Not Normally a Threat to Humans

11 Hours sleep for me, things looked a bit better after that. Florence had already been up for an hour or so and been for a walk. Start the day with a buffet breakfast, lots of choice of fruit, bread, cheese, juice, etc. Our plan was to stock up on breakfast and miss lunch – didn’t look like that would be a problem. Local wildlife also helps itself to breakfast – a bird steals some rice form a neighbouring table, a couple of other birds try their luck on the cheese plate.

Stopped at the excursion desk after breakfast to book our activities for the next few days – we’re going to be busy!

Wandered back to our rooms and changed for our morning swim, read a bit while we dry off. Surprised to see people eating lunch already – where did the morning go? I think this is what they mean by island time.

Our first activity was a snorkelling trip. Moorea, like many of the French Polynesian Islands, is surrounded by a coral reef. We were driven round to the eastern end of the island which looks out towards Tahiti to meet our boat. On the way we have the sea to the left and the jagged green volcanic hill-tops to the right. Its incredibly beautiful, the colours of the flowers, the sky and the water seem to be turned up to 11. Florence described it as walking through a technicolour film.

It was a short cruise to the snorkelling point, there was already a boat moored when we arrived. This was a snorkel with a difference, we stayed in one place, hanging onto to ropes slung between buoys while scraps of fish were thrown into the water to attract sharks and stingrays. This dubious practice was worsened by the encouragement to ‘ride’ the rays by grabbing their mouths from above and holding on while they swim off.

Once the feeding finished the majority of people lef, leaving us in peace to enjoy many many varieties of fish. The sharks and rays still hung around, it’s fascinating to see them close up – very close up. The sharks are blacktip reef sharks, about 1.6m long, they pose little threat to people. They are one of the commonest sharks in the Pacific, they mainly eat small fish and crustaceans as well as occasional birds.

The stingrays are nearly 2m across, their eyes and gills are on the dark grey tops of their bodies, their mouths are on their white underside. They are a very impressive site as they gently wave their wings to move along.

Back to the hotel, we decided to carry on with our watery afternoon and went for quick snorkel off the beach. There were no sharks and rays to be seen but still a lot of many-coloured fish to entertain us.

Last night, the clouds built up in late afternoon removing any chance of a sunset but tonight we were luckier, not a huge flaming red sky but some beautiful pastel colours as the sun disappeared behind the mountains.

We celebrated our first full day here with happy hour cocktails, fruity rum concoctions that would be very out of place in London but went down very well here.