Honeymoon in French Polynesia #1
It’s 10:40am on Tuesday the 14th. I’m sitting at the Tropical Bar on Star Flyer. The boat is under sail and we are heeling about 10 degrees to port. To the left I see mostly blue ocean and to the right I see a lush green island a couple miles out. It’s about 85 degrees, sunny, and blue sky. We’ve been in the South Pacific for a little over 2 days.
Getting to Tahiti took a whole day but was pretty uneventful. Air Tahiti Nui is a nice airline, with helpful staff, and we were fed well. Tahiti’s airport is all open air and a little crazy but we got to our bags and to our hotel just fine. The Radisson Plaza Resort Hotel is quite nice and to our surprise we had a two-story room with a sitting room downstairs with a small bathroom plus a bedroom and full bathroom upstairs. The room has a great view of the ocean and pool. Tahiti is EXPENSIVE. Bar drinks run at or above 1000 Pacific Francs, which equals about $13 US Dollars. Two drinks and an appetizer ran nearly $65 USD. The nice thing is that in French Polynesia, tipping is not customary.
At about 4pm on Sunday we hopped aboard the bus to the port to board the boat. Right away we found the Canadian sports attendant who has a clear sense of humor. Star Flyer sleeps a maximum of 170 passengers but on this sailing it is carrying 110 which means it shouldn’t be too crowded. Once on board we received a glass of juice, our second set of lei’s, and free reign of the small snack buffet. Our cabin is at the stern, looking out on the small pool on deck. Dinner is a filling and I find that we are constantly eating on board. By the time breakfast is over and you’ve walked around the Sun Deck a little it’s time for lunch. Then you go ashore for an excursion and when you get back it’s time for cocktail hour with snacks. The boat sets sail and then it’s suddenly dinnertime again. It’s fabulous because I love food!
Speaking of shore excursions, our first stop – on Monday – was Moorea which puts Tahiti to shame. Tahiti is very industrial with reminders poor parts of Mexico. Moorea on the other hand is lush, green, and absolutely beautiful. Pretty much the entire island IS a crater that goes as low as sea level with walls of volcano sticking up as high as 9000 feet. There are farms in the flat area inside the volcano and homes around the shore. We took an ATV tour of the island where we got to see different plant life on the island and views from two different mountains. The ATV tour was a lot of fun and I highly recommend anyone coming to Moorea to try it.
Following the ATV tour we were back on board Star Flyer as she set sail for Rangiroa, Tuamotu. Today we are at Sea all day. When we leave port, they play music on deck as the crew raises sails. The song is “” from the movie “1492”. Sailing into the sunset last night with 10 sails flying was really pretty.
Tomorrow we’ll be doing a pearl farm tour and snorkeling at Rangiroa which is a nearly 400 square mile lagoon with pink sand, coral reef, white and black tipped sharks and other sea life.
