Last Words on the Pacific

Throughout my month-long trip to Hawaii and Tahiti, I was periodically shooting film footage on my new mini-video cam.  I managed to upload just one of those clips into the blog, and it took so long that I decided to do the rest after I got home.  This involved a lot of updating of the various original posts.  Follow the links below and you'll come to the appropriate posts, where you can scroll down to find the video clips now embedded.

To start with: some coastal surf and bodyboard surfing in Tahiti.

At Sea in Polynesia

Next, an amazing clip of a feeding frenzy induced by tossing some dead fish into the water, all filmed from the semi-submersible sightseeing vessel in the atoll of Rangiroa.

Two More Very Different Worlds

Then a look at the shores of the main island of Bora Bora.  As well, on Moorea, the gorgeous views from the Belvidere lookout point halfway up the main mountain.

More Famous Islands

And finally, the view of West Maui mountains from the volcano Haleakala, island of Maui in Hawaii.

In The House of the Sun

I hope all of my faithful readers have enjoyed reading these blogs as much as I have enjoyed writing them.  I'll be back at some future date with more travellers' tales and helpful travel hints.

Inns and Outs

Over the last month of travel, I have stayed in 5 major island resorts and 1 cruise ship!  The hotels have all been rather upmarket places, and I wouldn't necessarily choose to stay in such lavish properties on a regular basis.  But for this trip, I figured I might as well "shoot the works" since I may not pass this way again.

All have been very comfortable, and all have had excellent facilities in relation to their size.

But here's a rundown on the six, in reverse order, starting with the last one.

[6]  Grand Wailea, a Waldorf Astoria Resort (Maui).  I would never, ever have picked this place in the ordinary way of things.  I came here because I could cash in my Hilton Hhonors points for two free nights' stay.  The room I'm in would normally cost about US$400 a night for a view of the parking garage and mountain, so you can imagine the rates for a full ocean-view room.  This place is so enormous and overpowering that it's like staying in a royal palace, complete with huge columns, fancy staircases, artworks everywhere, and miles of stately corridors, whether indoors or outdoors.  Just getting to the front desk to register is like negotiating a laboratory maze -- I wonder what happens if you get lost in the lobby?  Do they refuse to register you?  To get to the bistro down by the water or to the adults-only pool area is a 10-minute brisk walk from my room, not counting the time needed to take two separate elevators.  It's also very easy to get lost here because there is a dire need for more and clearer signs in elevators, and along indoor and outdoor walkways.  With all that, and even with the cachet of the Waldorf Astoria name, I did not find the service here any better than in many other and much cheaper hotels I have stayed in.  I think it's basically a case of "more is less" because this hotel simply seems too big to be able to work efficiently.  Here's an online view of the entire monstrous structure.

[5]  Marriott Waikoloa Beach Resort and Spa (Hawaii -- Big Island).  From my picture below, you can see that this is a lovely property.  It's a much more modest size, and would be a great place to stay except that the service in the food/beverage departments was coming apart at the seams all over the place.  I had six different service glitches in a 3 night stay, including drinks that didn't arrive and a salad that came with several ingredients missing.  Even though the cost was fairly modest compared to some other hotels, I couldn't recommend this one.  High pretensions but fails to deliver the goods.

[4]  Intercontinental Resort Tahiti (2 stays).  This one wins hands down for most attractive property, with smallish buildings surrounded by beautiful gardens and plenty of ocean frontage.  Since this is Tahiti, a very rocky island, there isn't much beach.  The sand-floored pool goes a long way to make up for that.  Service people are very friendly, but not all are fluent in English (this is French Polynesia, after all).  The over-water bungalow was comfortable, but the panoramic room on the 3rd floor even more so.  The restaurant features a good choice of Tahitian foods alongside more conventionally European dishes.  Most relaxing resort all around.

[3]  Ocean Princess, Princess Cruise Lines.  An absolutely delightful, laid-back ship with a distinctly easy-going feeling to it.  As I already posted, the decor gives a strong backwards glance to the Golden Age of transatlantic steamship travel, as does the service.  But what really makes this such a great ship is the ability, among a small complement of passengers and crew, to really get to meet and know other people during the cruise.  You can imagine my chagrin when I learned that Princess has sold the ship to another operator!  Grrrr.  However, I will be taking another cruise on Ocean Princess in December, an 18-day transatlantic voyage from Rome to Miami with various stops on the way.  it's the ship's penultimate voyage under the Princess banner.

[2]  Marriott Kauai Resort, Kalapaki, Kauai.  This one had a good combination of features and was large but not too large.  The best features of this resort were the huge pool, and the attractive beach with gentle surf.  Of all these locations, this is the only one I would judge safe for small children being in the ocean with their parents.  This was the place for outstanding service quality, in all departments, and the one out of all my hotel stays that I would want to visit again.

[1]  Hilton Hawaiian Village, Waikiki, Honolulu, Oahu.  This resort in the form of a city of hotels is of course even larger than any 2 of the others put together, but still easy to get around because of the effective layout of the property.  I could reach the pool, the beach, or any of the restaurants in 5 minutes walk from my room, not counting elevator time.  Also, here, there is the advantage of off-property eateries and convenience stores close by, for cheaper alternatives to hotel meals and drinks.  Of all the properties I visited, this one generally offered the fewest options for meals -- it had the smallest and least varied breakfast buffet, and the less-upscale of the dinner restaurants had a pretty limited menu.  Inevitably, the sheer size of the place means bottlenecks at restaurants, pools, and bars  The front desk and concierge services always seem to have line-ups.

If/when I do return to Hawaii, it will likely be to the Kauai Marriott resort.

In the House of the Sun

No, that title's not a reference to "a house in New Orleans"!

My final stop of my tour before heading for home is the last of the 4 major Hawaiian Islands, Maui.  Known colloquially as "the Valley Isle", Maui is really two islands joined together in the middle.  The smaller West Maui is also much older.  Its original shield volcano has long since been carved up and worn down into multiple smaller peaks and valleys -- hence the island's nickname.

East Maui, where I am staying, is far larger and consists of one single huge volcano which nearly rivals Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa in size: Haleakala.  The Hawaiian name means "House of the Sun", and as soon as you get here and see the layout of the island you can easily tell why.  To all the residents of West Maui, and of the central lowland, sunrise occurs every morning over the immense shield of Haleakala -- apparently out of the mountain.  Haleakala has been dormant for several centuries, and it seems likely now that it will stay that way.  But Madame Pele can be capricious, so it doesn't do to completely write off this sleeping monster either.

It's also famous as a spot to watch the sunrise, since there is a good paved road all the way to the summit of the mountain.  I did a tour up there last time I was in Maui, back in 1998.  I was picked up at my hotel at 3:30 am, and taken to a central depot where I was fitted out with appropriate clothing and a bicycle.  Then our party was driven to the top of the mountain, arriving around 5:30 am.  After about half an hour of waiting, we watched the sun rise over the immense summit depression which slopes downwards to the east, and contains numerous cinder and spatter cones from previous eruptions.  The various bike parties then drew lots and we were the second-last to start down.  It took us about 4 hours to coast all the way back to sea level (including a breakfast stop at the midpoint), and in that whole time we only had to pedal once, for about 300 metres, after crossing a low bridge over a stream.  The rest of the way it was all about using the handbrakes.

Sadly, the National Park suspended all bike tours within the park in 2007 due to a number of accidents.  The bike tours now start halfway down the mountain, outside the park boundaries.  That's a great pity.  But even without the bicycle component, sunrise on Haleakala is a phenomenal experience, and I highly recommend it.  Just be sure to wear warm clothing.  The temperature at the summit in the early morning in 1998 was 30 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 1 degree Celsius) before sunrise!  Yesterday I waited till after breakfast to drive up (yes, I am getting slack in my old age!).  Even with the brilliant sunshine, the temperature couldn't break 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) and the wind chill pushed it a lot lower than that.  But it was well worth it!

You also have to be prepared to feel a little light-headed.  Walking around at this altitude takes some getting used to, since you are (at just over 10,000 feet altitude above sea level) almost 2 miles up (close to 3 kilometres) and the air contains much less oxygen.  Be ready to take it slow and easy for a while until you acclimatize.

The 26-mile mountain road has plenty of twists and turns, and once you are into the park there are no shoulders or guardrails.  Drivers who are at all nervous had far better park the car and ride up in a bus.  I've been nervous driving up mountains on roads like this before, but I think I wasn't this time simply because I had already biked down the road so it was like an old familiar friend!  Coming down wasn't scary, either, as I've long since mastered the trick of using the low gears and letting the car's engine control the descent.  

Anyway, here are some pictures of what you see at the top:

Although this looks like a gigantic volcanic crater, it actually isn't.  The summit of the mountain (originally much taller) has been eroded away over many millennia by wind and weather, and a lot of the material has washed out through the two big gaps that have formed on the south and southeast sides.  For that reason, experts refer to this as the summit "depression" since it is strictly neither a crater nor a caldera.  The cones from more recent eruptions are the actual volcanic features here, apart from the mountain as a whole.  In addition to the three lookout points reached by road, there are two hiking trails leading down into the depression.

I also had to throw in a picture of this guy, just for the benefit of any skeptics who wondered whether he really was there or not!

When you look off to the right (southeast) across the mountain's ramparts you see an amazing panorama of four of the major volcanoes on the Big Island of Hawaii, well over 100 miles away.  I tagged them on this pic to help you identify them.  The hyperactive Kilauea is hidden behind the much taller Mauna Loa.

To the west you see the mountains of West Maui.  From ground level they look pretty impressive, but from this height they appear as attractive hills by comparison to Haleakala.  These mountains, too, are the eroded remains of a single shield volcano (that volcano goes by the Hawaiian name Halemahina, "House of the Moon").

Here's a video clip with the panorama of the observatory complex and the West Maui mountains.

The summit of Haleakala has one other amazing sight to offer: a rare plant, so rare in fact that this particular variety grows nowhere else on earth except on this one mountain top.  It's called the silversword.  It's an endangered species because of its slow growth rate.  One plant takes anything up to 50 years to mature (this is a sub-arctic tundra environment up here).  It then flowers once and dies.  The last time I came, we actually got to see one in bloom, which was amazing.  They have a much bigger collection in this protected silversword garden now.  The plant in the second pic is dying.  The tall stalk is the shrivelled remains of the cluster of blooms.

As with the Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island, I feel that Haleakala is a place that should be on everybody's bucket list.  An extraordinary sight in itself, this majestic mountain also removes you far above and away from the relentless hurry-hurry of modern life.  It's a great place to just turn off the cellphone and savour the view, breathe the crisp cool air, feel the strength of the wind, and listen to the sounds of silence in the House of the Sun.

Look Out! It's ALIVE!!!!

To drive around the "Big Island" of Hawaii (as I did yesterday) is to undergo go an immersion education in volcanology, climatology, geology, and biology that no classroom could ever equal. Here, you don't just read about these natural phenomena -- you experience them first-hand, through all your senses!

This is the largest, and newest of the Hawaiian Islands, and is the home of the only still-active land volcanoes in the chain, Mauna Loa and Kilauea. In fact, Kilauea is currently erupting, and has been continuously since 1983. It's considered the most active volcano in the world, for obvious reasons. Here's an aerial shot which shows the current eruption crater at Pu'u O'o. The pillar of steam and smoke in the background is rising from Halema'uma'u in the summit caldera of the mountain. Behind that appears the distinctive shield profile of the much taller Mauna Loa.

(I suspect this picture may have been uploaded backwards because it is taken looking north or northwest but the lava flow from Pu'u O'o is travelling east, not west as it appears here).

(Photo credit: USGS)

So why don’t we hear more about these eruptions? It all comes down to the simple fact that the magma feeding these volcanoes has far lower sulphur content than in many volcanic regions, and so the feeding tube to the mountain does not clog as much. Result: a Hawaiian volcano doesn’t often explode violently, hurling death and destruction for miles in every direction. More usually, in historical times, it just opens up and bleeds lava – and goes right on flowing for days, months, weeks, even years, because the lava simply can’t solidify as quickly as it could if the sulphur content were higher. Further result: Hawaiian volcanoes do not have steeply pitched cones, they form in the shape of an old warrior’s shield laid flat on the ground, face up. The picture above shows why they are called “shield volcanoes”.

The island is actually made up of no less than five of these immense mountains, and this handy graphic shows where they all sit in relation to each other:

Yes, Mauna Loa really does spread across that distance of 80 miles or so, all the way from the southwestern point to the eastern side of the island. Everything on this island is on a huge scale, and it reminds me of the Grand Canyon in that the scale is so large that the mind has trouble grasping just how much is actually being seen. The "Saddle Road" which crosses the highland plateau between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea is an excellent example. The landscape as you drive this road changes only very slowly, but it's still more than 60 miles from one side to the other of the island. The road also reaches an altitude well over a mile above sea level (over 2 kilometres) yet you aren't really aware of it because of the long gradual slopes.  Even at that height, the 4-kilometre tall Mauna Kea (shown below) and Mauna Loa still tower far above you to their summits.

Kohala is considered extinct, and Mauna Kea is listed as dormant. Although Hualalai last erupted in the early 1800s, it has a history of erupting every 200-300 years and so is still considered at least potentially active. Mauna Loa has erupted in recent decades and is still showing definite signs of life, and Kilauea -- well, we've already explained about Kilauea.

Southeast of Kilauea, under the aquamarine Pacific, the next volcano is already working its way towards the surface.  It's already been christened "Loihi", and it's expected to break through the ocean and begin to form more dry land in anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 years from now.  In this it's repeating a pattern that stretches back untold millennia across all the Hawaiian islands and westwards to Midway and Wake Islands -- and beyond towards Japan.

Historically Mauna Loa has usually erupted when Kilauea is sleeping, or vice versa, but this rule too has not always applied. For many years, it was believed that the smaller Kilauea was just a subsidiary part of Mauna Loa, but scientific researchers have demonstrated that Kilauea's lava has a very different chemical composition and clearly comes from a different magma chamber inside the earth.

In the west end of the Kilauea crater is the deep hole which the Hawaiians called Halema'uma'u ("House of the Great Fire"). It was believed to be the home of Pele, the volcano goddess. This reputation dates from the periods in its history when Halema'uma'u was filled by a lava lake. 

Kilauea has added many hectares of land to the island during its current eruptive phase, and the lava flows have swallowed hundreds of homes and businesses. Right now, the town of Pahoa is having its road connections to Hilo severed by the active lava flows from Pu'u O'o, and the government is rebuilding a large section of the Chain of Craters road (which was buried in the 1980s by lava from Pu'u O'o) as a means to keep Pahoa in touch with the outside world by land. In the last century, lava emitted from a crack in Mauna Loa reached almost all the way to the city of Hilo on the east coast in a matter of 4 hours -- very fast work indeed. While outsiders might consider it mere idle superstition, many residents of the Big Island still speak very respectfully indeed of Madame Pele, and no wonder!

The key attraction on the island is Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, and it's a place that should be on every person's bucket list, for my money. I know of no other place where you can learn so much, so quickly, while safely (more or less) standing atop a volcano that is actually erupting.

 Most visitors tour the Crater Rim Drive, and that's all I was able to do last time I came here. Part of it is currently closed due to eruptive activity and the consequent release of toxic sulphur fumes. The summit crater or caldera of Kilauea is a very Grand Canyon-like place, not only because of its own large size but because of the immense form of Mauna Loa completely occupying the horizon from west through north to northeast. A still photograph of the whole width of Mauna Loa from Kilauea summit is only possible by using a panoramic camera and software!

But yesterday, I drove down the Chain of Craters road, which runs from the rim of Kilauea's crater down to the southeast shore of the island, and crosses many lava flows formed during my lifetime in the process. The 2-hour drive down this road and back exposed me to an extraordinary variety of formations from the cooling process of the lava. I'd rate it as more spectacular even than the better known summit crater.

At the end of the road are the black lava cliffs where the lava flows plunged into the ocean, adding more and more land to the mass of the island.

And if this group of formations isn't already called Pele's Garden, I certainly think it ought to be!

One other fascinating sight at Kilauea is the Thurston Lava Tube. It's a natural rock tunnel formed when the lava's top surface formed a hard, dense crust but the liquid material underneath kept flowing and flowed right out, leaving the tunnel behind. I've never visited this before either.

Apologies for all the moisture in my photos, but that's another thing that happens here. The trade winds from the east blow all their oceanic moisture into the extraordinary bulk of these mountains, and the altitude causes the clouds to drop all that moisture and then disperse. The eastern side of the island is a subtropical rain forest of great density, and the western side is much more arid. Even the Kilauea crater is partly edged by rain forest on the north and east sides -- on the south and west, most vegetation is killed by the eruption fumes. The result in this case was that the summit crater was completely invisible in the mist and rain, and most of the subsidiary craters along the Chain of Craters road were also impossible to see. The famous steam vents had visibility on the rim road down to a matter of inches, and "Pele's breath" with its faint whiff of sulphur came through noticeably inside the car.

Given the weather conditions as I've explained them, it's not hard to see why all the resorts on this island are located on the west side, sheltered from the rains borne on the trade winds by the vast bulk of the volcanoes. This very site-specific climate also explains why the Kona Airport is almost all outdoors, with only shops and offices enclosed. Almost all of the Kona Coast resorts, including much of the town of Kailua and the Kona International Airport, all sit on top of lava flows from Hualalai. With the dryness, it's a startling sight indeed: a huge wilderness of contorted black rock, with tufts of yellowish grass springing up here and there. The resorts create a beautiful splash of lush green on the vast swath of black wilderness, but it's too plainly an artificial, stuck-on kind of beauty.

On this trip, as I came down from the mountains and turned north along the coast, the rain dwindled. By the time I got back to my resort, I was in blazing sunshine -- but with huge streams of dark clouds pouring out rain still sliding past just to the southwest, out of reach of the volcanoes.

A final note: the Big Island is even bigger than it seems as the volcanic terrain forces roads into some pretty twisted curves, bends and hills which slow traffic down to a crawl.  I was on the road for almost eight hours yesterday, to cover a distance about equal to the distance between Toronto and Ottawa.

Getting From There to Here

In the lobby of the Intercontinental Resort in Tahiti, there's a notice that encourages you to settle your account ahead of time, even the night before leaving, because the resort is close to the airport and they have people arriving and leaving at all hours of the day and night.  They aren't joking.

The distance from Tahiti to all other major landmasses is the villain.  International flights basically are forced to arrive and depart either very early in the morning or last thing at night.  Inter-island flights come and go throughout the day, but the big long-range flights are almost all before 9:00 am or after 10:00 pm.

This further means that if you have a late flight you have a lot of time to kill.  The Intercontinental smartly provides a group of free "transit rooms" which offer you a chance to shower up and change before heading to the airport for that late, late flight.  So I used one, after a whole day of sun and pool, and was nicely cooled off and ready to go when my airport transfer picked me up at 9:30 pm.

Then I got to the airport.

Getting back to Hawaii from Tahiti was an experience of extremes, to put it mildly.  Tahiti's Faa'a International Airport is not air-conditioned.  By the time I finished heaving bags to the check-in counter, lining up for passport control, and removing everything that has to be removed for security, I was left with a sweat that just wouldn't quit.  The crowning insult came when we were allowed to board and found it was actually cooler outside the terminal than inside (this was a new experience for me in Tahiti).  By this time I had successfully transitioned from "First Class Passenger" to "Passenger requiring extra time to board" because the arthritis in my right knee had flared up so badly.  The long flight of stairs to the aircraft door with 2 carry-ons suddenly looked remarkably like Mt. Everest after global warming finishes removing the snowcap. 

But then....  As soon as I walked through the door of the plane I was back in the Arctic.  I've never stopped sweating so quickly in my life.  I figured the temperature would moderate within 10--15 minutes after the cabin door was closed.  But no.  By 10 minutes after take-off I had joined my fellow first-class passengers and wrapped myself in my blankie.  The flight at least went right on time at 11:30 pm, and arrived right on time at 5:15 am.  We were given a "bedtime snack" soon after take-off which would have been a good-sized meal at dinner time.  I never would have believed that I would ENJOY eating hot pumpkin soup while deep in the tropics, but sure enough.  And then I went out like a light and stayed that way for 3 hours, which is a record for me on a plane flight.  And the cabin was still an icebox for the entire flight!

Customs clearance in Honolulu was reasonably quick and trouble free but the knee flared up again during the walk to the connecting terminal for inter-island flights.  Haven't had so much trouble with it in years.  That left me with still over 2 hours to wait for the short 40-minute flight to Kona Airport on the big island of Hawaii.  

But eventually I arrived in Kona, and got reminded of something I knew but had forgotten.  The Kona airport is all outdoors, except for the shops and offices.  It's like walking through an outdoor shopping mall, as you make your way between buildings to or from the street side of the complex.

There's a very good reason why this is practical, and I'll be covering that in the next post.

More Famous Islands

Another two-day sail brought the Ocean Princess back west to the high island of Raiatea.  I suspect this zigzag path may have been dictated by the cruise schedules of other ships in the area, as most of these smaller islands wouldn’t have the resources to host more than one shipload of visitors per day.

Raiatea is the administrative capital of the Leeward Islands group within the Society Islands (consisting of Raiatea, Tahaa, Bora Bora, Huahine, and Makatea).  As a result, there is an actual town with a developed harbour area, and Ocean Princess was able to dock there.  That makes coming and going from the ship much easier!  The quaint grass-hut “village” on the edge of the dock area is, of course, a shopping mall cunningly disguised. 

I enjoyed a 3½ hour drive around the island, with several stops, lots of colourful tropical flowers, and plenty of scenic views.  

Unlike Huahine, we managed a mostly sunny day although it did cloud over in the afternoon – true to form.  At a small family-run pearl farm we got a concise and clear description of the process of cultivating the Tahitian black pearls, made possible of course by the black-lipped oysters found in this region.  Another stop was at a marae, a traditional Polynesian temple/meeting place/social area.  It was simply defined by a large wall of rough slabs of volcanic rock stood on edge in a row.  

Our guide explained to us that a marae could be as small as the one used by a single family.  This one was used by a tribal king or chief.  There is a much bigger complex of maraes in the south of Raiatea which we didn’t see, but which is known far and wide as a centrepoint of the Polynesian peoples, since so many of the migrations of the Polynesians all over the Pacific originated here.

It was another hot, humid day so I just slacked off on board ship for the afternoon – another hour on the sundeck at the pool, and another nap. 

Later at night, the local dancers came aboard and put on a 45-minute show of traditional costumes and dancing which was very high-energy and fascinating to watch.

 The following day we sailed into the lagoon at Bora Bora for a two-day stay.  This is the most famous of all the islands of French Polynesia.  Thank Marlon Brando for that.  He built a string of bungalows along the shore around 1960 and ever since then this has been the getaway for the rich and famous, the"beautiful people" (so-called), and celebrity watchers and wannabes from all over the world.  As a result, if you plan to stay here, plan on paying 50%-100% more than in any other resort in French Polynesia for basically the same product and service.  Demand rules!

Bora Bora is a high island but one that is well on its way to disappearing.  There are already five or six "high islands" within the lagoon, as well as the surrounding chain of motus.  In fact, most of the resorts with the world-famous over-water bungalows are on the motus, as is the airport.  We, of course, had to go ashore by tender.  

This island also marked my first encounter with one of the more unusual modes of transportation in the world, "Le Truck".  Found in many islands in French Polynesia, it is basically an improvised open-air bus body attached to the back mounting of a truck cab.  The body of "Le Truck" is wood, the seats plastic or wood, and cushions are an uncommon mercy (fortunately, we had cushions for today's 3 1/2 hour tour of the main island).

Bora Bora is an island for spectacular views, often backed by the stunning profiles of its two central mountains, the twin peaks of Mt. Otemanu.  It was a constant presence on our drive around the island.  This towering mass of ancient igneous rock, split down the middle by erosion forces, has the sheerest cliffs I’ve seen since viewing “The Diadem” (the volcanic plug in the centre of Tahiti).  Because of the irregular shape of the formation, it looks different from every angle as you travel around it.  No matter where you are on the twisting main road, you can’t go much more than a couple of kilometres before seeing the mountain rearing up in front of you around the next bend, like some giant primordial beast.

At the other end of the size scale, we were amused at a roadside stop when the guide told us to grab the hibiscus flowers hanging by the open windows and throw them out on the ground.  We then watched as the land crabs came out of their holes to seize on a food source.  Some of them got into pulling matches over a particularly choice branch of the plants.  These land crabs, by the way, are found in burrows in the ground near the shore of every island we've visited.

And here's a video clip I filmed from a beach where we stopped, giving a quick view of this famous island destination -- and one of the tourists who came here.

Bora Bora’s other great glory is the clear water of the lagoon and the huge variety of marine life found within it.  I opted to take a glass-bottom boat tour on my second day, as a way of getting closer to the marine life.  Although the general experience was similar to the semi-submersible in Raiatea, it was a lot less cramped and we got to enjoy the beautiful sea breeze as we sat under the canopy peering down into the water.

Sadly, though, the reefs here are in as bad shape as the ones I’d seen elsewhere.  The guide today mentioned a point which wasn’t familiar to me.  One of the key toxins for the coral is the range of chemicals found in sunscreen lotions.  Truly, we tourists are loving the coral reefs to death.

One other stop included a demonstration of the art of dyeing and decorating the pareos.  Before our eyes, two workers created a beautiful basic tie-dye pattern in a matter of seconds.  They then spread it out to dry with cutout shapes on top to further refine the patterns.

In the mid-afternoon we sailed for Moorea, the high island directly across from Tahiti, and arrived there early the following morning.  Moorea wins the prize for spectacular scenery, with its volcanic core split into numerous craggy mountains (it’s a much bigger island than Bora Bora).  Not only that, but there is actually a paved road halfway up the central massif to the Belvidere (lookout) with a dramatic view over the two main bays in the north shore, with each bay hosting a cruise ship today. 

Here'a video clip giving a panorama at the same lookout point.

There are also much better views of the ocean, as you drive around Moorea, and a spectacular view across the Sea of the Moon to Tahiti (weather permitting).  No view today, we hit several rain showers during the latter half of our coach tour and Tahiti was completely hidden by rain and clouds when we reached that point on the circuit.  Fortunately, our tour driver had taken us to the Belvidere first thing on the trip!

Overall, Moorea seems to be the most prosperous island, with the highest percentage of fully-constructed homes and shopping areas.  I think this has a lot to do with the fact that many well-to-do people who work in Papeete choose to live in Moorea, commuting back and forth by the 15-minute fast catamaran ferries.  On the other hand, Moorea -- just like Kauai in Hawaii -- has its own sizable population of wild fowl, with roosters crowing from dawn to dusk everywhere you go!

The cruise over, I am now back in Tahiti.  Tonight I attended a performance by "Les Grands Ballets de Tahiti" at the hotel, a weekly outdoor event every Friday with a Tahitian buffet dinner.  Despite the name, this is a Tahitian folkloric dance show, but one performed at the highest standard of dancing, singing, and staging.  It was a fascinating, dizzying whirlwind of a show, and my only regret was that my pictures didn't turn out too well.  Here's one of the better ones.

And that marks the end of my adventures in French Polynesia.  After this final night in Tahiti, I am flying back north to Hawaii.  More travellers’ tales will continue to appear here!