Village Temanoha Cook's Bay

... English and a tiny bit of French.... We swam in the lagoon, marvelled at how warm it was, gained a few mosquito bites, marvelled at how expensive everything was, ate cheese for dinner, drank French wine, toured the island in a morning and got the afternoon flight out to Auckland.

I went for the Aorai walk with Arnaud, another French from the pension. Starting our walk at 5:30am, we were back just over 8 hours later. It was a fantastic walk with impressive views and breathtaking walk, starting at 600m high, finishing at 2067m before going back on the same track. The trek follows the natural ridge of the mountains with incredible views on ...

... by now) and were told that there were three more flights today from Bora Bora and the next was in half an hour. We waited and thankfully our bags were on it. Perhaps the relaxed frame of mind on the islands can sometimes be a little too relaxed. Back at the same hotel on the bay, we collected our stored luggage and repacked ready for tomorrow's flight. A chance to catch up on some emails and some banking - the trip to ...

It was a 6 hour flight from Easter Island to Tahiti and a 5 hour time change, so I arrived at 23.30 but it felt like 04.30. I was again impressed with LAN's comfy seats, widescreen TVs and a good choice of in-flight entertainment. And we were given real cutlery and crockery for the food.... none of the flimsy plastic rubbish! A world away from rubbish American Airlines. Tahiti is the main island of French Polynesia, and it does feel very French ...

... the place and time of the event. I think Liz and Rachel thought I was kind of weird for saying that but I was fully prepared to make that pact. Not that we'd need it, really. It's official that I don't like red wine; I tried some of Rachel's and just couldn't handle it. But the white was actually not that bad, probably because it was really cheap and hardly wine at all. None of us drank very much (I'd made it really clear that I was not in the least bit comfortable with ...

... Ann brought Peet's and a melita, so we brewed good coffee at the table. Even the waiters were impressed. After breakfast, we woke the kids to tell him that we were going ashore to see if we could reach Club Bali Hai. When we reached shore ... after a long tender ride, we found ourselves next to the octagonal church at the end of Opanohu Bay. While a few t-shirt/souvenir sellers were out, there was no place to rent bikes ...

... see if we can get the hotel to hold our mail until we return on the ship - at the very end of the cruise. Deep sigh. So, after all of that, we moved out of our lovely over-the-water bungalow to garden hotel rooms. Lots of bugs and no breeze ... so we switched on the air-con to stay comfortable with the windows closed. There's a strange odor - some disinfectant, we assume. Paul and the kids went to the pool to hang out. Ann and I started down the road to the bank but part way there ...

... showered and read, while Paul, K&K snorkeled. I spent much of the day reading the book about the Cold War. After lunch, while Paul napped and the kids read, Ann and I set out for a walk. Because of the humidity, we opted to sit in the lobby and chat instead. Late afternoon, we had ice cream, arranged our hotel rooms for tomorrow night, showered, read some more, and just generally hung out. (I'd say we "chilled" - but that's impossible in this ...

... a run; Mike and Daniel walked to a store; Mum and Pas had breakfast. Paul and Keegan left at 09.30h for a scuba dive. The remainder sat around and did the serial drawing game - very interesting, especially once the small kids become involved in the process. Just before noon, Kyla, Allie, and I walked to the store for bread and apple juice. At lunch time, Paul and Keegan returned from their dive - said it was very nice - saw ...

... even before he had pulled out the fish. We (yes, even me) got into the water and held onto the anchor rope. On the other side of the line, sharks were fed fish. It was very weird being that close to that many sharks - and feeding sharks, at that. But one felt safe ... the sharks were clearly totally uninterested in us. Our next stop was again on the reef, to pet the stingrays. Beautiful animals - they again appeared in large numbers as soon as the boat anchored. Here, we ...