If we could go back, we would have done today on day 1--what a way to see this beautiful island. We took a tour of the entire island by boat and stopped here and there to hear the tahitian legends or jump in the water. Quite the experience...
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| This has no filter. The water really is tinged turquoise. |
We were picked up at 8 am and headed out to see the island. Picture Moorea like a giant animal paw with 3 toes, the bottom of the island is one mass and the North shore of the island is broken into 3 land masses by two bays--Cooks Bay and Oponohu Bay. We stayed along the Northeast corner of the island (along the 3rd toe, if you will :) Our boat sailed along the northern coast and explored both bays. The first bay is called Cooks Bay, named after the famous Captain James Cook who is also notorious for his "discovery" of the Hawaiian islands. The entrance to the bay is home to a giant reef, which Cook failed to indicate on his maps of Moorea--apparently there are plenty of shipwrecks because of this.
It is from this bay that you see the best view of Moorea's mountain, which adorns all of the francs of French Polynesia.
After checking out Cooks Bay, we continued along to Oponohu bay which is also stunning. After Oponohu, John jumped in the water with our guide to see the tiki men at the bottom of the ocean. It is said that when missionaries first arrived on Moorea they were outraged by the monotheistic culture. Tahitians worshipped multiple gods--a god of the sea, a god of the wind, etc...the main elements or life forces were paid tribute to through carved tiki men (much like the little tourist carvings you've seen). The missionaries were furious and took all of the precious tiki and tossed them into the ocean. In tribute, about 20 years ago a local man recarved the tiki and placed them in the bottom of the lagoon, to remember the tiki, as well as the missionaries who were so hasty to discard the culture and spirituality of the Tahitian people.
On the Northwestern tip of the island, after Oponohu bay, there is a sandbar right in the middle of the ocean. It was here that we stopped to swim with the stingrays (as well as a few sharks!!) More photos of this to come later...
After the stingrays and sharks, we stopped at a private Motu (a motu is a tiny tiny island, that apparently is not big enough to call an island) We played in the water and walked on the beach, looking across the lagoon to the previous Club Med site which has now been abandoned for 10 years or so (the lease was up and a price could not be agreed upon)
It truly felt like we washed ashore on the island featured in Castaway, I kept looking for Tom Hanks, but... I guess he was busy.
After the motu stop, the rest of the tour was onboard the boat where we had fresh fruit and pineapple juice. John immediately became BFF with one of the tour guides and was chatting it up the ENTIRE time, leading to the tour guide slipping him cups of the local Tahitian beer in lieu of pineapple juice. He told us everything you could imagine about the island and answered any and all questions we could come up with. The last leg of the tour was extremely windy and we even got a bit of rain--I didn't mind it but the Italians on board it seemed had never seen or been in the rain, lol.
The tour ended around 12:30 and we headed back to our dock where it ended up being a beautiful day.
John snorkeled, I watched. We read, played more farkle, and stared at the crystal blue water until dinner where we got the American buffet, and realized later it cost a fortune! Ooops.
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