AAAARRGGH!
Intruder out front
This morning we awoke to the sight
feared by land-bound tourists everywhere:
a cruise ship in our back yard!
As you can see, as we walked from our bungalow to the picnic table where
we are served breakfast each morning, we were shocked to discover a 2400-person
cruise ship parked just three hundred yards in front of our favorite snorkeling
spot. Fortunately, the passengers were
being ferried to a spot two miles away, where we anticipated every dive shop,
black pearl salesman, and tour guide were eagerly waiting to part the lucky
travelers and their cash. Just as
fortunately, we did not have to face hordes of tourists overrunning our island,
and we proceeded to have a normal day in paradise. Wonder if this is where our friends Tony and
Linda Ferren came during their recent cruise here.
Our little bungalow
Our B&B is near the northeast
end of Oponohu Bay, where the great explorer James Cook anchored during his
visit to these islands. The Polynesian scenes in the 1984 movie Bounty were
filmed here, and it is far less developed than Cook’s Bay just to the east of
us. You might be asking yourself why our
bay is not named Cook’s Bay, since there is no evidence that Captain Cook spent
any time in that other bay. The best
explanation we have heard so far is not a good one, but it goes like this: a sloppy cartographer mislabeled the two bays
on one of the first maps of Moorea, and no one ever thought it worthwhile to
change the names back. Other possible
explanations are (a) the original inhabitants didn’t think much of Cook or the
Europeans who took over the islands, and therefore didn’t want to glorify him by
naming anything in his honor, and (b) the French had no use for anything
British, and saw it as an insult to name the wrong bay for Cook. You choose.
Anyway, today was for touring the island.
Palm tree and sailboat
on Moorea
There are other little oddities we
noticed after renting a car today. The
mile markers are actually kilometer markers, and are all made in the shape of
the island. They are all on the
mountainous side of the road, and they do not face traffic, so they are almost
unnoticeable. We figure some
less-than-successful French engineer was sent here from home to work the roads and
decided to have a bit of fun. The km markers
start from the airport and go clockwise around the island, beginning with the 1
km marker. The km markers also go
counterclockwise around the island, beginning with the 1 km marker. So if you are told a particular sight is
located at the 12km marker, you have to determine which km marker to look
for. We noticed that some of the km
markers are missing—or perhaps were never placed. We also noticed that kilometers are measured
differently from time to time; for example, the 8km marker might be 1.3 km away
from the 7 km marker.
We finally gave up trying to make
sense of the km markers, drove around the island taking in the sights, and
spent the afternoon shopping for black pearls, a specialty produced here as
nowhere else. It was very educational,
as well as entertaining—at least the first 5 or 10 minutes. One of us was particularly interested in
every black pearl store and roadside stand.
So interested, in fact, that it can be reported that no pearl on the
entire island went unturned. It can also thankfully be reported that no one in our group left any cash with the black pearl salesmen. On this issue, as far as the future is concerned, one of our members is facing it with some degree of pessimism.
Tomorrow we’ve scheduled a whale
watching tour and some mountain climbing.
Stay with us.
Big longnose butterflyfish
Charlie and
Tricia
©2012
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