On 2^nd May we filled the boat with fuel and water and left the Taina Marina,Papeete, heading for Moorea. Moorea is a small island 10 miles away from Tahiti. Between one thing and another we didn’t get out of the marina until 4.30pm and arrived in Moorea in the pitch dark. The Society islands are similar to the Tuamotu in that they are volcanic and are encircled by reefs. The pass in is not very well lit and we had to use a spotlight to get into the bay and anchor.

After the disappointment of Tahiti, Moorea was an absolute delight. Being so close to Papeete (30 mins by car ferry) I expected it to be densely populated and basically a suburb of Papeete.  I know if I worked in Papeete, this is where I’d live.  I couldn’t have been more wrong. The island is beautiful. It has a small town with a number of nice looking restaurants and a couple of supermarkets. It also has a number of very nice resorts perched along coral beaches. It is clean and pretty and not at all overrun.

The next morning we took the dingy along the coast to see if there was somewhere on the island we could rent a car.  Dan had told us this was the best way to see the island rather than just sail around the outside.  Just by pure chance we came across an Intercontinental hotel with its own dock.  As part of the hotel we discovered a dolphin centre offering two different packages. One where you could swim with the dolphin by holding on to it’s fin and belly and diving down 2 meters.  The other option was to attend a short lecture on dolphin followed by what they called a meet-and-greet session, where you stand in shallow water and “meet” the dolphin.  I had a brief few minutes of arguing with myself about the ethics of this type of thing. But having seen so many dolphin playing in our bow waves along the way, I couldn’t resist the opportunity of getting up close to one.

I opted for the meet-and-greet while the remainder of the crew, being better swimmers than me, went for the swim and dive. It was an amazing experience. The guys doing the swim got a DVD so I don’t have any still underwater shots of them.  But having watched the video it doesn’t seem to have bothered the dolphin at all.  The dolphin I met was retired from the US Navy. His job had been to patrol ships and warn of any potential intruders by pressing a button to sound the alarm.  So, I think he was no worse off now than before!!

Heading to Moorea at dusk

The following day we hired a guide to take us snorkelling. We had been told that there were sting ray and black-tipped or lemon sharks along the reef in the north of the island. Apparently, sting rays are not dangerous unless you stand on them!!  Not much consolation really.  Anyway, we were taken out to the reef in the guide’s boat and stepped off into about into about 2 feet of water. There were sting rays everywhere.  They were obviously well used to people since this is a popular spot with tourists. Initially I was afraid to move because you couldn’t turn around without bumping into a sting ray. But having been smacked a few times by their tails as they swished past, and surviving it, I decided to put on my mask and have a look at them below water.  It’s amazing to see them move around.  They really use their bodies as wings and flap along gracefully in a bird-like motion.  Once I had the mask on I could see that the reef dropped off suddenly a few meters from where we left the guide boat.  In this deeper water there were at least 20 sharks swimming up and down checking out what all the commotion was. Having swam with the sharks already in Rangiroa Patricia and I were perhaps a little blase about it. But for Jerry and John this was a first.

A Moray eel peeping out from the coral

We managed to hire a car. The island is only about 40 km around by a coastal road so we spent the afternoon exploring the island. We had been told in Papeete that local people often eat from food trucks that have BBQ’s alongside and that the food is very good. Up until now we have avoided them, but on Moorea while driving around, we passed a number of them before deciding to give one a go.  We choose one that was in a grassy area right next to the sea. The menu was limited to whatever fresh food was available on the day. We had poisson cru, BBQ’d mahi mahi and BBQ’d chicken. The food was great and cheap – generally these islands are very expensive. They set up a picnic table and chairs for us and we ate lunch under a palm tree with the waves lapping beside us. Wonderful.

Supermarket - we must be getting close to NZ!

Since Moorea was so nice and we had so much to see and do, we stayed on an extra day and skipped out on Huahaine.  Our next stop was Raiatea, a 14 hour sail away.  From here we will go to Tahaa, to visit a vanilla farm, and then on to Bora Bora. That will be my last stop. But, it’s not over yet. So you’ll have to endure one or two more blogs.