Tales of the South Pacific - Huahine

Cruise Day 39

Thursday, November 6, 2025

Hopefully this is the last time I will mention anything about Val and my health in this blog.  We both woke up feeling great, I have taken my last antibiotic, steroid and codeine so life is good again.

Today we are visiting the island of Huahine for the first time.  We have nothing planned and debated whether to get off the ship or not.  It is a beautiful island but not developed at all.  It is another tender day and there is nothing at the tender dock, so the ship has provided a shuttle to Fare, the only large village on the island, but it is a half hour drive to get there.

We are anchored in Mora'e Bay.  I have marked the where the tender dock is and the town of Fare.  Huahine is actually two islands that is linked by the Morae Bridge that is in one of my pictures.

It is a very warm day, and the tendering is going slowly as they don’t want people to have to stand in the sun while they wait for the shuttle.  As it got near mid-morning, Val and I just decided to stay on the ship and enjoy the day from our balcony.  If we had booked a ship excursion before we left it probably would have been interesting to get off and see the island, but it just didn’t seem worth it to go through the hassle today just to see the village.

Some views from our balcony.  That is the Morae Bridge that connects the two islands of Huahine.

A tender taking a group to shore, the tender dock is to the far left.  There are no public buildings near the tender dock so the ship provided a shuttle to the town of Fare.  All the buildings in the picture are private and don't provide any services, so the wait for the shuttle was hot and there weren't many places to sit.

Today we only saw Huahine from our balcony, but it looked like a beautiful island.

I decided to take the free day to catch up on the blog, download the pictures we have taken during the last week, do some banking, and catch up on my emails.  We have plans for tomorrow so this will give me time to catch up.

We had our usual lunch in the Lido and while I finished up my computer work, Val relaxed on the balcony.  It was just Val and I at trivia today as Donna was out on an excursion and we don’t know what happened to Arthur.  After trivia, I walked around the outside decks of the ship and took some pictures and then joined Val to relax until dinner.

After dinner we went to the casino where I again had a little luck, but we didn’t stay long as we have an early wake up time tomorrow for a tour we are going on.  We will be in Papeete, Tahiti for a two day stay.

Tales of the South Pacific - Baie d’Opunohu, Moorea

Cruise Day 38

Wednesday, November 5, 2025

Today we are in Moorea, another tender port.  This is another port we visited in 2013, but we had forgotten just how beautiful the island is.  We are anchored in the middle  of Opunodo Bay dominated by the sharp peak of Mount Rotui.  There is not much development around Opunodo Bay as most of it is on the nearby Cook Bay.  Moorea has its share of beautiful beaches, but it's the lush hillsides and jagged volcanic peaks that dominate the island.  The last time we were here we rented a car and drove the thirty-six mile road around the island; it was a beautiful drive.  Luckily for us, the ship is anchored so that we can sit on our balcony and enjoy this beautiful view.

We are anchored in Opunodo Bay.  Cook Bay, the next bay over, is more developed and where Moana Pearls that we visited today is located.

Looking out to sea from Opunodo Bay.

 

The view from our balcony.

We had nothing planned for today in Moorea but decided to take the tender ashore around eleven and see what we could find.  I had just taken my antibiotic (thankfully the final one) and wasn’t feeling too good, but I didn’t just feel like hanging around so off we went.

Some views from the tender.  This is captain of the tender taking us ashore.

When we arrived at the tender pier there were many vendors stalls set up and there were performers dancing, singing and playing so we watched them for a while and then strolled through the vendor area.  The last time we were here, the vendors were all in makeshift tents and the whole area was gravel, but now there is a nice pavilion, and they have really improved the area.

 

Val is still shopping for pearls, so we decided to find a taxi to take us to the same store she had bought pearls at in 2013.  There was a lady offering a shuttle to a pearl shop, and although it wasn’t the one Val was looking for, she decided to take us up on that as the driver had offered to take us to the one we wanted to go through afterwards.  Val didn’t care much for the first pearl shop, and when we didn’t buy anything, our driver remembered she had another appointment and took us back to the tender dock.  She was nice enough, but clearly wanted us to buy from her shop, so we were fine with just going back to the dock.

After returning, we found a lady with a taxi, and we asked her to take us to Moana Pearl Shop where Val wanted to shop.  It was quite a ways away and it took about a half hour to get there, but it was a beautiful drive, and the driver was very nice.  We talked to her a lot about her family and her life here in Moorea and her background.  It was very interesting and we really liked her.  She is currently running for the council of her village and from there she hopes to move on to be mayor.

We had an enjoyable time shopping at Moana Pearl and the talking with the young man who helped us.  He was an American and his father had arrived by yacht many years ago, met a woman and married her and started a pearl farm and this business.  Val found just what she wanted and also bought a gift for Marsha who is taking care of our house while we are gone.  Marsha has gone way beyond the call of duty on this trip and deserves our gratitude and a special gift.

After making our purchases, we drove back to the tender dock.  We stopped several times on the way back for pictures and continued talking to our driver about life in Moorea.  Sadly, she never told us her name, and we never asked, so unfortunately, we only know her as our driver.  When we got back to the dock, we said our goodbyes and got some hugs from our driver and after a photo together, we parted ways.

I wish I knew her name, but this is the taxi driver who drove us around.  She was very nice and we really enjoyed our time with her.

Val spent some time looking through the vendor stalls again while I watched some more of the entertainment that was going on.  We finally got on the tender and headed back to the ship.  What a great day this has been, after feeling under the weather for the last couple of weeks, we are both feeling much better, and after I got over my antibiotic sickness, I felt great.  We met some really nice local people, learned about island life and culture and Val found her pearls.

It was around three when we got back on the ship, so we had missed lunch, and decided to just grab some snacks in the Neptune Lounge.  We had a little time to relax and then headed off to trivia.  Arthur was gone again, but Donna was there so we had a partial team anyway.

After trivia, Val and I relaxed until dinner time.  We weren’t very hungry since we had eaten lunch so late, so we decided to just have a couple of appetizers and dessert.  After lunch, we went to the casino where Val had a successful evening, but my luck had run out.

Time to leave, we sail out of Opunodo Bay.

This is the Hilton Moorea Lagoon Resort at the mouth of the bay.

We sail out pas the reef and into the open seas.

We returned to our room and relaxed until bedtime.  Tomorrow we are visiting the island of Huahine.

Tales of the South Pacific - Uturoa, Raiatea

Cruise Day 37

Tuesday, November 4, 2025

It was a bit of a rough night last night as, thanks to the codeine, I went right to sleep but woke up about two and couldn’t get back to sleep.  I should have just taken another codeine, but I really didn’t want to rely on those to sleep as I really wasn’t coughing.  Finally, around five I did take one but regretted it as it was very hard to get up this morning and I felt a little groggy.

Raiatea is another place we visited in 2013, so we hadn’t made any plans for today, but after getting ready and having breakfast, we decided to go ashore and walk around a bit.  Fortunately, Raiatea is one of the few French Polynesian ports that we are able to dock at, so we were able to just walk off the ship; it’s so much easier than tendering.

Raiatea is not very far from Bora Bora.

You can see how close Bora Bora is on this map.

We sail into Raiatea.

That is Raiatea's sister island Taha'a across the lagoon.  We have sailed through an opening in the reef to dock in Raiateas today.

I hate to keep talking about our health, but it’s playing a big part in the trip right now and while neither of us feel particularly bad, we are not normal either as we recover from our afflictions.  I am still taking my antibiotics and although they have done the job, they really make me feel sick after I take them, particularly in the morning so I really didn’t feel very good and after walking through the nearby market, we decided to just go back to the ship and take it easy.  Tomorrow is my last day to take the antibiotics, and I am really looking forward to that.

There are some shops and an information center right on the pier.

This was the extent of the time we spent in Raiatea today.  We went to the local market, but didn't even bother to take any pictures.

When you're on the ship it doesn't seem that big, but when you get off and walk beside it you realize just how big it is, and this is considered a smaller cruise ship.

Tomorrow we are going to be in Moorea, and we had a snorkeling trip planned there for tomorrow that we were really looking forward to, but after talking it over, we decided we needed to cancel it.  We are both still getting over our coughs, and we can’t imagine trying to snorkel while coughing.  Very disappointing, but it is the right thing to do.

We had lunch in the Lido and then relaxed for a while out on our balcony.  The view of Raiatea and its sister island of Taha'a is very beautiful.  Val and I went to trivia at four, but we were the only ones there as Donna was on a tour and, evidently, Arthur is still sick.

Raiatea and its sister island Taha'a.  As you can see they are very close and share the same lagoon.

We had great views off our balcony.

After trivia, it was time for the sail away from Raiatea and today was going to be a special one as we would sail out between the islands of Raiatea and Tahaa with commentary provided by Kristin, our port specialist.  I decided to go out to the bow for the sail away, but Val decided to view it from our balcony.  It was a beautiful evening, and the views of both Raiatea and Tahaa were wonderful, particularly of Tahaa, it’s just a beautiful, lush island.  As we neared the open seas after passing between the two islands, we could see the iconic silhouette of Bora Bora in the distance, what a wonderful sail away it was.  I went to the bow because I wanted to have a view from both sides of the ship, but it turns out, I could have joined Val on our balcony and had almost the same experience.

It was a beautiful evening and we really enjoyed our sail away from Raiatea.  We sailed between Raiatea and Taha'a, and all of the pictures are of Taha'a as that was the most scenic view.

That is the iconic silhouette of Bora Bora in the distnace.

We come out of the channel between Raiatea and Taha'a and head for the open seas.

We are heading through the reef and out to sea, that is Taha'a in the background.

Bora Bora as we pass through the reef.

Tonight, we have a special dinner in the Pinnacle Grill called the Tanarind.  The Pinnacle Grill is a specialty restaurant on board that specializes in steaks and sea food, and you pay a surcharge to eat there.  The Tamarind is a special Asian Fusion dinner they have there a few times during the cruise and we decided to try it out tonight.  

We were wondering how much we would enjoy it as our appetites haven’t been very good lately with being sick and the medications we’ve been taking, but it turned out to be quite good.  Afterwards we spent a little time in the casino and then called it a night.  After not sleeping well last night, I was very tired and went right to bed.  Tomorrow we’ll be in Moorea.

One last panoramic look at the Taha'a across the lagoon.