Blogs from French Polynesia, Oceania - page 31

Oceania » French Polynesia » Bora Bora August 29th 2008

Actually we didn’t ache at all today which was strange, but we still decided to have a relaxing day to make up for all the walking yesterday. We went to the reception and chatted to Martine about which trips were best. She turned us off the ones we’d been thinking of doing and instead we found ourselves booking one for tomorrow that we hadn’t considered that she said was amazing. It was an all day island tour with snorkelling, swimming with sharks and rays and lunch on a motu. We grabbed our beach bag and headed to the public beach which was about three minutes away. It had a wide stretch of soft white sand, with a shallow sandy bottomed lagoon that stretched as far as the eye could see. There was no coral in the ... read more

Bora Bora

Oceania » French Polynesia » Bora Bora August 28th 2008

A perfect beach

Karen and Matt

I woke up with a couple of bites today and Matt had one. I don’t think the net did much other than let mosquitos get trapped into a confined space with us. We weren’t sure what to do today as it was still windy, so after a bowl of cornflakes (which blew off my spoon as I tried to eat them outside on our patio!) we headed to the shop to buy some more coffee as the coffee we had in a plastic bag had melted in the heat. We couldn’t resist buying a fresh baguette, butter, a chocolate bread and chocolate crepe too as it all looked too tasty! Then we headed back to our room for the sanctuary of some cool air under the fan. We had some fresh baguette for lunch and debated ... read more

Moorea to Bora Bora

Oceania » French Polynesia » Bora Bora August 27th 2008

This time we saw a four masted boat as we drove to the ferry port.

Karen and Matt

We got up bright and early but I’d had a terrible headache all night and really didn’t feel good. I knew this would happen at some point in the trip - where one of us felt poorly but we still had to carry on with the change over day. I dosed up on migraine relief tablets and got ready for the long day ahead hoping that the headache wouldn’t get any worse as I already felt like being sick. We checked out at 10am and got a surprise of an additional VAT charge on our room (we’d been told about one of the taxes but there were actually two different taxes as well as the VAT!) This added an extra £60 onto the bill which wasn’t good but there wasn’t a lot we could do about ... read more

Another pic from the journey to the ferry port.

Another beautiful lagoon shot from the air

Moorea

Oceania » French Polynesia » Moorea August 26th 2008

This gives you an idea of how stable the boat was!

Karen and Matt

Today was the reason that our budget had been tight all week - we'd booked to do a whale and dolphin watching tour. Unfortunately the day didn’t start off great as I’d had really bad earache all night (I think I got some water trapped in it when snorkelling) and Matt was in pain with his leg as he’d hurt it yesterday. Luckily the trip wasn’t until lunchtime so we both took pain killers and lay on the beach reading our books until we felt a bit better. We were surprised to see that the trip was full of Australians and Americans. We’d been thinking that most tourists here were French, but actually it’s just that our hotel is French and many of the other (expensive big resort) hotels seem to be full of English speaking ... read more

This was a view from the boat of the light patches on the mountains

This is a shot of the mountains with the massive three masted boat.

Matt caught a great shot of a spinner dolphin jumping right out of the water

Moorea

Oceania » French Polynesia » Moorea August 25th 2008

View from the jetty into the water taken with our normal camera

Karen and Matt

This morning Matt demanded that we buy a coffee before having our bread and jam breakfast. I reminded him that the coffee tasted terrible here - so strong that you can almost chew it - but he still wanted to go, and I was missing caffeine so we went to the bar. The first couple of sips were satisfying, but then we had to load in the milk and sugar before we dared drink any more. By the time we’d both had a cup and a half we were practically buzzing. Sitting in the bar we had a perfect view out over the aqua water so then we just sat and watched the fish. After that we moved to the beach to carry on chatting about our plans when we get back home. The good thing ... read more

This is the octopus just before he changed colour to match the rock

It's a bit wavey but you can just make out the octpus as he turned himself pale blue

This is the beach the other side of the jetty

Society Islands Tahiti to Bora Bora

Oceania » French Polynesia August 25th 2008

Marina at Tahiti

Kim and Simon Forth

We had a wonderful time in the Society Islands. The islands are stunning. They are a mix between the Marquesas with tall lush volcanic mountains and the Tuamotus with lovely coral reefs and turquoise water. Add plenty of blue sky, four of our closest friends from Perth, and you have the ingredients for an amazing 11 days. After another windless passage from the Tuamotus to Papeete (Tahiti), we arrived with barely enough fuel to spare. We were fortunate to get a berth at Marina Taina where we got to work doing boat chores before Bec, Andrew, Jono and Mornay joined us. The French supermarket, Carefour was just down the road so provisioning was made easy with vacuum packed NZ beef, yummy French produce as well as local fruit and veg. Gas on the other hand was ... read more

Moorea

Oceania » French Polynesia » Moorea August 24th 2008

The underwater camera worked great

Karen and Matt

Another day started with bread and jam, then it was on to the beach to read our books. After a while we went out for a snorkel and tried out the underwater camera for the first time. Matt got some amazing shots. The current here was still strong so it was difficult to hold still when you wanted to watch a particular fish. Today some fish were really brave (or stupid) and came right up to us, even spending time sitting on Matt’s blue flipper while he had it on the floor to balance himself while taking some pictures. I think the angel fish are the most beautiful, but the little bright blue ones are pretty special too. We have to find a fish book from somewhere soon so that we know wha we're looking at! ... read more

These are called Neon Damsels and they were so beautiful but quite shy

These are the most common fish that we keep seeing everywhere but we have no idea what they are

Moorea

Oceania » French Polynesia » Moorea August 23rd 2008

View from the jetty

Karen and Matt

We got up early and headed to the beach so that our room could be serviced and we could come back for a feast of bread and jam for breakfast. After an hour reading on sun loungers we headed back only to find that it hadn’t been done yet so we decided to have breakfast anyway as we were starving. Full of baguette we headed back to the beach to read our books for a while to kill some time before we set off on the transfer to the nearby motu which was offered by the watersports place on the beach. It cost about £5 each and picked up at various intervals. We decided to go at 12 and come back at 4pm. The transfer was on a small boat and it only took about 5 ... read more

Moorea

Oceania » French Polynesia » Moorea August 22nd 2008

Matt laying in the lagoon

Karen and Matt

We were woken by the sounds of people going for breakfast again around 8am, and by 8.30am I’d dragged Matt out of bed so that we could go and see how expensive breakfast was in the bar. The lagoon looked very inviting even at that time in the morning when it was sunny but not too hot. We ordered a couple of crossiants and coffee each (£8 in total) and we made a pact to go and buy more bread so that we didn’t have to spend this much for breakfast again. Although we’d been missing coffee, this was more like thick sludge so we both struggled to drink it. Mid morning we headed down to the beach and spent a bit of time laying in the sun before jumping in the water to cool off. ... read more

Aug 22, 2008

Oceania » French Polynesia August 22nd 2008

morea y luna

ctucki

Geo: -17.5327, -149.838... read more

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