So sorry for the delay in publishing this post. It was all ready to go last night but I couldn't get it uploaded. I blamed it on ship wifi until it also wouldn't load today in Papeete (Chaplins, which, as you know, has the fastest wifi on this side of the Pacific.). So I copied and deleted and started again and was instantly successful. I hope you think it was worth the wait!
This was our sixth visit to Moorea during this season, and just to show how we mix things up a bit- on one visit we took a circle island tour with Julienne, on another we did Hiro's stingray, snorkel and motu picnic tour, a third time we visited the Moorea Hilton, a fourth time we visited the Intercontinental Moorea and a fifth visit was pretty much rained out (though I was thoroughly intrigued by the music coming from a funeral service in the octagonal church near the tender pier). Do we get bored? How could we?
I had to set the alarm this morning because we needed to be on the very first tender to the island, which is generally at 8am at the latest. Sure, I figured G would be awake already, but I couldn't take any chances. Luckily, we didn't have a repeat of what's come to be known as the Nuku Hiva debacle, where I reset my Timex back to factory settings before successfully turning off the darn alarm clock; I aimed directly for the clock first time this morning. I had awakened once during the night, remembering that we needed to take our drivers' licenses with us today, and had scribbled a note on a piece of paper in my sleep and then placed the paper in the middle of the floor. It's a tried and true method for putting something out of my mind so I can get back to sleep. So the first thing I did was slip on that piece of paper en route to the bathroom. See, it worked!
My first glance at the 'front of the ship' webcam provided a typical early morning mix of sun and rain, but that there was any sun at all gave me hope that we'd have a good weather day today. And, boy, did we ever.
We were at breakfast in the Club Restaurant when it opened at 7am, ate quickly, returned to our cabin where we (I) layered on first SPF 50 sunscreen and then DEET and were the last two people on the first tender to the island. Karine from ATV Moorea Tours (atvmoorea.com, jqmoorea@hotmail.com) was waiting for us on the tender pier, holding a sign with our name on it. We climbed into her minivan and then went the short distance to the Intercontinental Moorea, where we picked up a young couple from England. Just beyond the IC was the ATV Moorea shop, and there we met our wonderful guide Guellaeme (I know I'm not spelling that right, but I remember it also wasn't spelled the way I thought it would be), who will hereafter be referred to as Guy (that's GEE, not JEE, said in that back of the throat way that only the French and Niles Crane on Frasier can say correctly).
We completed the necessary paperwork, paid the remainder of what we owed (I had made an 84€ deposit via PayPal before we left home), and were fitted with helmets. In front of the shop, we were given a lesson by Guy on how to operate an ATV, which made perfect sense to me when I was standing four feet away, but as soon as I sat on the machine I needed to be shown all over again because I wasn't wearing my reading glasses and couldn't see the labels on any of the buttons and levers. Guy was a good sport and didn't curse under his breath, "Mon Dieu, vous êtes une idiot!!" In fact, Guy was, throughout, a most friendly and calming and patient guide, which is exactly what I needed.
I had ridden ATV's just a handful of times in the past, a small handful. I remember doing an excursion in Cabo San Lucas where I almost turned myself over in a ravine, an excursion in Barbados where we ended up head to toe mud, and also an excursion in Isla de Margarita off the coast of Venezuela. Despite the near miss in Cabo, there had never been bloodshed or tears...well, no bloodshed, at least. And even though my Harley experience was of no use on a Bora Bora jet ski, I knew it might help a bit on an ATV (in the end, not really). But I had never before ridden an ATV on such mountainous terrain as on Moorea. Still, there was never any thought given to simply being a passenger on G's ATV, as the British couple did. No, that's not what we're about (in case you didn't already know that).
We started out on the island's perimeter road, and I was loving that experience. The breeze in my face, the sun on my arms, waving at all the locals and yelling "Ia Orana" as we passed by. Oh yes, this was right up my alley. We turned off onto the road to Belvedere lookout, which we had visited on our circle island tour, and pulled over to take photos. Guy told us we would next be going off road, through a pineapple plantation, on 4WD roads. How difficult could that be?
As it turned out, not too difficult at all. We rode through several streams and my sneakers as well as the bottom of my shorts got soaked, but that only served to cool me off a bit. We had several stops to talk about the only fruits that are exported from Moorea- pineapple, papaya and grapefruit; though many others are grown, these are the only three grown in enough abundance to export. Our first stop was in a pineapple plantation, where the air smelled so sweet. We next made our way to the acres of grounds of the Moorea agricultural school, and this part of the tour alone made the whole thing worthwhile. Guy, though he'd only lived on Moorea for three years, knew everything about everything...the name of every flower and tree and fruit and mountain. At one point we rode through a tunnel of plants called porcelain roses, so low that we needed to duck down on our ATVs.
The view from our first stop
A pineapple plant (they don't grow on trees. Who knew?)
A banana flower. Cutting the flower off ripens the fruit in just three weeks.
A bunch of bananas
G getting ready to swing on a banyan tree
This horse was standing in our trail and wouldn't move so we had to go around him.
A panoramic view of the Moorea Agricultural school grounds with rows of different fruit trees in the foreground.
A bird of paradise plant
Eventually, we returned to the road to the Belevedere (which means 'beautiful view point' in French, and it certainly was a beautiful viewpoint today. We took the requisite photos (I refused to pose for any, what with my shockingly awful case of helmet hair, but then I'm not much for photos of people in front of landmarks anyway, in case you hadn't noticed. If it's a beautiful vista, I don't need a photo of myself in front if it to prove I was there), and proceeded half way back down the mountain to the agricultural school where we had samples of different jams and jellies made from fruits produced at the school. They also sold juices and sorbets and ice cream and...really, just give me a taxi ride to there so I could spend a wonderful day eating coconut and passion fruit and mango sorbets. I would be very happy spending a day that way!
Opunohu Bay
Cooks Bay
At that point, we had a decision to make. We had paid for a 2 1/2 hour tour, not knowing how we'd (really, I'd) do on the ATVs. There was a longer route, adding about a hour to the trip that we had the option of doing. The couple from England was game, and, of course, you know G was. Guy told us that we were all doing magnificently on our ATVs and, though the next part of the tour would be much more adventurous, he thought we'd all be fine. Since he would be the one doing any required rescuing, I trusted his perspective. We decided to continue.
Well, it got a lot more exciting with virtually no notice. That's one thing I like about white water rafting. We've rafted Class 5 Rapids in the past, and it's a very civilized sport. When you get to a treacherous rapid, you eddy out beforehand, everyone gets out of the raft and climbs to a cliff overlooking the rapid and the guide instructs you how to approach the rapid. You know what's coming and you know what's required to not die. ATVing, I've learned, does nothing of the sort. We turned off a perfectly good 4WD road, one that I was quite happy on, and- BOOM- there we were, going straight up while curving, then going straight down while curving and going through a raging river. Or at least an unhappy stream. At one point, a tree branch hit me hard on my helmet and the sweat running down my arms made me aware of a scratch on my hand. Still, I am not a coward, and was determined to keep calm and carry on.
It was actually good training for what was ahead, a trip up "Magic Mountain" (magic because of the views from the top) on what was basically two concrete strips not unlike the two rails on a roller coaster, with steep, rocky switchbacks connecting them, a wall on one side, a drop off on the other and a gap between them in which one could lose a wheel. Up we went, up and up and up. Every so often, Guy would point out the ever-smaller Pacific Princess anchored in Opunohu Bay way, way down below us, and I did occasionally allow myself to turn one eyeball that direction, but mostly I just clung to those handlebars and prayed.
It's funny the things that flash through your mind when going through something like that...my mind was occupied with an Executive VP who was my boss when I was around 32 years old. Let's call him Art, because that was his name. Art had been a Green Beret in the Vietnam War. I was one of only two women who reported directly to him. On my first day, I remember him telling me, "Don't tell me why something can't be done. Just do it and tell me when it's finished". See, there it is again...just do it. It made me tough when things get rough, and this was surely one of those times. Just like climbing Mt. Tapioi on Raiatea, I knew that coming down Magic Mountain was going to be plenty tough.
Still, I enjoyed the view from the top while we were up there. We had to walk after we'd parked our ATVs, up a path so steep that there was rope strung from posts to help us pull ourselves up (well, maybe it was really there to keep people from falling off the side of the mountain, but it served well as a puller-upper too). And the view from the very top was spectacular. We saw the Pacific Princess down on one side of Opunohu Bay, and the octagonal church where the tenders come in, the Hilton Moorea on our right side and the Intercontinental Moorea on the left. The sun was bright and the lagoon was blue and we could see the waves crashing on the reef in the distance. I wished I could stay there forever (because it was so beautiful but mostly so I wouldn't have to go back down that narrow roller coaster road into what was undoubtedly a certain death).
The view part way up Magic Mountain
The view from the top towards the west, with the Intercontinental Moorea overwater bungalows in the distance.
If you look along the waterfront in the middle of this photo, you'll see the octagonal church near the tender pier and some tenders going back and forth to the ship, which is just to the right of the photo, around Magic Mountain.
A perfect view of Opunohu Pass into Opunohu Bay. There are twelve passes through Moorea's barrier reef because Moorea has twelve rivers.
The water from the rivers dilutes the salt water in the ocean and kills the reef, resulting in naturally occurring passes.
And, finally, the view to the east, with the Hilton Moorea overwater bungalows visible in the distance.
It was one of the scarier things I've done in recent years, but I survived. It helped that Guy told us he's never seen an ATV crash on Magic Mountain (which I chose to think meant that one had never happened, not that they happened but were flung off the mountain into the abyss of tropical vegetation below so that no one could see them). By the time we reached the perimeter road again, my heart was pounding and I was nearly delirious from stress and sun and heat. In other words, it was the BEST time we've had so far!!
Once back at the shop, we paid for the additional hour (which was really more than that. Guy said he let us have a bit of extra "fun" since we were all doing so well) and the whole day ended up costing about US $350-360, more than an all day snorkel trio and motu picnic but less than the Bora Bora jet skis, and we felt it was very good value for the money. One of my favorite parts was Guy explaining the geology of the Society Islands by drawing diagrams of Moorea 2.5 million years ago, 1 million years ago, now and 1 million years from now in the dirt. It provided a perfect explanation of how these islands came to be here, one that we had first looked up several cruises ago one day in Raiatea when we were relaxing on deck and G said, "I wonder how that reef came to be" and, if you understand that, you kind of understand how each of the five French Polynesia island groups came to be. It's really fascinating stuff (my nerd-ness is showing again)!
We were driven back to the tender dock by Karine and took the next tender back to the ship (accompanied by the captain's wife and 7- and 2-year old sons, just returning from a day at the beach with buckets and shovels and snorkel masks and the little one was fast asleep on her shoulder...so cute). It was after 2pm by then, and definitely time for Vitamin I (ibuprofen), and I needed to rest just to get the energy to get up and shower the mud off of me. G used a hot tub but I did...nothing, until it was time to get ready for sailaway and dinner. We watched the beautiful view of Opunohu Bay fading into the distance from the terrace behind the Panorama Buffet, not going to dinner until we were leaving the northern coast of Moorea in the distance.
It was a short cruise across the Sea of the Moon to Papeete, Tahiti, and we were just finishing up dinner as we docked. Surprisingly, for the first time since we've been down here, we docked bow first, which provided a bright view of les roulottes (the food trucks) on the pier from the front of the ship webcam. G made some noises about walking off the ship for awhile tonight, but lay down in bed for 14 seconds and fell fast asleep. Papeete will be there tomorrow and the next day, too; we don't sail until December 19th (Friday?) at 5pm.
All the activity related to les roulottes near the cruise ship pier in Papeete
(also, where we'll be getting a lot of our meals for the ten days we're staying at the Tiare Tahiti).