Papeete Tahiti

Tahiti

French Polynesian Islands

March 27, 2019

Approaching Papeete. As one may recall, Moorea was only 23 miles from Tahiti so the ship made an extremely wide circle to avoid the world's shortest cruise. Due to his circle, we sailed into the night and docked late in the evening. The more party heartier types went straight ashore. 

Basically the choices of tours were bus rides along the East or West coast or snorkeling. Snorkeling sounded good.

As we had a little time to pass before the tour, we went out on the balcony and took pictures of the harbor and parts of the city.

This magnificent yacht was being readied by her crew. Those are two motor boats and a dinghy on her deck. Registration flag was Marshall Islands.

 Lots of nice sailboats and catamarans.

Beyond the point on the right is Tahiti's little airport. The single take-off and landing approach crosses the only sea lane for cruise ships. The air and sea traffic must coordinate to avert any major news events.

 Papeete is another well developed small city. Condo anyone?

 Heading to our tour boat as at each port we were greeted by a musical group and a lady handing each passenger a plumeria blossom. 

 Our tour boat was near our ship. 

 Pensive but eagerly awaiting the snorkel adventure. Turns out it was an adventure. Guide told us to snorkel to the side of the boat. As I got into the water, I noticed Christine floating the wrong way. I swam out to tell her to come back. As we tried to swim back to the boat, the current (and why Christine was floating the wrong way) was too strong to make any headway. (We didn't know flippers weren't provided. I think we could have handled ourselves with flippers.) She had only a "noodle" and it wasn't helpful in swimming. In my life vest, I could swim but not enough to pull Christine. Seems there were 5 of us struggling to get back to the boat and the guide came out to us with a life preserver. However, he was not strong enough even with our swimming together, so another guide came out with a rope to help get us back.  

Off we went to a gentler spot. There we did see brilliant reef fish in the beautiful, clear lagoon.

Home again.