PART 2

10 Oct - Ua Huka Vaipaee Bay

Highlight of today was the monoeuver to moor ship in the narrow bay. Ship reversed in, dropped acnhor and mooring ropes secured each side to hold it in position. The seamen took the risk in their stride, and even managed to extracate from near miss when prop became snagged in mooring rope. Luckily engine restarted and prop still rotated.

Ua Huka is the only island in the group which is rat free. They are trying hard to maintain this status to protect wildlife habitat particularly the Blue Lorrikeet. This little dog was trained in New Zealand to detect rats in cargo leaving ship.

Kapok pod open.

We were all taken around in a fleet of 4WDs to various sites, including a museum and yet another feast of a lunch. We are getting quite used to eating now. A short but steep hike to an archeological site helped us burn off a bit.

Tiki with male part intact. Missionarys had managed to have most old tikis emasculated.

12 Oct - at sea on way to Rangiroa another big atoll, we have now left Marquesas. We were treated to some spectacular views in the seting sun as we sailed around Ua Huka.

13 Oct - Rangiroa atoll, snorkelling and a long  voluntary walk to the pier where we phoned for a boat to pick us up.

Some of the passengers who had being doing Tahitian dancing lessons on board treated us to a display of their talents.

Others preferred to lounge in their cabins during dance lesson time, but we did watch the show.

14 Oct - Last but not least - Bora Bora.

We had a full day here and schose the round - island tour in a motorised canoe. The alternative was swimming with the sharks and rays which we did not think was our thing. However the 1st stop was swimming with the rays and sharks and it wasn't that scary. The rays wanted to come between my legs, I didn't want them to do that. After the tour we had lunch on a private island. Anothr feast, this time prpared by the ships crew.

15, 16 Oct - Manarva hotel Papeete.

We were discharged from our ship in the morning and to kill time before we could check into our hotel did a 4WD drive tour up to the caldera in Tahiti Nui. This was a bit rough and we saw nothing that we hadn't already seen in the Marquesas. Two couples of noisy selfy-obsessed Poles made for a rather uncomfortable 4 hours. We and the 3 Canadians sharing the tour were not amused. Papeete's slow traffic made it a bit drawn out.

Evening view from our hotel room towards Mooroa. The canoe club is next door and a few crews were out doing there stuff after work. A nice evening to relax before we return home.

THE END