Moorea

By Aaron

We left Papeete for a boisterous but quick day’s sail over to Moorea and were again impressed with the beauty of French Polynesia. 

Moorea has some great hiking with rewarding vistas

We anchored in Opunohu Bay where we enjoyed our morning coffee with a proper view.

We shared the anchorage with a sailing camp for local kids that had dozens of Hobie Cats and prams out sailing every day.  They were quite good, and no doubt could teach me a thing or two about trimming a main.

The big thing to do on Moorea is feed the stingrays.  As soon as they heard our dinghy drive in to the lagoon, the line formed up for some free goodies

“SO CUTE!!!” Says Nicole.  It was all I could do to keep her from loading one up in the dinghy and bringing it home with us.

We even threw in some belly rubs for good measure.  They are super soft and cuddly.  Except for the poisonous barb part.

Of course the sharks smell the water getting chummed up and make their appearance.  Fortunately they keep a respectful 5 foot distance and don’t try to get in on the hand feeding, so to speak.

While snorkeling nearby, we discovered some Polynesian tiki artifacts!  They must have been uncovered by a storm or something and likely date back thousands of years!  Nicole says they put them there for tourists, thus crushing my amazing contribution to the archaeological community.

Cindi from Bravo inspecting a tiki… knowing these guys she’s likely checking to see if it can be lifted out and mounted on their bow pulpit along with the rest of the creepy stuff they’ve got up there.

I found Nemo.  He was a lot more angry than I expected.

We enjoyed a nice hike with Mark and Jacqui from SV Compass Rosey and got the obligatory conquering done.  Palarran is catching up fast!

Nicole and I enjoying the view.  (I have since trimmed up the mullet on Bora Bora)

Leaving the anchorage in the evening for an overnight sail to Huahine.  The forecast called for 18 knots, which is perfect for a nice relaxing downwind run.  Of course it ended up being a steady 25 with gusts to 30 and some pretty big seas.  One of those sleep on the floor kind of nights.  Good times!

Our stop on Moorea was a relatively short one.  With some big winds coming in we wanted to get further on down the road.  Too bad, in retrospect it definitely deserved more time.