Monday, June 13, 2016

10 mile hike

We are in Moorea, about 15 miles from Tahiti. We are anchored in Cook's Bay. On Friday night we went to a local hotel for an evening of Polynesian dance. Last night we went to the Hilton for a similar performance. This one included the men doing a fire dance on the beach. It turned out to be the same troupe with twice as many dancers. It was happy hour at the Hilton so the drinks were surprisingly cheap. Great fun.

We were planning to depart today but the forecast of West winds and 15 foot waves held us back.

We decided to dinghy to Opuhonu Bay. This is the others small boat anchorage. We knew that there were several boats we had met in Pape'ete Marina anchored in the bay. The pass inside the reef between the bays is quite shallow even for a dinghy. Fortunately Mike and Davyd had used it on a dive boat so they knew the drill.

We arrived in the bay and went through the anchorage. We decided to beach the dinghy on a beautiful sand beach. We ran into Alex from Dream Catcher and said hi.

At this point there was a need for a head call so we started walking. There were two problems with this. First, there is almost nothing for the 10 miles from the beach to the Intercontinental Hotel. Second, it was Sunday so almost everything was closed. We walked for 3 1/2 hours to Woody's ukulele shop. Mike had wanted to purchase one. It was of course closed. We trucked on for another 1/2 hour to the Intercontinental. No ATM. No Internet except for registered guests. Consulting our map we continued for another 1/2 hour to a beach bar that advertised free WiFi. Nope.

At this point we called a cab. We were driven to the ATM. Kaput! We rode back to the dinghy ($ 30 US) and headed back to Reboot. On the way back there was a pop. I thought the bottom of the outboard had hit a coral head. When we arrived at Reboot and stopped the engine a dead bird floated up from the outboard. Coral head? Bird? We will never know.

I have been surprised that everywhere we go the resorts seem empty. Even in Pape'ete the clubs were empty at night. Not so the Hilton and Intercontinental. Both were humming with activity. I guess the 1% are doing OK.

Fair winds and following seas:)

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