French Polynesia day 2

      Welcome committee at Papeete Airport

      As we approached the Tahiti airport in the dark this morning, it was immediately apparent that this is no sparsely populated island.  Thousands of lights seemed greeted us from the ground, much as they would have done from any small U.S. city.  After passing through customs and catching a cab to the ferry dock around 6 a.m., this impression was confirmed as we rode a modern highway past a very long commercial district, at last arriving at a huge port, complete with giant cruise ship and hundreds of cargo containers awaiting loading on other vessels.

While we waited for the 7:35 ferry  to Moorea, it seemed a good time to brush up on the local language—or languages.  Tahitian and French are the official languages (actually the French insist their language is it), and I thought it would be cool to impress the locals with a few words of Tahitian.  Pulling out the trusty Lonely Planet guide book, where twenty or so Polynesian words are listed in the language section, you find the Tahitian terms for such things as bra, dentist, goat, and submarine.  You also notice the words for accelerator, ambulance, dentist, hospital, and horse.  What you do not notice is any word that you might conceivably use in a first conversation with a foreign stranger.  It would have been nice to know how to say “hello” or “my name is Charlie”.  Or perhaps, “how much?”  “Where is the restroom?”  “Please give me some money.”  Anything but “goat, horse, ambulance, or submarine to dentist?”

            So before 8 in the morning you have visited two French Polynesian islands without knowing a single usable word in the local language, much less why the language is called Tahitian instead of Polynesian.  But we will learn as we go along.  Perhaps we will learn why there is a need for Tahitian words for submarine, or accelerator.  First, we must board the ferry.

Ferry for Moorea at 6 in the morning

            The first nervousness of the trip came when we realized the seasick medicine had been left behind.  As we left the harbor and the misty view of an island out of a King Kong movie loomed in the distance, the memory of my extreme propensity to seasickness turned into a bit of fear.  We knew the trip would take only 30 minutes or so, but as the waves grew and the ship pitched and rolled, the old nauseous feeling began to swell up.  As Moorea drew closer, one of us became closer and closer to running to the rail and feeding the fish below with their only warm meal of the day.  Just as the urge approached the overwhelming level, we crossed a break in the reef and were suddenly in perfectly calm water.   It was a close call.

 Approaching Moorea

            We had arranged to be met at the dock by a car and driver, who dutifully appeared with the name Smith on a little sign.  He also had other names on the sign, and we were soon loaded into a 9-seater van with approximately 75 German tourists and their luggage.  Our driver was a happy local fellow who waved at every passing vehicle and every person on the side of the road with the one arm he was able to move freely outside the vehicle.  He even showed us how to make the sign for “I love you”, which we then noticed he was giving all his friends along the way—you use two fingers and a thumb with this particular greeting.

            As we drove along the beautiful coastline, admiring the hundred shades of blue on our left and 10 million coconut trees on our right, the driver pointed out  a whale swimming on the surface only a hundred yards offshore; he tells us we can take a whale watching tour while we are here.  Gotta put seasick medicine at the top of the to do list.

            We were greeted at our B&B, Fare Vaihere, by Philipe and Corrinne, with a hibiscus-garlanded ice cold coconut full of fresh coconut water (they don’t call it milk here).  The water was sweet and delicious, and we promptly crashed on a couple of chaise longues at the waterfront to recuperate from the 27-hour trek from St. Marys.

Polynesian beauty with coconut water at Fare Vaihere

            By noon we had recuperated sufficiently to journey out for lunch, and were directed to Chez Fifi, a roadside eatery 50 meters or so from our little bungalow.  There we began our planned restraint on food consumption with chicken and shrimp salads with one liter of water.  Unfortunately the first real crisis of the trip occurred at this point, as one of us noticed the long list of homemade ice cream posted on the wall.  There was pistachio, coconut, honey of Tahiti—even Skippy peanut butter flavor.  After much agonizing, Tricia agreed she would help if I would place an order for the Chocolate Grand Marnier.  They were out of the quart-sized bowls at the moment, so we enjoyed a small serving, unfortunately without much help from Tricia.  You can only imagine how delicious the homemade Chocolate Grand Marnier ice cream can be at Chez Fifi—who would have ever imagined, or even hoped for:  ice cream in paradise!

 First beach view on Moorea

            Newly energized, we biked along the nice island road, stopping often and admiring the sea and the mountainous terrain, our photographer busy memorializing the trip.  Later in the afternoon we donned fins, masks and snorkels, trying out the little underwater camera on the many-colored tropical fish, most of whom had no interest in posing or even coming close to the lens.  But we did get in some practice and hope to improve.  The coral was mostly dead but the fish are beautiful and the water clear with 50 feet or so of visibility just offshore.

 Lemonpeel angelfish on the reef out front

            After a fine dinner of tuna and all the accompanying vegetables, and after much conversation with the guests from Australia and San Francisco, sleep came quickly.  But we can hardly wait to begin the next day.

Charlie and Tricia

© 2012