Woke around 6:00 this morning, it’s already light but there’s quite a lot of grey in the sky and the ground is wet – it’s clearly rained quite hard overnight. Breakfast begins at 6:30 – presumably because anyone who comes from the U.S. or further east wakes early for a few days while they adjust to the time difference. The advantage of an early breakfast is that there is plenty of choice, although we’ve only managed to find avocado on one day so far. The fruit choice looked good today so I loaded a plate with passion fruit, pineapple and mango, like so much here the colours and flavours are turned up to 11.
We were in reception at 8:00 for our pickup for today’s activity – a catamaran trip around the Lagoon that surrounds the island (this is Monday’s trip that we re-arranged to today due to bad weather). Our captain for the voyage was Arnaud. His mum, Odille, picked us up and took us to the boat. She’s lived here for 2 years but 40 years on various French overseas islands. She told us that after 40 years of sun, she wakes every morning hoping for rain. It’s a short drive to the catamaran, we’re lucky – it’s just the two of us today. We sail across the mouth of Ōpūnohu Bay and along the coast of the island, it’s still quite rough outside the lagoon so we stay on the calm waters inside. The bay has been accepted by UNESCO as World Heritage site and will be added to the official list soon. The views were amazing, on one side a clear blue sky and beautiful blue water, turquoise where it’s shallow and richer blue in the deeper areas. On the landside, the spike green covered mountains tower above the ocean, clouds swirl around the summits. Some sufers were waiting for waves next to a gap in the reef at the mouth of the bay.
After about 45 minutes, we stopped at a shallow area where rays and sharks congregate, this time there’s no feeding. We stood on the bottom while the sharks swam round us, although we’ve been told they are completely safe it’s still a bit unnerving. As well as the two big attractions, there are numerous smaller fish smimming around.
Back on board, we’re given a cool pineapple juice to refresh us before the next stop. This was a channel between two small islands, the water is incredibly clear. The area is protected so fishing isn’t allowed. The fish seem to know this and congregate in large numbers. There was a huge variety of colours, shapes and sizes – and they were much less timid than usual. Two rays seemed to enjoy swimming around us. The journey back is partly under sail – so peaceful to glide along across the beautiful water. Arnaud gives us a small Mai Tai cocktail and a plate of fresh fruit to keep us going. All too soon we’re back at our starting place, a very memorable morning.
We had a quick swim in the pool before walking into town for lunch, a slightly eccentric salad with couscous, cheese and tofu as well as some fresh vegetables. This wasn’t enough for Florence who had spotted a patisserie sign. We chose a banana cake and a pineapple cake to share. I also ordered an expresso. I added some sugar and took a sip – it was disgusting! Then it sank in – that was a salt bowl on the table not sugar. The clue may have been the two packets of sugar on the saucer – I’d thought that was odd. I ordered another and explained my mistake, they were very nice about it and didn’t charge me… but did tell everyone else what I’d done.
Back to the hotel, we took out a kayak for a paddle along the coast, there’s quite a strong current today so we went upstream first then back which should have been easier but somehow wasn’t.
Our next maritime adventure was to try out paddle-boarding. We didn’t go outside the hotel beach area but just had a go to see how it felt. It starts off very wobbly but it soon starts to feel okay, the hardest part for me was getting off without falling in.
Took a few photos around the hotel and watched the sunset – it’s our last night tonight. We then cleaned up for the evening and went back to the Moorea Beach Cafe for dinner. We had a very nice meal and bottle of wine by the sea, fish were jumping, crabs wandering on the beach.
Yet another excellent day.
Why are the colours so amazing? It was also true when you were in South America. Is the U.K. Really so lacking in colour? Maybe urbanisation has made everything drab here? Amazing photos! Andy I bet you’re not the first one to put salt in your expresso. But are you developing a bit of a sweet tooth? You don’t want to become like those toothless pirates (with their rum distilled from raw sugar cane).
I was just thinking this morning that bright colours have been a feature of our trip right back to Mexico. London probably is drab compared with this, it was certainly a feature of Central America that almost anything that could be painted bright colours was. Here its nature – fish, flowers, sky, sea – its all so vivid.
I do like a small sugar in my coffee, unless its very good coffee – I’ll be careful with the rum, thanks for the warning.
Fruity! Nice pictures (even more than normal!).
How are you getting on with apple tree yard? I don’t want to give any spoilers until you’ve seen all 4 episodes. It is at least a great depiction of the grey veil across all scenes of London. Enjoy the colour while you can!
Watched three put of four – don’t give away the end!