Tahiti, Moorea and Bora Bora

Delays in posting…. The joys of being in the Carnival "family" (along with Cunard, Princess and Holland America)…. We have been without Internet and phone for 3+ days. Carnival just selected a "family-wide" satellite provider and it didn't work. 20+ ships lost all communications. Practically a mutiny onboard! But it's now working, although slowly…. Sometimes we wish for dial-up days….

In many ways, Tahiti, Moorea and Bora Bora make you sad: tourism has dwindled, many hotels have closed, unemployment is high and everyone lives for the occasional cruise ship to stop by. I guess there are too many other places to visit that are more accessible—although we understand the Italians flock here from April through the summer.

These 3 islands are breathtakingly beautiful, however. Everywhere you turn you see  mountains, the reef and the beautiful blue water.

Captain James Cook came here twice (he seems to have been everywhere in the south Pacific!).  His journals reflect his concern about the unrestrained sexuality of the islands. Obviously, the crew of HMS Bounty agreed because they mutinied against Captain Bligh when he told them to weigh anchor in 1788. With foreigners came diseases, rats, mosquitoes, etc. But today’s islanders think the worst import was the missionaries. They forbade dancing, singing, tattoos, and nudity—essentially obliterating the culture. Today, the islanders are trying to reclaim that culture by reviving some of the original dances, songs and stories of their ancestors.

Tahiti, like Maui in Hawaii, is shaped like a fish. We spent our time driving around the fish’s “body”. The reef still encircles the western side of the island, but not so much on the east. The beaches are black sand, but not particularly wide. Where there is a reef, however, the shallow water goes clear out to the reef and snorkeling is popular inside the reef.

We had lunch in Le Coco’s Restaurant in Fa’a’a, west of Papeete. The food was spectacular and the view even better. Picture 1 shows the view at lunch with waves breaking across the reef in the distance and the island of Moorea in the far distance.

Picture 2 is a bloom from the Tower Ginger at Vaipahi Gardens. We’ve seen an amazing number of different ginger plants, but we’ve been told that only one is edible and another is used for skin products. All others are toxic.

Picture 3 shows the waterfalls at Fa’auruma’I (by the way, you pronounce every letter—even multiple vowels in a row).  In addition to the main falls shown here, the wall seemed to be “weeping” waterfalls—everywhere.

Picture 4 shows the beach at Venus Point, which is where all of the early explorers landed, including the English and French, who both claimed ownership. At the park at Venus Point you’ll also find a beautiful old lighthouse that is 110 feet tall and was built in 1867 and shown in picture 5.

In Moorea we joggled our way around the island in a 4 X 4. Our first stop was a ride and then a climb to the top of Magic Mountain.  The next three pictures were taken from the top.  Moorea is entirely encircled by a reef, with 13 natural opening. Picture 6 shows one of these natural openings. Picture 7 shows the contrast between inside and outside the reef. Inside the reef, the water is shallow (max 3 meters); outside the reef, the ocean floor immediately drops 1000 meters. Picture 8 shows the hiking path to the top of Magic Mountain and the view toward the interior of the island. 

We then drove part way up Mt. Tohiea to The Belvedere for the great view shown in

Picture 9. The mountain in the middle, Mt. Rotui, is the remains of the original volcano, which formed the island. Originally there was a perfect circle of land around that mountain, but millennia ago the walls of the island toward the sea fell into the sea, leaving the central cone of the volcano and allowing seawater to form 2 beautiful bays on wither side of that cone. To the right is Cooks Bay, where our ship is anchored. To the left is Opunohu Bay. Opunohu means Belly of the Rock Fish and is considered sacred. So even though Captain Cook landed in that bay, they couldn’t change the name of something sacred, so they named the other bay after him.

You might recognize the mountain shown in Picture 10. It’s the mountain on the fictional island, Bali Hai, in the movie South Pacific.

Even though the tourism industry has been hit hard, there are still 4 large resorts on the island, where cottages over the water began. Picture 11 shows the Sofitel Resort with its cottages over the water. In the background you can see the reef and, in the distance, Tahiti.

The third island we visited was Bora Bora and we were able to check an item off the bucket list—we snorkeled in the Bora Bora lagoon. Pictures 12 and 13 show the larger critters we saw: stingrays and black-tipped reef sharks (who are up to 3 feet long and don’t find people tasty). We saw these guys from the boat that took us to the island we snorkeled from. Picture 14 shows our launching spot. The lagoon was significantly damaged a few years ago by a cyclone and the coral is just beginning to recover. We saw a number of smaller fish around the coral that is regenerating and a lovely clam with iridescent filaments around its mouth. Note to self: an underwater camera might be fun….

Bora Bora is one of the older islands. As such the central mountain is sinking into the ocean (and getting worn away be erosion), while the coral reef surrounding the island is rising and is actually developing into islands itself. Picture 15 shows a view of the entire island as we sailed away. And picture 16 shows the spectacular sunset that followed.