01/16/12 Moorea

We’ve made it to Tahiti and docking in Papeete feels like being part of a large city.  Friends who drove around the island say it feels crowded the entire way around. We decided, however, to leave the crowds behind and take a ferry to Moorea—12 miles away. It’s the home of the legendary Bali Hai and background for Mel Gibson’s “Mutiny on the Bounty” from the 80s. It’s lush and mountainous with a lagoon, bounded by coral reef,  that is a beautiful turquoise.  It’s almost too much for the senses. Unfortunately, all is not perfect in the South Pacific and it rained off and on all day, but the clouds made the mountains very mysterious looking.

In the first photo, you can see Tahiti in the distance from a viewpoint in Moorea. The second photo captures the sacred Mount Mouaputa. The entire island used to be a giant volcano and Mount Mouaputa the lava cone in the center. A massive eruption millions of years ago caused a big chunk of the island to fall off, leaving Mount Mouaputa standing guard over two beautiful bays. The third picture is “Bali Hai”. For those who have seen the musical “South Pacific”, this is the mountain that is pictured in the distance as the mystical island Bali Hai. Interestingly, Bali Hai was made up by James Michener—the words have no meaning in English or Polynesian. By the way, before leaving NC, we watched the Mary Martin version of “South Pacific” and the Glen Close version of “South Pacific” and we prefer Mary Martin. We got these beautiful shots by driving up into the interior of the island to the Belevedere Lookout.

Then it was into a boat, skimming across the lagoon. Interestingly, there wasn’t much coral and what there was has died do to overuse of the bays by we humans. There were few fish that we saw, but there were a lot of stingrays and black tipped sharks. The stingrays were about 2 feet across and very gentle. As they glided past your legs and over your feet, the underside is very soft. The sharks were about 3 feet long and we didn’t get very close. Unfortunately, the weather was nasty, so we didn’t do the snorkeling we had hoped to do.

We ended at a picnic on the beach of a small island in the lagoon and as the fifth photograph shows, we enjoyed the local beer.