Tuesday, July 6 - All Aboard!!

We met Hilary and Ann by the restaurant and got a lovely table overlooking the pool and bay. A well-cared-for large orange cat came by for a scratch. I finally got Poisson Cru, a mound of raw tuna, onion, and cucumber with coconut dressing - absolutely delicious! Maybe better as an hors d’oeuvre before dinner, still refreshing on a balmy tropical morning! The others had lovely pastries and fruit. We returned to our rooms to pack up, as we couldn’t get a delayed check-out time and left our beautiful two-room suite at 11 AM. The hotel was happy to store our luggage until later as we can’t board the ship until 3 PM. We set off in our car a short way north to Point Venus, the northern-most point of Tahiti and where Capt. Cook observed the Transit of Venus many years ago. It now consists of a lovely old lighthouse and picnic/fishing area with small outrigger canoes pulled up on the beach.

We then drove toward Papeete and pulled off at James Norman Hall’s house, actually a re-creation of it with all his books, furniture and typewriter inside. One of his grandsons was there and the family seems to run it beautifully. The house was filled with photos of him and Charles Nordhoff, his children and memorabilia of his soldiering days and very interesting.

We returned to the Radisson for lunch, picked up our luggage and headed for downtown Papeete and as we pulled up to the port, there was the white and turquoise Paul Gauguin!!

We went through the complicated process of presenting papers, checking in, receiving cooling damp towels and a frangipani blossom, welcome photo, putting everything on a x-ray belt and picking it up again and we were on board! We went up to Deck 5 for champagne, our ID card/key and finally met Curry, her son, Eric and granddaughter, Lydia! A maid took us to cabin #430 and someone else appeared with our luggage. Our stateroom is quite spacious: large bathroom with infinite cubby holes and hooks, a desk, two closets, king-size bed, tiny sofa and table, TV and bar, plus a large window. The window doesn’t open unfortunately, but as we are very close to sea level I can see why! I unpacked - everything fit into drawers and onto hangers with room to spare! - while Hilary and Bob drove the rental car into Papeete and walked back to the ship

Bob and I set off to explore the ship and found the two restaurants, and up onto deck 8 where there is a small swimming pool and bar and Le Grill cafe. We ran into the others and made a date for dinner at 7:30 at La Veranda Restaurant on Deck 6. Bob returned to our cabin for rest and I wandered over to the bar and got a Cuba Libre. The cost of the cruise includes everything: cabin, food, all drinks, gratuities. No signing your name for every little cocktail!

Actually a big cocktail, as I brought half of it back to Bob to finish!

At 7:30 we all, except Curry and her family, assembled at the restaurant and had an excellent meal. I had pheasant consommé, risotto with mushrooms and truffle oil and sliced strawberries, while the others consumed steak, shrimps, lamb chops all with endless glasses of wine. We returned to Deck 8 for the welcoming party around the pool, but we were tired by then and returned to turned down bed and chocolates! I awoke later to feel us at sea with a gentle swaying and creaking of the ship!

Monday, July 5 Exploring Papeete

Monday, July 5- Arose to clear skies and met Hil and Ann at 8:30 in front of the hotel and Hil drove us to downtown Papeete. The town is swarming with traffic but we fortunately found an underground garage on the waterfront and an attractive café, Le Retro, on the other side of the street. Once again we had confusion trying to order: I ordered the café breakfast of an omelet, tomatoes and the local dish of raw fish in coconut sauce and Bob ordered a croissant as he expected to share my food, but somehow I ended up with a very plain omelet, some French bread and nothing else and he received two tiny croissants. Even with Hil’s French we couldn’t get any jam.

We set off exploring the small bustling town, stopping in shops to look at the famous, and very expensive, black pearls, and internet café, and recovering from the heat in the cool gardens of the government buildings. We stopped in a nice outdoor café for lunch. Bob and Hil ordered chicken sandwiches which were priced at only $5, very inexpensive for Tahiti, and were presented with foot and a half-long baguettes filled with tomatoes, hard boiled eggs and chicken - very good! I got a salad with goat cheese toasts and Ann got a Greek salad..

After lunch we drove over to the Intercontinental Resort to visit Arnie & Anita and/or Kent & Alice but they were both out. The hotel is much larger than the Radisson and has some bungalows built out over the water. It is also quite French as several of the women sunbathing around the pool were topless!.

We returned home and swam and read until seven when we met up for dinner at the tiny, elegant Restaurant "le 5 sens" at our hotel and had our best meal yet! Crispy duck spring rolls, Thai soup with prawns, grilled beef, banana fritters with vanilla-coconut soup - all great!

Sat-Sunday July 3-4 Arriving in and exploring Tahiti

We set off from Santa Barbara at 7:55 AM and drove down the coast through Malibu to Santa Monica and LAX and dropped off our rental car at Avis at 9:55. The bus took us to the Bradley Terminal where we met Hilary and Ann at the Air Tahiti Nui counter, checked in and immediately found Kent and Alice. We sailed through Security and Bob and I went in search of Arnie and Anita. Past security there is very little in way of food and shops, but there is one tiny bar where we joined them for a drink and a bit of the World Cup.

At 12:15 we were loaded onto a bus and driven quite a ways to a far corner of LAX where our beautiful turquoise Air Bus, named Bora Bora was waiting. The seats were rather small with not a lot of leg room but the service was very attentive with water and drinks offered many times and a reasonable lunch of tilapia and pasta. The in-flight entertainment was pretty limited and mostly in French, but 8 hours later we started our descent in pouring rain which fortunately stopped for the brief time it took us to walk to the terminal in the warm damp tropical air!

Arnie & Anita and Kent & Alice were presumably whisked off to the snazzy Intercontinental in their bus, while Bob & I and Hilary & Ann rented a SUV at Hertz and set off in the dark to drive through Papeete to the Radisson 10 miles north. We drove through fairly seedy outskirts and around several rotaries getting rather lost, but with Bob and Hilary’s good sense of direction we found ourselves on the correct road. Pretty amazing as there seem to be very few street signs anywhere! We pulled into the Radisson and Bob and I got a beautiful suite with a large verandah overlooking the pool and maybe the ocean. We ordered room service, and spit a chicken sandwich and collapsed into bed.





Sunday, July 4



I got up at 6:30 and walked out onto our balcony to get my first view of lovely Matavai Bay with its curve of black sand leading to a jungle-covered headland. This is where Captain Cook landed in 1769. Bob soon joined me and got his first life bird of the trip: the beautiful, fork-tailed, pure white Common Fairy Tern.

We went downstairs to join Hilary and Ann at the open air restaurant where a large buffet was being offered, but at the price of $40 a head which made Bob blanch, but fortunately we were able to order a couple of omelets and coffees for considerably less.

At nine we all set off to drive clockwise around Tahiti Nui, the large island, that is connected by a narrow isthmus to Tahiti Iti, the much smaller and more remote half. Tahiti consists of very steep mountains surrounded by a narrow band of relatively flat land where all the houses and commerce are located. Most of the houses are small bungalows surrounded by pretty gardens, with groves of coconuts, papayas, breadfruit and bananas along with a few goats, horses and cows.

The sky was partly cloudy and we couldn’t see how well forested the highest (about 8000’) mountains are. The hillsides near the coast seem to be second or third growth forest. Using our guide book, we turned off the perimeter road at a sign marked “Cascades de Faarumai” and drove up a mile along a river to a large sign explained the legend of a princess, her lover and her angry father and how the two lovers were turned into waterfalls. We walked up a slippery trail past shear walls of brilliant green vegetation until we came to the amazingly high narrow waterfalls. Quite spectacular!



We arrived at the isthmus in a heavy rain storm and turned east along the southern coast. We turned off at the Botanic Gardens and Paul Gauguin Museum. The parking lot was full of motorcycles and colorful souped-up cars; apparently a lot of people were eating at the café there. We joined them as it was past noon and entered tent-covered patio where a well-amplified small band was playing dance tunes loudly enough so we couldn’t talk while they were playing! We ordered mahi-mahi and hamburgers and watched huge platters of food going by and finally got ours filled with French fries, rice, taro and bread, plus fish! Enough carbos for the week! The rain and wind gusted around, but cleared when we entered the Garden which was quite lovely with a wide variety of palms and other tropical plants - unfortunately with little information as to where the plants originated or what they were, but it was very pretty nonetheless

We walked through the Gauguin Museum with photos and details of his life and set off towards Papeete and home. The weather seems to be improving and we saw an enormous rainbow as we entered town.

We returned to the Radisson where Hil and I tried out the pool with its infinity edge, and had a couple of Pina Coladas. We split some room service stir-fry chicken for dinner and then went down to the pool for Magnum Classic ice-cream bars!

Saturday, July 3 - Tahiti Total Eclipse Cruise take off

Well, Amigos, we're all packed and ready to set off on yet another total eclipse trip - this time to the Society Islands. Tomorrow we will join my sister, Hilary, and friends, Ann, Arnie & Anita, Kent & Alice at LAX for a Tahiti Nui flight to Papeete where we'll meet up with Curry and her son and granddaughter and set off on the Paul Gauguin Cruise ship!