Papeete, Tahiti and Moorea

Remember those sand midges I mentioned in my last blog? Well, they got me. My arms are covered with red, itchy welts and I have some on my legs and shoulders, too. I think they’re first cousins of the no-see-ums that inhabit the southern states. I guess I was too cavalier about them. I’ll try to heed the warnings a little better in the future.

I have to tell about Sunday’s football games. Lots of people were anxious to see the games and it was a mystery as to whether the ship would have satellite reception or not. Rumors and guesses were flying. Ten AM Sunday came and no football. So Ed got our computer and took it to the ship’s sport bar and logged onto NFL.com, from which he could read the plays as they happened. The first game didn’t draw much of a crowd but the Green Bay/New York game did and Ed was in his element, doing play-by-play commentary for almost 4 hours. More and more people came until the crowd was 3-4 deep. Since it was costing Ed each minute to have it on, someone got a casino bucket and attached a sign to it that said “Donations for Ed’s Internet minutes”. We collected $112.50 in the bucket, most of which we’re donating to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Then someone else sent around a petition for asking Holland America to credit Ed’s internet account. The whole day was a lot of fun and now Ed is very popular on the ship among the sports fans.

Tahiti and Moorea!! They’re only about 10 miles apart but might as well be 10 centuries apart. Papeete was, for the most part, a disappointment, but Moorea was a very pleasant surprise. When I envisioned Tahiti it was a lush, unspoiled island of sun and sand and palm trees and beautiful women in colorful clothes and brown-skinned men in flowered shirts. But in reality that’s Moorea. Papeete is a city with lots of traffic, people and run down buildings. We did get to see the home of James Norman Hall, who is the author of Mutiny on the Bounty. He came here from Iowa to research a book about the South Pacific and never left.

We sailed into Moorea at 8AM and our approach brought to mind the original King Kong movie where they go into the interior of the country looking for the big gorilla. The only thing missing was the savages doing their sacrificial dance. This is the island where the scenic shots in the movie Bali Hai were filmed. It’s a perfect combination of rocky peaks and lush green hillsides. We went on a 4X4 Safari Adventure in an 8-passenger open-air truck which climbed the hills on steep, muddy dirt roads with lots of switchbacks. The highest climb ended at Magic Mountain with panoramic views of the bay and the majestic peaks surrounding it. I’m struggling to find the words to describe what we experienced. Everyone we talked to on the ship agrees that this is one of the most beautiful places on Earth and must be seen to be appreciated.

That’s all for now. I’m suffering from sand midge bites and writer’s block.