French Polynesia - Kick The Sting Ray

What is it with arriving in the middle of the night lately?  After hours of terrible turbulence and desperate attempts to sleep amidst weird, groggy dreams in which the other passengers were cheering for some unknown reason, the pilot welcomed us to Tahiti: Local time 1:15am, temperature 79 degrees.

79 degrees at one in the morning?  Are you serious?

As we were taxiing, I decided to make it my goal and mission to be in bed by 2am.  Could it be done?  Would I make it through immigration and customs quickly?  What about a taxi?   That was the most difficult thing, as the taxi sign pointed toward a dim and gloomy direction, devoid of people and cars.  I had to ask someone to find out where the taxis were hiding, but a short, expensive ride, followed by a quick check-in at my hotel (an 8 hour stay) and I was officially in bed at 1:56am.  Not bad at all.

I certainly didn’t sleep well,  but I felt pretty refreshed the next morning.  I had a 12:15 ferry to Mo’orea, so I had some time to walk around the resort.  There is a mile long jogging loop which I’m trying to convince myself to use when I am back, but my lord, it is hot here.  Unless I am up and jogging at 6am, I’m not sure I would be able to take it, though there is the incentive of being able to splash down in either the ocean or one of the resort’s appealing pools.  Anyway, I hopped into a cab and took another expensive ride with a lovely and friendly woman taxi driver to the ferry terminal.  Neither taxi driver has given me a receipt, so, unfortunately all these expensive cab rides are on me!  The rest of the group was at the terminal – it’s always a relief to find out that I’ve come to the right place.  We boarded the ferry along a random film crew, shooting a piece for a travel show called ‘Get Out’.  Look for me in the background!  The ferry ride was awesome.  Beautiful views of Tahiti and Mo’orea, but 25 minutes on the deck of the boat and I was burnt to a crisp.  Oh well.

The place we are staying is on the point of Cook’s Bay.  The bungalows are, unfortunately, up a very steep hill which we had to walk three times today.  I probably wouldn’t even mention this, but remember how it was 79 degree at one in the morning?  It is one zillion degrees during the day and the last thing I want to do is walk uphill into the jungle.  I don’t have much room to complain though, as my room is the only one with an air conditioner!  After a delicious lunch, we boarded a zodiac and drove out of the motu into the open ocean, with Hawaii the next stop if we continued north.  After about 15 minutes we headed back into the motu.  As soon as we cut the engine we were swarmed by huge sting rays.  Moments later we spotted the first black-tipped shark.  Everyone was jumping off the boat and I have to admit, I was hesitant.

Although the idea of swimming with sting rays and sharks sounds fun and cool, the reality was disconcerting for me.  I did get in the water (it was hard not to, the water is gorgeous).  I couldn’t stand where we were, so the sharks and rays could easily pass under me, but I did kick a poor sting ray while I was swimming.  Chad and Mary (if you are reading this), had I access to someone I felt comfortable crawling on top of,  in order to watch the sharks and rays from a safe distance, I would have been on them in a hearbeat.  In other words, Mary, I totally understand now.  All in all, it was a very nice outing and I enjoyed being in the water for a while, but it certainly did not help my sunburn situation, despite slathering on LOTS of sunscreen.

Tomorrow we get down to more serious matters and I hope my talk goes well.  I have an overwhelming urge to skip this meeting, fly Marcus down here, and hole up in one of those over-water bungalows for the next week.  Maybe it’s the jet lag or maybe it is nerves about speaking, or maybe it is the fact that this is the most touristy and developed developing country I’ve visited so far, but I’m not feeling entirely up to working right now.