Our travel day was leisurely because we left from LAX at 1:00PM. We started the day with a bike and then of course double and triple checked out bags for stuff we needed; how do you know what you need unless you have been on this type of trip before? That is why we are going on an island sailing trip to see if we like it. We drove our car to a parking garage near the airport and left it for Karl who was returning from Hawaii today; very cool that Karl was coming in and could pick up the car so we didn’t have to pay for the week of parking and he had a car to drive home.
We got to the international terminal and a short time after getting to our gate our Air Tahiti Nui plane arrived – very easy to spot it with the distinctive white flower on the back tail. Each plane in their fleet is named after a Tahitian island.
In this great 8 hour flight we got one hot meal and one cold meal. The flight included fragent flowers, earplugs, eye shades and ear phones, and staff was excellent always bringing around water. The flight was not even close to full so Sara and I got to stretch out and sleep. See pics in gallery.
We arrived at the airport in Tahiti and walked out into the very hot and humid 85F air on the open gangway. We felt like we were melting in our jeans and warm shrits that we wore from the winter in Califonia. We waited patiently in line though customs as we dreamed of slipping into some shorts. Ugh! We were greeted by men playing small musical instruments and beautiful women who handed us yet another small flower.
Next we boarded a bus which broght us to our boat. As we approached the Harbor, we saw the outline of the huge masts in white lights knew that we were in the right place. We boarded the boat from the pier while our bags were brought to our room. Here is our boat the Star Clipper.
Home Sweet Home. Not an inch of space to spare! Our cabin is small but super efficient and cozy. Here is a little tour of our cabin – why do we need so much room at home?
We went to bed late after the crew put up the main sails. Our bed as you saw in the video is a wide bunk for two which is comfortable. The boat rocks back and fourth a lot! and sometimes in a circle so you get aggressively rocked to sleep. (If this boats arocken…) I can tell you this first night it was kind of a weird feeling; but we got some rest and were up early – check out this view out of our portal in the morning.
Little did we know but we were on a boat that had been chartered by several Ivy League colleges for the voyage. They had brought on lecturers from schools like Harvard, Princeton and UC Berkley who gave lectures on the ship about the Polynesian islands in relation to their fields of expertise; this made our ship mates fascinating people to get to know. There was however a small band of us independents that spent more time in the water than in lecture.
Picture Gallery – A picture gallery will be posted with each days pictures, take a look and let me know what you think.
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