Mo'orea, Tahiti

Cooke’s Bay, Mo’orea, Tahiti

Today’s stop was again in French Polynesia, Cooke’s Bay, Mo’orea, Tahiti.  It is a small island about 12 miles off the coast of Papeete, Tahiti.  Our planned excursion was a boat tour to a private island for snorkeling, swimming and lunch.  This island is very mountainous, and lush with a surprising amount of scrub pines. 

 

We started early around 8:30 and all hopped on a large boat which brought us to a swallow area to again swim with the sharks and stingrays.  Today Ty chose to bring a book and stay out of the sun as he got sunburned the last few days and needed a break. So I was on my own in the water today. We saw many, many sharks this time.  Several swarming as the guides threw them some food. It was pretty cool to see so many swimming around us, but did make me a bit nervous. The rays were fun to play with, they really are so gentle.  A few people in our group got some stomach “hickies” as the ray swam up their stomach and sucked it thinking it was food. We were able to feed these rays by their mouth or ears without problems.

 

After our water stop we toured around the island a bit and headed to the private island for a few hours of beach time. Ty spent the afternoon hanging out in a palm tree reading his book, while I swam, snorkeled and enjoyed the sun.

 

Another great lunch was prepared for us; today we were served pork, fish, fresh fruits and Poisson Cru (tuna, cucumber, tomato, onion marinated in lime and coconut milk), local beers and rum punch.

We enjoyed our lazy day and around 3pm we were taken back to the ship for our departure. On our return I looked up and was amazed to see this large mountain peak in front of me and I said “Bali Hai!” I have been trying to find out where this mountain island was located since seeing the movie “South Pacific” a few weeks ago, and there it was.  The guide laughed at my outburst and confirmed it was the mountain they used in filming as well as in the movie “The Bounty”. This island is so beautiful. There is very little advanced tourism so the island remains in a wonderfully natural state.