Day 24 – January 28, 2015

Today we were supposed to be in Rarotonga, Cook Islands. The Cook Islands were originally populated during the Polynesian migration in 1500BC. While the culture has adapted to modern times, traditional arts such as weaving, carving and painting are still taught and valued. It is surrounded by a sapphire blue lagoon and is dominated by a soaring dormant volcano that is uneroded.

However, we did not stop, as the waves were too heavy for us to tender in past the reef. Hence no sand for my friend that is a sand collector. We had a plan A to tender into town and then a Plan B to tender further down the island, but in neither case did the captain feel that it was safe enough. Therefore all we saw was from the deck and our veranda. Here are few of the things that we saw from the ship. The good thing is it gives us another sea day.

Just found out we are also skipping our next port of Alofi, sorry to hear this as there is a brewery there we were going to try and find. However, there is a tropical storm at Alofi with 60 mph winds and 12 foot seas and the captain thought it would be better to bypass the port as we were suppose to be docked there. So, the next port will be Nukualofa, Tonga. We were supposed to get there on Monday, but will now get there on Saturday evening and stay through Monday. Because we cross the dateline before Tonga, we will miss Friday completely. We will go to bed Thursday night and get up Saturday morning. We will see the Super Bowl on 2/2 instead of 1/1 as we will be a day ahead of you all. Everyone have a great weekend.

Day 22 – January 26, 2015

Today we were in Bora Bora. The most beautiful island that we have seen. It was originally called Pora Pora (meaning first born) since the Tahitians did not have the letter “B” in their vocabulary.

It is dubbed the most romantic island in the world and there are many resorts here with Tiki houses over the water, as you will see in one or two pictures. They say they go for $2000 per night, but I am guessing that is the high season, summer, as now they are mostly empty. This is the rainy season. You can smell hibiscus wherever you go. Legend has it that the island was fished from the sea by the supreme god Taaro shortly after he created Raiatea. The water is crystal clear, as you can see in some of the pictures. They have giant manta rays and beautiful fish, as well as some yellow sharks. Black pearls are the hot commodity here, but again very expensive in these islands.

We did a non-ship tour on a 3 hull pontoon boat. There were just 12 of us as well as the driver. We stopped at many lagoons and saw manta rays, fish and the sharks. The water was so nice and warm it felt like a bath. It was cloudy, but did not rain till late in the day, and we were done at 1. These private tours are about half the cost of the ones from the ship and are much smaller.

Day 20 - 21 – January 24 -25, 2015

We are here in Tahiti for a day and a half. We arrived at noon on Saturday. The name of the town is Papeete. Tahiti is the largest island of French Polynesia and is the capital. Tahiti has the most extensive and complex off-roading/ 4x4 road system in the Polynesian Islands. There are also a lot of hiking and walking trails. Again, this is an expensive island. There is only one road and it circles the island.

On Saturday we just went ashore for a short while to see Marche’ Municipale, a market that is right downtown. It was open only till 1 PM on Saturday and only till 8 AM Sunday and we wanted to make sure we saw it. Papeete is a very typical city in Polynesia. You do not feel like you are on a tropical island with the old buildings and traffic.

It is very rainy here. They had a tropical storm that went south and then turned around and came back on them. So it rained some on Saturday and a lot on Sunday. On Sunday we got a taxi to take us around the island with 6 other people from the ship. We left at 8:45AM and got back about 2:30. We were able to see a beautiful island. We saw the Venus light house, where they were having a surfing competition. This was a black sand beach and you could see everything that was washed up from the big waves from the storm. We visited a great blow hole, which Steve just has movies of. There were many waterfalls coming down from the hills. We visited a fern grotto called Grotte de Maraa, where Captain Cook used to send his men for water. We also visited a sacred burying ground, Arahurah, where they buried the dead under the lava stone. The black stones are all slanted up so they can see God. Lastly we visited what they call a white sand beach. We stopped for lunch at Restaurant and Bar, du Musee’ Gaugun. The actual museum is closed for renovations and has been for two years. This is a French speaking island.

I am sorry but for some reason the pictures do not load in order, so I know it is hard to follow with them.