Sailing into Tahiti the satellite internet was finally activated and we now have to pay for our internet access (it has been free up to now). Hence the beginning of an era of sporadic updates of this blog has begun as I need my precious internet minutes for research (yes we do actually do university work here). Hopefully though, I will still have the chance to update you with the happenings aboard this crazy and mind blowing ship.
So… Back to my whistle stop tour of Tahiti.
We had to evacuate yet another student for a medical emergency on our trip to Tahiti so our arrival in Papeete was a day and a half later than expected. So rather than having two full days to explore, we only had 28 hours (much of which we would be sleeping). So my extravagant plans for hiking to a waterfall one day and snorkelling the next kind of didn't happen. However, this was still a lovely break.
Up until now for every single port we have been to we have had at least one piece of assessment based on our experiences. These are usually intercultural communication papers. While I have no problem with completing them, they tend to frame your time in the country and you see everything through the eyes of your intercultural communication paper, or as if you were an international mediator (one of my other classes). But Tahiti was to be our 'mid-semester break'. Therefore I had nothing, not even a small assessment task to guide my experience here. And to be honest at first I felt a little lost. With nothing specific to seek out in the country, and a reduced amount of time I felt a little bit lost for the first hour or two. So I did what I do best – headed to a local market to see where the adventure took me.
The market here on the main island of Tahiti was hot, dusty and full of people and noise. Some of it was touristy, but in the middle of the (mainly) German tourists were also the locals buying their fresh produce and meats and fish. It was an interesting juxtaposition seeing a sarong painter sitting next to the local fish monger. This just made the experience more colourful and exciting. I could have gone wild in these markets and the Polynesians love their pretty patterns on skirts, tops and dresses, but this is the first port we have been to where every day souvenirs are really out of the budget of students. Unlike Central and South America where we could afford to buy anything in a shop here the prices were even more expensive than we had seen in Athens (and I thought that was pretty bad). So my purchases were limited to some coconut soap and a few sarongs. I hate to think how the local people can afford to live because I most definitely could not afford to eat in restaurants here or even shop in the markets for basic food and produce.
Despite this, I did treat myself to a coffee and a cheese platter overlooking the ocean with some friends to celebrate making it half way through our voyage. Being a French colony the food in Tahiti is fantastic. The menu looked stunning, however the cheese platter and coffee still cost us $18 a head and that was the cheapest thing on the menu. Still it is amazing how long you can make coffee and cheese last, so I am pretty sure that we got our moneys worth!
After a relaxing couple of hours in a coffee shop we went for a walk around down town Papeete. There are lots of parks and green space in the city which is clean and well maintained. There is also a beautiful board walk connecting the port area to uptown along the water. At night it was slightly shady, but during the day it was a lovely walk.
At night the square in front of the port area came to life. There were about 20 food vans and music. Locals and tourists came to eat some of the cheapest food that you could find in Tahiti. You could have eaten pizza, hamburgers, chips or an assortment of other 'imported' fast food. My friends and I settled on Crepes figuring that these were at least French, even if they weren't traditional Tahitian. And they were yummy! It was nice to spend a meal away from the ship with a smaller group of people. It was also rather a novelty to pick what you wanted to eat from a menu rather than a buffet. After making ourselves feel sick with both savoury and sweet crepes and milkshakes we headed for a walk around the waterfront in an attempt to find some night life. Finding none, and being exhausted we headed back to the ship for a reasonably early night.
My second day in Tahiti was more of what I had expected. I had signed up for one of the shore excursions offered by The Scholar Ship. And man was it fantastic. My excursion was a cruising and snorkelling tour of Moorea (a neighbouring island). First of all it was a beautiful island to look at! We headed off the ship at 7 am and caught the first ferry to Moorea at 7:15. The boat was a catamaran and far less stable than ours which made us all appreciate our wonderful ocean going vessel. The trip took about half and hour and watching Moorea come into focus was stunning.
The island is an incredible combination of jutting mountains and beautiful blue – blue sky and blue water. The mountains were rough and looked impossible to pass. However they were covered in what appeared to be lush tropical rainforest. There didn't appear to be any houses or settlements on these rather imposing looking mountains. This was contrasted with the brilliant blue (and calm) of the water. There were probably 10 or 12 different shades of brilliant blue depending on how close the water was to shore and whether there was reef or not. I would have had a fantastic day if all I did was look at this amazing scene. But there were better things to come!
Our first item on the agenda was to jump in a bright yellow bus to a small boat and then to take a tour of the island by sea. We saw the various bays where Captain Cook had landed and charted the island. And various wrecks of French naval vessels caused mainly by French incompetence (coupled with their passion for a bit of a drink). I have a feeling that our entertaining guide, Terry, didn't like the French too much.
Our first stop was a sand bank to swim with sting rays. This was fantastic. There were maybe 15 sting rays on the sandbank who didn't seem too concerned by the fact that 20 of us had invaded their space. They swam over our feel, arms and shoulders. There were also about 4 black tipped reef sharks, which came to see what all the commotion was about. I had broken off from the group and was exploring some coral when I discovered that I was being circled by three of the sharks and they had cut me off from the group. This freaked me out slightly, but they must have been well fed because after about 5 minutes they got bored and went off to scare somebody else.
After about half an hour in the water with these guys we jumped back in the boat and headed to our private island for the rest of the day. It was in the middle of a lagoon where we spent the day swimming and exploring the coral, feeding some more sting rays which shelter in the bay and eating a beautiful local style BBQ. The day ended with Christy and I sitting on deck chairs in the dabbled sunlight with a beer in one hand and our feet being lapped by the water as the tide came in. I could not think of a more relaxing way to spend my mid-semester break. It was truly a fantastic day.
At about 1:30 in the afternoon, just as the sun was starting to get a bit nasty, we headed back on the boat to the Island of Moorea, boarded the ferry and headed back to the main island. Everything went like clockwork and we were back at the dock at 3:30 pm to get back on the ship by our required hour of 4 pm. Then all too soon we were waving good bye to Tahiti and sailing back to sea. Our 'weekend' was over and it was back to the usual life on the ship.
I write this on deck looking out at a grey sky, grey clouds and inky water. Hopefully this weather won't follow us all the way to our next port (Auckland). We have a short stretch at sea this time – 5 days. Well 6 really, but the 2nd of November won't exist for us as this is the day that we cross the international dateline. So all too soon we will be in my neighbouring country – New Zealand. It seems that the semester is slipping away from me. We only have the ports of Auckland, Sydney, Shanghai, Macau and Hong Kong ahead of us before this adventure is all over. Even though I have only been here for two months, I find it hard to believe that sometime soon I will have to go back to the real world where I won't visit a new port every week or so. But for now, I will push those thoughts from my mind and continue on with this grand adventure.
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