Today we're anchored near Rangiroa on the Tuamotu Islands in French Polynesia and will need to take a short tender ride in to the dock after breakfast. We've been very fortunate with the tenders as we haven't had to wait more than a minute or two for them. We had read on Cruise Critic that we might have to wait several hours -- glad that information was not accurate.
Once we arrived at the dock we checked the few tour vendors for one that was offering glass bottom boat tours, however none were available, as our cruise line booked them all. Since we didn't have our snorkeling equipment with us we opted to follow the road to the other side of the island. Once there we looked back the way we'd come and could see our cruise ship in the harbor. That's how narrow the island is!
If you look very closely at the end of the road in the center of the picture, you'll see a little spec of white at the convergence of the trees and the road -- that's our ship at the other side of the island.
Typical home along the road from the ship to the coral beach
One of the nicest homes along this same stretch of road
There was a small beach composed only of pieces of coral -- no shells were visible. However there were vendors at the dock selling shell jewelry, so the shells obviously came from one of the bays or another beach on the island. We climbed around on the beach and selected a few small pieces of coral to take home. It's amazing how heavy the coral is, even a small piece.
Coral beach
Coral, a few rocks, and sand - no shells
We'll have to cleverly pack our suitcases later today, as we were originally only a couple pounds under the 50-pound limit per person. Evidently Air Tahiti is very picky about total suitcase weight, so it's a good thing we each only carried one item on the flights out here. Now, if needed, we can each carry another item to reduce total suitcase weight. We brought our little suitcase-weighing gadget with us, so we should be able to manage nicely with no over-limit charges - we hope!
Before tendering back to the ship we checked out the dock vendors and purchased a small clay painting from the artist. He collects various colors of clay from around the islands to create his earth-tone colored paintings. There were also numerous vendors selling shell and pearl jewelry and not much else. We tendered back to the ship and spent the time before lunch relaxing in our room.
This afternoon we spent packing suitcases which have to be placed outside our suite by 10pm and will be taken to the airport and locked up all day tomorrow. We'll retrieve them when we get to the airport tomorrow night. This created an interesting challenge, as we disembark from the ship tomorrow morning around 9 am, however our flight doesn't leave until 11 pm -- what do we do all day, and what clothes do we need to do it in? We spent considerable time while packing discussing what clothes we needed during the hot day, what we needed in the evening for dinner at Le Lotus (the nicest restaurant in French Polynesia), and what we were going to wear on the plane. That's actually three different outfits with related items like shoes - way too much to schlep all day and evening. So we eventually each landed on some clever combinations to reduce the number of clothes and shoes we'd need to carry -- two pairs of shoes each, 1 to wear, 1 to carry, etc.
On the far right is the coral beach we were on earlier today - photo taken as our ship left the island
Once packing was completed, we met our friends for Happy Hour and made plans to meet up for breakfast. Our solution for tomorrow, for the 14 hours between the time we leave the ship and board our plane, was for the four of us to rent a room at Le Meridien Hotel for the day, so we can relax and stay cool before our dinner together and our respective flights (they're flying out 59 minutes after we are). The four of us separated for dinner, as Denny and I made prior plans to have dinner served in our room by our butler. We ordered from the outstanding Asian Fusion restaurant that we enjoyed so much earlier in the cruise. It was truly decadent being waited on in our room rather than just having a room service tray dropped off for us to deal with!
Lobster medallions on dried lotus
Denny with a shrimp appetizer and my spring roll -- check out the amount of silverware for each of us
Denny's stir-fry
After dinner we decided to attend the last show of the cruise. We're not big on the cruise shows on any cruise and seldom attend them unless it's something that really sounds interesting. Tonight's show was dedicated to the Rat Pack in Las Vegas, so we expected it to be quite good -- unfortunately we were disappointed with the show, especially the lead vocalists. However there was a Russian couple who performed several times during the show that were amazing. She must have been triple-jointed and was incredibly graceful, and he made lifting her into all types of positions appear effortless. She would start out in one position he lifted her into then would wrap herself around him in another position -- he wore her beautifully. They were well worth sitting through the show to see!
Following the show we went back to our suite for our last night sleeping at sea to the gentle rocking of the ship. It's been a wonderful trip!
No comments:
Post a Comment