In which we return to Bora Bora, cross the Tuamotu Archipelago to the Marquesas (for Nuku Hiva) cross back again (via Rangiroa) and return to Tahiti and Huahine in the Society Islands.
As mentioned at the end of the last post (also from Bora Bora) and in tweets sent at the time, the day started pretty damply, with little sign of clearing. This was confirmed by reports from the bridge, relayed to us as we waited in the Marina Lounge for our turn to be called out for a tender to shore.
We’d risen, breakfasted and gone down to get tender tickets early, so as to be amongst the first wave going ashore, because we had a round the island boat tour (booked the last time we were in Bora Bora) scheduled to depart from the quayside at 8.30am. Unfortunately, because of the heavy rain the ship was delaying all tenders ashore. By the time we made it to the pier, we were already 10 minutes late. We weren’t too concerned, however, as the tour rep had said they would wait until all passengers had arrived before departing. In the event, we needn’t have worried at all, because, when we got there, the rep said they wouldn’t be sailing until the rain cleared anyway.
After waiting, huddled under an awning for shelter for an hour, the rep finally announced that due to cancellations, the trip wouldn’t be leaving at all that morning, and asked us when we would like to reschedule for. We thought about it a bit, taking the forecast and Juli’s cold into account, and decided that the best thing to do was to postpone the trip until the next time – the last time – we come to Bora Bora, in the hope that both Juli’s cold and the weather would be better, and returned to the ship.
For the rest of the day, which didn’t really improve weather wise, I blogged while Juli rested. Dinner that evening was taken in our room.
We weren’t due to arrive at Nuku Hiva until the afternoon, which meant I had time for run #3 (in the fitness centre – no rain this morning, but the treadmill is a bit more comfortable to run on than the deck) and Juli, still recovering, used the time to review her photos.
The ship anchored in a small bay on the south coast, a short boat ride from Taiohae, the administrative capital of the archipelago, at about 1.00pm. However, we decided, since we had a couple of days here, to take it easy and wait for the majority of passengers to disembark before going down to take a tender ashore ourselves.
Being a Sunday, a lot of the shops and bars were shut, but business is business and there were plenty of little stalls set up just back from the quay to keep us tourists occupied. Also open was a small tourist information office, in which Juli found and booked an inland tour to see a bit more of the island the following afternoon.
Since we were there anyway and Juli was feeling up to it, we decided to go for a bit of a wander through the town to see what we could see. It’s not a big place, but we’d read about the cathedral of Notre Dame Des Marquises there being worth a look, so set off to find it. Some how, although we’d seen the cross from the quay and after walking up and down several steep streets, we completely failed to find it. A bit of a disappointment, but we decided it was better to leave it for the day and try again the next rather than running the risk of exhausting ourselves, especially still-recovering Juli.
Back on board after dinner (fresh, locally caught tuna) we watched a troupe of men, women and children in floral headdresses, grass skirts and strategically placed half coconut shells perform a selection of island songs and dances accompanied by others who beat out frantic rhythms on huge animal-skin covered drums.
The show was deservedly well attended. So much so that we and our fellow passengers were sometimes finding it difficult to get a decent view of the proceedings. More than once, we had politely to ask latecomers who chose to stand directly in front of us and others around us to kindly step a little to the side. Mostly they did, and with good grace, but just before the end of the show, one such – again, I shan’t here give his nationality, but it begins with the letter ‘F’ and rhymes with stench – took exception to the request and told me to ‘go to hell’. Could have been worse: he could have told me my father was a hamster and my mother smelled of elderberries, I suppose. (Quelle con.)
As I write this, we’re on route to our third and final visit to Bora Bora, where we have a packed couple of days, about which I’ll write more next time.
TTFN – N
[Click here for more photos from the South Pacific.]
Days 299 & 300 (Bora Bora again)
As mentioned at the end of the last post (also from Bora Bora) and in tweets sent at the time, the day started pretty damply, with little sign of clearing. This was confirmed by reports from the bridge, relayed to us as we waited in the Marina Lounge for our turn to be called out for a tender to shore.We’d risen, breakfasted and gone down to get tender tickets early, so as to be amongst the first wave going ashore, because we had a round the island boat tour (booked the last time we were in Bora Bora) scheduled to depart from the quayside at 8.30am. Unfortunately, because of the heavy rain the ship was delaying all tenders ashore. By the time we made it to the pier, we were already 10 minutes late. We weren’t too concerned, however, as the tour rep had said they would wait until all passengers had arrived before departing. In the event, we needn’t have worried at all, because, when we got there, the rep said they wouldn’t be sailing until the rain cleared anyway.
After waiting, huddled under an awning for shelter for an hour, the rep finally announced that due to cancellations, the trip wouldn’t be leaving at all that morning, and asked us when we would like to reschedule for. We thought about it a bit, taking the forecast and Juli’s cold into account, and decided that the best thing to do was to postpone the trip until the next time – the last time – we come to Bora Bora, in the hope that both Juli’s cold and the weather would be better, and returned to the ship.
For the rest of the day, which didn’t really improve weather wise, I blogged while Juli rested. Dinner that evening was taken in our room.
***
It was still pretty wet the next day too. I had a run scheduled for the morning, but when I got up and out onto the sun deck to walk along and up to the fitness track, I discovered that it was not only raining heavily, but that the deck was awash with rain water. Rather than cancel my run, I decided to give the fitness centre a try.
The ship has a large gym as part of it’s Canyon Ranch Spa complex, full of all the latest exercise machinery, including several running machines. The fitness centre was also full of people exercising, even at seven in the morning, but I did manage to find a free treadmill and work out how to, well, work out.
Back in our room, Juli was awake and feeling up to breakfast. She also fancied getting out of the room for awhile, and, remembering from last time that you got free Wi-fi if you ordered food there, we decided to go ashore and have brunch in the internet cafe we found last time. That way, we could check e-mails, upload photos and publish our latest blog post. Unfortunately, when we got there, they were having problems with their router, so no internet, but we decided to stick to the eating part of the plan nonetheless in the hope that they would be able to fix the problem while we were there. They didn’t, as it happened, but we had a lovely French-style breakfast of Chocolat Chaud with Pain au Chocolat and an excellent omelette.
Incidentally, how many people knew what a router was 10 years ago?Now it seems to be a part of many people’s everyday vocabulary.
The cafe suggested we try the post office, which sells access to their Wi-fi, but they were too expensive and too busy. Then we remembered that we’d seen a computer shop with Wi-fi at the other end of town the last time we were there. Five minutes later, Juli, using her Jedi mind tricks again, managed to negotiate a good deal on a couple of hours access.
Two hours later, we’d managed to do most of the jobs we had to do, although Juli didn’t quite manage to upload all her photos. We could have bought some more time, but Juli wasn’t feeling so good again, so we decided instead to return to the ship.
However, before we could rest, we had to attend our first dance lesson: beginners Cha Cha Cha with Assistant Cruise Director, J.R., who says everyone should have a basic Cha Cha in their repertoire. Half an hour later, we had one.
After that, Juli went back to our room for some rest, while I stayed on for an art lecture: 30,000 years of art in 30 minutes. I made it as far as a few hundred years AD before making my excuses. The rest of the time, I watched a truly awful movie staring Vinnie Jones single-handedly winning World War II until it was time for afternoon tea in Horizons. (That’s us breaking for tea, by the way, not Vinnie. He’s relentless. Relentlessly awful, that is.)
Back in our room, we rested some more before our dinner reservation in Toscana, the ships Italian speciality restaurant, which we enjoyed very much last time. Unfortunately, our evening was somewhat spoiled by a incredibly loud, brash and bullish diner holding court at his table of six similarly noisy, fellow countrymen and women, which was rather too close to our own table for two. I won’t name it, but I bet you can guess which country this particular star-spangled stereotype was from.
[Clocks forward half an hour tonight.]
Day 301 (cruising through the Tuamotu Archipelago)
Today, we sailed from Bora Bora in the Leeward Isles towards Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas, the most northerly group of islands within French Polynesia, where we were set to arrive at 2.00pm tomorrow.
Actually, it’s not strictly accurate to say we cruised through the Tuamotu Archipelago, since our course took us north of the most northerly member of that group of islands. I had imagined a day spotting dozens of picture perfect desert island as we sailed between them. We may see some more when we come back this way in a few days time, but we didn’t today.
Not that it matters to poor old Juli, who, as I write this (in Baristas coffee lounge) is languishing in bed feeling justifiably sorry for herself. She’s fed up with getting colds and being confined to our cabin. There’s not much of interest going on today, but we’ve been invited to another Oceania Club member’s Captains Cocktail party tonight. We had to miss the last one because I wasn’t well enough to attend, so we’ll be sorry to miss another, and Juli is worried that the captain may take it personally and throw us off the ship, or something. I think I’d better stop blogging now and take her another hot water honey and lemon.
…
Well, we didn’t make it to the cocktail party, and we also had to cancel our dinner reservation in the Polo Grill. Good though it is, room service just isn’t the same.
Days 302 & 303 (Nuku Hiva)
We weren’t due to arrive at Nuku Hiva until the afternoon, which meant I had time for run #3 (in the fitness centre – no rain this morning, but the treadmill is a bit more comfortable to run on than the deck) and Juli, still recovering, used the time to review her photos.The ship anchored in a small bay on the south coast, a short boat ride from Taiohae, the administrative capital of the archipelago, at about 1.00pm. However, we decided, since we had a couple of days here, to take it easy and wait for the majority of passengers to disembark before going down to take a tender ashore ourselves.
Being a Sunday, a lot of the shops and bars were shut, but business is business and there were plenty of little stalls set up just back from the quay to keep us tourists occupied. Also open was a small tourist information office, in which Juli found and booked an inland tour to see a bit more of the island the following afternoon.
Since we were there anyway and Juli was feeling up to it, we decided to go for a bit of a wander through the town to see what we could see. It’s not a big place, but we’d read about the cathedral of Notre Dame Des Marquises there being worth a look, so set off to find it. Some how, although we’d seen the cross from the quay and after walking up and down several steep streets, we completely failed to find it. A bit of a disappointment, but we decided it was better to leave it for the day and try again the next rather than running the risk of exhausting ourselves, especially still-recovering Juli.
Back on board after dinner (fresh, locally caught tuna) we watched a troupe of men, women and children in floral headdresses, grass skirts and strategically placed half coconut shells perform a selection of island songs and dances accompanied by others who beat out frantic rhythms on huge animal-skin covered drums.
The show was deservedly well attended. So much so that we and our fellow passengers were sometimes finding it difficult to get a decent view of the proceedings. More than once, we had politely to ask latecomers who chose to stand directly in front of us and others around us to kindly step a little to the side. Mostly they did, and with good grace, but just before the end of the show, one such – again, I shan’t here give his nationality, but it begins with the letter ‘F’ and rhymes with stench – took exception to the request and told me to ‘go to hell’. Could have been worse: he could have told me my father was a hamster and my mother smelled of elderberries, I suppose. (Quelle con.)
***
Our tour wasn’t until after lunch, which allowed us to have another lazy morning. While we were sitting in our room, flicking through the TV channels, there were two news items that caught our attention. One was the awful early reports of the explosions near the finishing line of the Boston Marathon. The other was about a bus full of cruise ship passengers on an organised shore excursion in St. Lucia who had just been the victims of a modern day highwayman. Frightening for the passengers, but terrible for St. Lucia, which depends so on tourism. We’re going to St. Lucia later in the cruise. I bet it’s the safest place we visit.
Incidentally, For those of you following our itinerary closely – probably only us – you will have seen that we should have left Nuku Hiva last night, and today be anchored off Hiva Oa, last resting place of Paul Gaugin and Jacque Brel. Well, for some reason we were never given, we’re not going there now, hence this second day in Nuku Hiva.
The tour in the afternoon was great. Juli and I, and another couple from the ship, met our guide and driver in the car park of the tourist office standing by her Land Rover Defender. Our first stop was her home, halfway up the side of the caldera that forms the bay in which our ship was anchored. She has a bench in her beautifully kept front garden that looks straight out to sea with an uninterrupted view of the entire bay below. Simply stunning, but just one of many stunning views we were treated to during the tour of this beautiful island.
We were driven up and down steep sided mountains along narrow switchback roads, bordered by the same wonderful profusion of exotic flowers we saw on Raiatea, to two other bays – one on the south coast, another on the north of the island – and to a number of the archaeological sites, for which Nuku Hiva is famous. The tour was only supposed to last three hours, but we actually got over four, ending at the cathedral we failed to find the day before. Perfect.
[Clocks back half and hour tonight.]
Day 304 (cruising to the Tuamotu Archipelago)
Running again this morning. (Week 2, run #1.) No unoccupied treadmill in the fitness centre, unfortunately, so back out on the deck 15 fitness track. Spent most of the day eating, reading, blogging and looking at photos, eating again, watching TV in our room and doing a bit of washing and ironing. Then, in the evening, more eating. Meanwhile, the ship sailed back west towards Rangiroa in the Tuamotu Archipelago.
Day 305 (Rangiroa)
Rangiroa is an atol (rather than an island) which means that, instead of a central island surrounded by motus (islets) and/or reefs with, maybe, lagoons in between, it is one big lagoon surrounded by a ring of motus and reefs. The lagoon in the middle of Rangiroa is 75km long by 25km wide, making it the largest in French Polynesia and the second largest in the world. (No idea where or what the largest is. Answers on a postcard, please.)
We awoke as the ship was sailing into the central lagoon through one of the two channels just as the sun was rising. Once we’d had our breakfast and passengers on excursions had gone ashore, we took a tender to the pier ourselves. There wasn’t much there – a couple of stalls selling jewellery and carvings – and certainly no one selling trips or tours that we could see.
What we did see were some very dark, heavy looking clouds just behind the ship and several patches of rain out in the lagoon that seemed as though they might be coming our way. We decided to wait at the pier for a bit under what shelter there was just in case. As it happened though, we needn’t have worried. The rain passed by and we stayed dry.
So, there we were on one of these islets with no means of going anywhere else, other than back to the ship: what to do next? We did what everyone else was doing and walked the short distance from the pier to the beach. I found a shady spot under a palm tree to sit with our belongings, while Juli finally got to swim in the clear blue, bath-warm waters of the Pacific Ocean. I’m not much for sand and salt water, and am quite happy for Juli to ‘bobble along’ as she calls it while I watch and wait.
Once Juli had taken her fill of ‘bobbling’ plus a little light beach combing (she’s amassed quite a collection of coral and shells) we returned to the pier, caught the next tender back to the ship, had some lunch in our room, then settled back to watch Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull.
Later, as we sailed away from Rangiroa, there was yet another beautiful sunset (complete this time with aerobatic dolphins swimming alongside the ship) which we enjoyed with a glass of another of our sweet wines from the Victoria Market in Melbourne. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Day 306 (Tahiti for the second and last time)
Change over day again: the end of one cruise segment (Tahiti to Tahiti) and the beginning of another (Tahiti to Lima) the middle segment of our five between Sydney and Southampton.
Same business all over the ship as passengers (and some crew, including the captain) came and went, so the gym was relatively quiet for my morning run. You may be wondering why I’m bothering to tell you about my fitness regime. Big deal, you may be thinking. I figure that if tell you I’ve started doing this, it makes it harder for me to quietly slip back into lethargy later.
Incidentally, I mentioned that we have a new captain. Actually he’s returning to our ship, as it was his privilege to be the first ever captain of Marina on her maiden voyage in February 2011.
Once the ship was docked, we were free to go ashore whenever we wanted. Our plan today was to visit the Museum of French Polynesia, which is a little way out of town, and to spend some time in an internet cafe, uploading photos and checking e-mails and the like. In the event, when we checked with the tourist information office, getting to the museum was either a loosely scheduled bus journey or an expensive taxi ride. Turned out neither of us was sufficiently bothered about seeing some old stuff to undertake the journey, so we just spent all our time in the internet cafe.
That was a bit odd though. We could either pay by the minute in Polynesian Francs or buy an all day package in US Dollars. The all day package was a bargain at $6, but they would only take US Dollars, not the equivalent in Franks. Turns out they had a special offer on because the ship was in port. Fortunately, I still had some US Dollars left, but I had to go back to the ship to get them. Good job we were docked.
Back in our stateroom, after several hours of uploading hundreds of photos, we discovered our third complementary bottle of Champagne waiting for us on ice. A little later, after returning from booking a hair cut for Juli in the salon, we found a card waiting for us with the good news that we’d been given more shipboard credits for becoming bronze members (5 to 9 cruises) of the Oceania Club. How about that: free champagne and free money both in one day.
After a snooze and and a bit of TV – more terrible news from Massachusetts (shootings and an explosion near MIT related to the Boston Marathon explosions) and from Texas (fertilizer plant catching fire and exploding) – we went back ashore and wandered through the market on the quayside, where several temporary restaurants had been set up. We chose a van selling Chinese food and ordered a seafood stir fry (Juli) and a beef curry (me). For pudding, we moved to a different van and had some sweet crepes filled with chocolate and banana; mine came with cream, Juli’s had coconut in it. Yum.
Day 307 (Huahine for the second and last time)
Just like the morning after the last change over day in Tahiti, there was a mandatory safety and emergency drill at 08:15 before anyone was allowed off the ship. Fewer passengers in our muster station this time (and fewer absentees too).
Like last time, the order of business was breakfast then tender ashore followed by the bus into town. On the way, we were sat next to a (relatively) young couple – well, younger than us, anyway – we’d noticed on the Sydney to Tahiti segment, but not on the Tahiti to Tahiti loop. Seems they’d had a break from cruising, but were now back on the ship. We fell into conversation with them, and it turns out they’re going all the way to New York, having spent the last year travelling round the world without flying. Imagine that.
In town, we looked at a few shops then walked to the beach, where, again, Juli swam while I looked after our stuff. After the beach we popped into a supermarket to buy some local (brewed on Tahiti) beer for us to drink on our balcony back on board as the sun sets and the ship sails away.
For the rest of the afternoon, we ate a late lunch, read a bit, dozed and I wrote up the passed few days. Later, the sun set, the ship sailed away and beer was drunk on our balcony before diner in Jacques.
As I write this, we’re on route to our third and final visit to Bora Bora, where we have a packed couple of days, about which I’ll write more next time.
TTFN – N
[Click here for more photos from the South Pacific.]
