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| A scenic view during our visit to Moorea. |
Let’s face it. We’ve seen a lot of islands, most volcanic, some less so, some stunning, others with similarities we’ve seen on past cruises and in our travels. Getting off the ship at every port is less important to us than some others who are on vacation/holiday.
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| This is the interior of the lifeboat which tendered us to the pier in Moorea. |
For us, we happen to be living on a ship for 18 days, using it as a means of transportation, as we’ve always had, and sightseeing is not on our radar every day in our travels.
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| Huts above the water. |
As I write this we’re sitting in the cool and comfortable Schooner Bar on deck four with air conditioning, comfy chairs, and a nice little table onto which I can set the laptop as I write.
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| More huts above the water often for rent for higher prices than a regular hotel rooms |
After we’ve uploaded today’s post, we’ll be going ashore to grab a taxi to take us to see some sites and take photos to post here tomorrow.
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| Mountain scenes in every direction. |
We’re in Papeete, Tahiti. As much as one thinks of Tahiti as girls dancing in hula skirts, palm trees, and icy drinks, when we look outside, we see only a city with tall buildings, traffic, noise, and smog. Surely, a drive away from the city one would easily find that the tropical image we have in our mind exists.
When most tourists visiting a destination such as Tahiti, they grab a taxi or shuttle to take them to their tropical resort which most likely will be a paradise-like environment of all that bespeaks tropical vacation. Only leaving the resort for tours and dining, its an entirely different experience than for our way of life.
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| Another boat passing us as the sky darkened and it began to rain. |
In any case, we’re loving this cruise for the people and the friendships we continue to build each day at breakfast, dinner, and the other venues around the ship. How we got so lucky, we’ll never know. But, we continue to revel in our surroundings on all terms and during all conditions.
Tom is seated at a table a few tables over from me with a favorite couple we’ve met, Renee and Jeff, older than us, more fun than one can imagine.
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| The boat stopped to pick up debris floating in the ocean. |
After the game and my uploading today’s post, the four of us are heading out to take a taxi to see the sites for an hour or two. I have to stay away from their table while they play due to my open computer which may broadcast to the other players that potentially we could “cheat” looking up answers online. Of course, we’d never do such a thing but, we certainly understand the possible perception.
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| Huts built into the hill with a sandy beach below. |
Last night, we avoided the show after another fabulous dinner with new people we met at a shared time and again this morning at breakfast meeting another lovely couple. We were almost the last of the diners to exit the dining room.
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| Lots of parasailing. |
Today, we’re completing the posting photos from yesterday’s boat tour in Moorea, Society Islands, French Polynesia. We were able to take a good video of spinner dolphins but, when I attempted to upload it to YouTube, the timer stated it would take 2462 hours to finish. We may post it on a future date when we have a stronger signal. Tomorrow, we’ll be back with photos from today’s tour of Papeete, Tahiti.
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| Finally, we were back on the ship. |
As of today, we’ve been on the ship for one week. With many days remaining and the level of enjoyment, we’re experiencing this may go down as one of our favorite cruises for the social element. As for the ports of call, they are proving to be similar to many other ports we seen to date and more we’ll see in the future.
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| A close-up view of a hut over the water. |
Have a restful Sunday. We’ll excitedly be back tomorrow.
Photo from one year ago today, May 31, 2014:
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| Tom was relaxed in Madeira while we were out to dinner in Ribeira Brava, the closest village to Campanario where we lived for two and a half months. For details from that post, please click here. |