(As usual, resting your mouse pointer over photos will reward you with captions!)

Monday, May 3rd. Mr. W beat me out the door and went up to La Palette, Deck 8, for breakfast and told me to meet him there so we can watch our approach to Raiatea’s sister island, Taha’a.
Here’s my entry onto Deck 8, and the view that greeted me as I emerged. You’ll see Mr. W waving at the end of the short clip.


Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing


Taha’a is a small island with less than 4500 people living there, and those inhabitants of the quiet island live mostly off the land, raising livestock, farming, fishing. Tahitian vanilla, nicknamed “black gold,” comes primarily from this island.


Taha’a has a gorgeous string of motus (small islands) along its northern reef edge, which we took plenty of photos of while on deck.

This is a very pretty photo of some overwater bungalows off a motu, which Mr. W snapped. You’ll see Bora Bora’s scraggly peaks behind them.

Here’s a 30-second video of our view on deck.


Photo Sharing – Video Sharing – Photo Printing

A note about the 2 videos you’ve seen on this post. I was not creepily breathing into the microphone. The ship was still cruising, so it was windy, and that’s the wind you hear. It was so windy, in fact, that I lost my hat. 🙁 First, it was there, on my head…

…and then suddenly, it was on the other side of the deck out of reach. The wind carried it precariously closer to the edge of the ship. If we weren’t moving I would’ve climbed out to retrieve it, but as it was, I decided the hat wasn’t worth falling overboard for.

I sadly prepared to say goodbye to my hat forever. Mr. W had gone into the La Palette deck bar and asked for a stick or anything that would reach, but the staff said they had nothing. He came back out and we watched helplessly as the hat was less than a couple of feet out of reach, the distance growing steadily. Then out of nowhere, a maintenance guy walked out with a broom and one of those broom sweeper tray thingies. A waitress must’ve called maintenance for a broom, but the guy’s surprised look when he saw my hat on the ledge showed that he’d expected to be sweeping on deck, not reaching outside of deck. Mr. W hurriedly reached for the broom but the guy said, “No, no, use this,” and made a pulling-in motion with the broom garbage collector tray thingie. WHAT is that thing called?! Anyway, it worked!
Scoop, Mr. W, scoop!

Reach, Mr. W, reach!

My hero!!!

The hat spent the rest of its time at breakfast between my knees, no matter how much I had to squint in the sun.