We Leave Tahiti and Arrive on Moorea

For the FIRST TIME, we have again become cruisers rather than boatyard rats. We left beautiful Marina Taina in Tahiti later than hoped and arrived in Moorea yesterday evening after dark. Fortunately the entrance through the reef into Cook's Bay is deep and very well marked with red and green entrance buoys and Conni had scoped out the general lay of the bay when we motored past Moorea a couple of days earlier. Conni expertly motored us in long after dark through the channel and around many other vessels.

The three of us awakened this morning to sunlight and did virtually nothing but swim in the warm South Pacific. We did make some new friends with cruisers from Seattle, of all places: Very nice folks on a Passport 37. A bit later, a couple (wife from SoCal, Kiwi husband) on their leisurely way back to New Zealand.

As these photos show, Moorea is justly famous for its scenery Take a look.

We finished a lovely relaxed day by breaking into a treasured bottle of vanilla-ginger infused liquor that our friend Mary Wegner created for us as a bon voyage gift. We experimented a bit and created a fragrant tropical cocktail in honor of her doctoral degree this weekend at Pepperdine and named it the Moorea Mary. Bill is sipping it in one of the photos below.

We leave tomorrow for Bora Bora. Photos to follow. By the way, I just realized that I had made no links to the pages that I posted. Sorry about that.

Morning finds the folks from Discovery, a Passport 37, out for a morning dinghy tour. They came by to say "hi" and to chuckle over the two Passports in the same bay.

One of the South Pacific's most recognizable sights: Three Coconut Tree Pass on Moorea. Our bay, Cook's Bay, is half of the original caldera.

Nate enjoys the sights over morning coffee.

The picture of indolence: Bill sits in the shade and does NOT work on the engine.

The two men float on "noodles" and scrub the boat's hull from marina grime. Bill wants everyone to know that he DID work at half the hull and that he did not supervise.

Homes along Cook's Bay with the soft volcanic rock ridges in the background.

Indolence and alcohol: a bad mix. This is a Moorea Mary cocktail, invented by Conni, using Mary W's vanilla/ginger vodka infusion. Here's to you, Miss Mary.

Dissolute Bill reading his latest David Balducci spy novel. Bill did very little else today and says that he doesn't feel bad about it.

Moorea, Moorea...Beauty in the vegetation covered lava. The soft rock is easily sculpted by the warm rains, through the eons of time that they've been above the ocean surface.

What is our crew like? Answer: here's Nate, having volunteered for the task, scrubbing the topsides. If he got too hot, he just dropped overside.

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