Catching Some Rays in French Polynesia

Catching Rays in French Polynesia

All joking aside, it really hasn’t been that sunny here in French Polynesia since we got here. So the only rays I was going to catch were the fish kind. Unfortunately, they are kind of slippery and just a little better swimmers than I am, so I didn’t actually catch one.  Since boarding the Marina and leaving the capital in Papeete, we have had a chance to explore two islands of the Leeward Group and of course have also become familiar with the ship.

We have spent three nights at sea and two full days on the cruise. We boarded the MS Marina late on  the 17^th of April and have already had three sleeps on it. It is currently Sunday, April 20, 2013 as I spit out this post. I am writing from the desk in our stateroom. Our accommodations are the nicest that we have ever enjoyed on any ship.  Oceania got it right with this ship. It is basically brand new. Mary Hart  christened it in 2011, about the same time she was retiring from her job as host of Entertainment Tonight. There is a lounge onboard dedicated to the longtime co-anchor and a big color picture of her graces the wall. There are also many other beautiful public spaces onboard and as I said, our room is great. The room we have is spacious and well designed. The bathroom is especially nice with marble throughout, a stand-up shower and a nice big bathtub.  And surprise of surprises our Steward, Kristina is same steward we had an the MS Nautica in 2011 when we sailed out of Hong Kong. It is such a small world.

Hauhine

Since touching base with you in Tahiti, the ship cruised westward from the Windward Group of islands to the Leeward Group of islands and as we woke up that first morning we were coming into Huahine about 100 nautical miles from Papeete.

Hauhine is actually not one island but two main islands and a number of smaller islets that are situated inside a beautiful protective outer reef. The dark blue of the deep water crashes over the outer reef and behind it are the protected shallow waters which are bright, azure blue. The shallow water behind the reef runs back beyond smaller islands to the main islands that rise out of the sea in jagged spires of rock, covered with tropical vegetation. Hauhine’s tropical forests are very lush and include a large number of  Acacia trees. Acacia trees are a hardwood species that grows up and then out in grand horizontal layers of green canopies. Everything grows easily in the lush red volcanic soil that erodes from the mountain peaks.

There is a big hole in the outer reef that leads into a bay between the two main islands and our ship was small enough to slide into the mouth of the inlet and then anchor in this protected cove. Once inside the bay, it was like we had taken the ship and sailed it into some freshwater lake in western Canada, with mountains on either side, that you could practically reach out and touch from the balcony of the ship. From there we began our amphibious assault of Huahine. Everyone landed via the ship's tenders and spread out to explore the sights. We chose a guided tour because it is always best to let the locals show you around. This is where I am going to tell you the sad news. Mrs. Gym bought a brand new 16-GB memory disk for this trip and although we took 50 or so great pictures of this island we could not recover them from the disk. It is unfortunate but we did have a back-up disk so we should be OK at future venues and if we ever recover the photos from Huahine I will add them to the blog.

The highpoints of the stop at Huahine for me, were a visit to the sacred eel canal and the view from the lookout point at the top of the road overlooking the bay (pictures would be great here). The sacred eels are 4 to 6 foot long black eels that have blue eyes. These eels live in a canal next to a small village, on one of the two main islands. When our group was there a gang of small children were swimming in the canal with the eels. The eels themselves probably weighed 50 pounds each and became quite visible when our guide started chumming the water with some herring. Then the eels proceeded to slither around her feet and the feet of a small girl that was hanging around the area. Their blue eyes were readily visible and if it weren’t for those eyes the locals would have eaten them. The blue-eyed eels are sacred. Following the eel visit we climbed up the mountain to that lookout spot and viewed the ship through the acacia, sitting quietly on the bay below. It was a spectacular viewpoint.

Bora Bora (and we obviously have pictures)

MS Marina in front of the main island of Bora Bora

another good shot of Bora Bora from the outer reef

Yesterday morning as we woke, we slipped in next to Bora Bora and dropped anchor for a 36-hour stopover in this paradise. It is about 60 miles from Hauhine. Shortly after dropping anchor, we were on a tender in to shore to transfer to a pontoon boat that would take us out to the reef and a couple of good snorkeling spots. The first spot was an area about chest deep where boatload after boatload of perfectly sane people stopped to jump in the water with a mess of large stingrays and black-tipped sharks that frequent the area.

Our local guide getting kissed by rays

Black tips 12 feet away

We then went to a slightly more protected cove and snorkeled with the smaller fish. Following the swim, our guide called us in to shore, for a very important lesson on coconuts. If Tom Hank’s character in Castaway had had our lesson before he became stranded on that island, the movie would not have been as funny as it was because he would have had no problems with coconuts. Upa our guide showed us the easy way to open these tasty nuts and he did it in record time. He is a nationally ranked coconut husker and coconut tree climber. And I am not kidding these are real sports down here.

snorkeling spot

hermit crab carrying his house

proper way to husk a coconut

cracking the nut

these ones that have sprouted have a marshmellow interior and it is very tasty

volcanic rocks carved on the main island and brought out to the outer islands by canoe

Today we have no tours but will tender in to the main island wharf and walk around town a bit. We have decided to definitely come back to Bora Bora some day and stay here for a week or two. Not only is it indescribably beautiful, it also just feels like a place that you can take yourself off the grid for a while and be a part of paradise. 

Tonight we turn around into a new heading that will eventually take us to South America.