Tahiti please, Captain Vinnie......

I remember watching that 70‘s ad for Imperial Leather soap which featured a couple in an expensive private jet, in the bubble bath... the woman is reading a magazine and she says ‘Tahiti looks nice’, so the man picks up the phone and says to the pilot ‘Tahiti please James’. It all looked so exotic .... and now we are here .... sometimes I just have to pinch myself .....

We woke up early to look out and find that we were already docked in Papeete, the capital of Tahiti ... the pier is located across the road from the commercial centre of the town.  After breakfast we took a leisurely walk off the pier to the tourist information centre.  Groups of Polynesian dancers and musicians lined the pier .. we stopped to watch the Pareo tying fashion parade ... and tasted some local delicacies .... the chef from a local hotel was marketing his recipe book with samples of some of the foods ..... vanilla is an export product of Tahiti, and the tourist centre was set up with taste testing for a variety of other local products, baked goods, local tropical fruits and vanilla coffee. This port is well set up to welcome tourists and we really enjoyed ourselves.

A number of tours were being offered from the tourist centre so we signed up for the half day island tour for $40US - considerably cheaper than the $139 for a comparable Princess offering visiting the same sites ... although maybe not as comfortable as the Princess bus ..... cause we decided on the local transport, and took the aptly named .... ‘LE TRUCK’ ..... an open air bench seated local bus. 

Our guide was Alphonso, a seventeen year old who told us that his mum was also a guide and he worked part time as a guide .....although he had taken the morning off school to earn the money to buy school supplies. He was very knowledgable about the island - although his family was originally Spanish - many generations ago some of the French Polynesian island were settled by the Spanish .... he spoke fluent French, English and Spanish .... a very pleasant well mannered young man. We visited the 100 year old Point Venus lighthouse, where Captain Cook watched the transit of Venus on one of his voyages in 1769. Monuments to Captain Cook and the Mutiny on the Bounty are in the grounds of the lighthouse.

Can't get used to the black sand .... gets very hot too!!

The road follows the spectacular coastline, where the beaches are covered with very fine black volcanic sand to Matavai  Bay ..... a beautiful half moon shaped bay ..... the place where Cook and Captain Bligh landed in Tahiti. It was also the place from which the Bounty left just a few days before the famous mutiny. Further along we left the coast road and travelled inland towards the three waterfalls .... Olphonso proudly showed us his home  as the bus passed by on the way to the waterfalls ... we all waved to his sister sitting on the verandah .... he told us that his family owns all the land around the waterfall, the road and entrance .... it is administered by the family matriarch .... his grandmother ... while many aunts and uncles live in smaller houses around the property. We walked through a lush tropical rainforest area beside a rocky creek bed to the cascading falls.

Our final stop was at the Arahoho Blowhole ... where the pressure of the water builds underground until the water is forced up through the hole in the rocks .... some patience is needed as you can hear the air rushing underground ... then suddenly, the spurt comes through. Across the road is an air vent where a large gush of air is released as the blowhole spurts.

 Alphonso took a few passengers over to stand on the grate over the hole .... including a highly embarrassed lady whose loose shirt was blown over her head .... exposing her underwear completely to the crowd of onlookers.

We had planned to take the ferry across to Moorea for the afternoon - it takes about 30 minutes however the ferry runs at 12.20pm, 2.40pm and 4.00pm. and returns at 3.45pm and 5.00pm. Our morning tour was a little late returning and so we missed the ferry - if we caught the 2.40 pm to Moorea so we would have had to get the 3.45 back and have had about half an hour there. 

Just a tip: I would recommend to other cruisers to Papeete that if you want to also go to Moorea, take the morning ferry and do the afternoon Tahiti island tour if you want to fit in both islands.

When we returned to Papeete, we walked around the commercial centre, visited the Notre Dame Cathedral and the local fresh food markets. The islanders are extremely friendly, smiling gentle people who made us feel very welcome. We heard that the prices in some of the shops were very expensive, but we only bought a couple of postcards, so it didn’t really affect us.

We gathered with our friends on the back of deck 11 for the sailaway party, enjoying a beautiful sunset over Moorea and sharing stories of our day’s adventures ... amid much laughter ..... happy days!

Tomorrow, we are swimming with the sharks and stingrays of Bora Bora .... why does the music from Jaws keep running through my mind?????

Cheers