and beauty of the mountains. We are being incredibly spoilt and feel truly fortunate that we are being given the opportunity to do all of this.
