Having seen Cooks bay with my own eyes now from a sailing ship, I can understand why the famous Captain Cook came here so often and fell in love with Moorea. Bora Bora gets all of the press, but Moorea is the most beautiful island and looking at Cooks Bay below we fell in love with it, too.
Normally only the riggers that take care of the lines go up to the crows nest above. We did it twice; the first time when the ship was anchored and now when the ship was sailing. It added a whole new element to climb when the rope ladder moving!
Island men are often out in the bay paddling around with outrigger canoes. The fast ones will chase the tender we take back and forth from the island and try to stay in the wake of the boat to go faster. Here is a younger guy paddling into the wake.
Tender docked at the island
Paddler in wake
We often had the water sports team to ourselves and we went water skiing every chance we got. Once or even twice a day. I had not been skiing since high school and then only for a week so I was sore most days. Each day I got more confident. Kari is a pro right away. He shows us all sorts of tricks. He even tried to get up on one ski.
Today was deep water snorkeling which means that the reef is taller and the water is 20+ feet deep. We saw a huge puffer fish and an eight foot moray eel move from one hiding spot to another.
We also are getting more used to Island running and stopped at several of the mile markers for the Tahiti marathon. In this heat I think we would have been cooked if we had tried it so we are just fine with not running longer than our water bottle lasts. We stop to take photos of our magnificent sailing ship at different points along the way.
We had spent so many days snorkeling to view all of these beautiful tropical fish we didn’t even think of these fish as food, but the people from the island catch and eat them as just we caught Perch or Bass while we were growing up. Here are all our freinds being sent off to be someone’s lunch. Ouch.
The captains dinner was tonight and that means that there was a table at the front of the dining room where the captain sat with some passengers. We sat with our new friends from Malibu – David and Nancy, from NY – Chris and Anne, and from Lima Peru – Mary Lou and Andreus. We had such fun sharing stories about the trip so far and learning about each other that the evening went way too fast. The night was extra memorable for all of us because it was also Anne’s birthday. Happy Birthday Anne!
Andrea’s and Mary Lou
Tonight we had a talent show on board after dinner. This was more fun than any professional talent they could have brought on board because the crew we had come to know and also the friends we had made on board where the ones in this amateur talent show. Here are two that we caught on film, Dave was our water sports guy from Canada and Anne is a friend from NY who formerly performed in NY and on a cruse ship (she is awesome).
Anne always loves to perform
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