Nuku Hiva, Marquesas
After four days at sea which, thankfully, got progressively smoother and less 'confused', we anchored in the same beautiful bay in Nuku Hiva as in 2009. The ship looked fabulous floating there with the high mountains almost encircling it. Last time we had a Marquesan Festival on the shore because they didn't have any facilities for tours of the island, but 8 years later we were able to go in 4x4s up over the mountains to a beautiful valley with a river flowing down to the ocean. This was good for 2 reasons: no Marquesan Festival meant no chance to get food poisoning like Al did last time, causing him to miss Papeete, and - we got to see the interior of Nuku Hiva. Luscious tropical greenery covered the hillsides, similar to Hawaiian islands, and we had gorgeous views of many more lovely bays around the island. It's very tiny, so we might have seen them all! It was very oppressively hot and humid down in the town but cooler and breezy where we went. Afterward we walked around a bit and saw the open air rustic catholic 'cathedral' and a few other tiki-type stone carvings along the shoreline of the bay, and that was about it! It's really just a stop for the ships after the 4 long days from Hawaii (or 8 days from LA, which was what we did in 2009). But it's really beautiful and whets the appetite for the main course - French Polynesia.
So on to the Society Islands where we stopped first at Rangiroa, a new port for us. Turns out it's just an enormous atoll, so vast it has its own horizon and even its own weather within it. But atolls are perfectly flat so there is no beauty about it, and the port where we anchored is just a few trinket shops, a couple of restaurants and small houses, with a few locals selling hand made crafts. It also has a lot of heat! That was today's weather in Rangiroa Atoll for sure! But the reasons for the stop there is so people can visit a pearl farm and/or snorkel. Rangiroa has some of the best of both those activities anywhere, so it is claimed. Evidently there was a recent TV documentary about the quantity and quality of Rangiroan pearls, so that seems confirmed. Many people participated in that tour, but we have already seen a pearl farm and weren't shopping for any, so we walked around and saw everything ashore in about 10 minutes, and then went snorkeling. Haven't snorkeled a bunch, but those on the boat who had been a lot said it was maybe the best they'd ever seen. It was really beautiful to me: many, many, many colorful fish, many, many, many sharks (I was very brave), needle fish, eels, corals of all colors and types, and so on. We were starting to experience that incomparable turquoise water of the Polynesian Islands and of course it felt really refreshing. So in a small way, the other claim about Rangiroa was also confirmed. Should have had an underwater camera. We will get one before The Great Barrier Reef!
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| Our Cruise Director was trying out his drone here |
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| These kayakers race the ship's tenders back and forth for practice |
Papeete seemed unchanged to us - busy and hot. We visited the big colorful fish, produce, flower and souvenir market, ate lunch there, and bought a flower arrangement for our suite, but didn't do much else until our trip around the island. We left the city to visit several viewpoints of the coast, black sand beaches, a pretty garden, and Venus Point which is the spot where Captain Cook and his astronomer observed Venus' transit of the sun during his 1769 voyage. The island is really beautiful but it takes getting out of Papeete to realize it. We made a complete circuit of the whole island.
That night the pool deck was transformed into a restaurant for everyone on the ship to enjoy a Polynesian Buffet. It was a gargantuan task for the crew to stow all the lounges and other furnishings and set up tables for 450, as well as buffet tables for all the food, ice sculptures, band and dance floor. It was decorated with tropical foliage and flowers, and beforehand we had an excellent local troupe performing Tahitian traditional dances and music. We sailed away as we dined under the stars of a clear evening. It was masterfully and elegantly executed. When the last tables were being cleared away, the Maitre D' and the Headwaiter took off their jackets and jumped in the pool in celebration of a successful evening! They did a magnificent job and it was all for our entertainment - this is some crew we have!
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| Gaugin Restaurant Ladies Room - why wouldn't you decorate the sink! |
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| Flowers for our room! |
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| Papeete from top deck of our ship |
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| Marche Municipale |
Best for last...Bora Bora. Completely gorgeous -
outrageously so. Such a small dot of an island, but surrounded by an atoll containing a lagoon with water that is just indescribable and capped by a castle-like mountain that just takes your breath away. The water shades from blue to light turquoise and the green mountain rules over all. It's just...wow. This is as good as it gets anywhere, folks, at least in our experience.
We took an off-road trip that took us all around the island (20 miles) and up some of the steepest, most rugged tracks we've ever done. It had rained hard the days before we arrived and the ruts were at least knee-deep mud. Our goal was the view from high on the mountain down over the bays, motus, atoll...and of course, that water. This is how you see the beautiful color and how it changes from the coastline, through the lagoon all the way to the atoll. Sooo beautiful! There are numerous hotels with lovely over-the-water guest bungalows on both the island and the atoll. We took various tracks , each affording different perspectives, and at the last one saw a couple of big guns from WWII still guarding the island. We also had a short break at the Bloody Mary's Bar/Restaurant - complete with view, sand floor, and ... Bloody Marys! It was a spectacular day!
We ate lunch ashore and I wandered briefly into a couple of pearl shops but went back to the ship after pricing one strand of huge, perfectly matched, aubergine color for $228,000! It was spectacular, too!
At the sail-away, everyone was on deck watching and listening to 'sail away' music such as 'Bali Hai' from South Pacific, Louie Armstrong 'It's a Beautiful World', Chris Cross 'Sailing' and so on. It was actually emotional! The captain kept the ship at the perfect angle and slow speed for at least an hour and a half so we could watch Bora Bora fade into the dusky distance. I couldn't stop watching it, knowing we would most likely never be back. We know how lucky we are to have experienced this magical place three times, but this last visit was just as perfect and satisfying as the first. Not many places are that special!
Ok, American Samoa is quite a step down from Bora Bora! It is surely a beautiful super-green south Pacific island, but there is really nothing of any note to see there. We went on separate trips - Al went east and I went west but comparing the pictures, neither one of us missed anything significant. He saw a minor Ocean Center a pretty beach, and a Camel Rock formation, I saw a Flower Pot Rock, the Tsunami Memorial, a rocky coastline, and a demonstration of local cooking using an in-ground oven at a small contrived 'typical' village. In other words, not much. Some observations: They bury their dead relatives in the front or back yard (you got the back yard if they didn't really care for you), and since the homes are handed down through the family, some of them have a lot of dead bodies around! Many of the houses have an open-air roofed 'guest house' (we might call it a pavillion) where the extended family can get together - not including the dead ones😉. Also, now we understand why the NFL has so many players from American Samoa. These are big people! Anyway, don't go out of your way.
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