Rockin' on Rangiroa and Raiatea

Jim here, with Dick supplying his comments and bon mots.

Today is an "at sea" day, which means that Princess sets a very full schedule of on-ship activities, so we've been on the go pretty much all day, and it's only now at 6 pm that I'm relaxing on the balcony listening to the waves go by while the sun sets in the distance, a gently cool breeze blowing. In other words, heaven! Too bad that AT&T Research can't solve its space problems by getting a set up like this - I guarantee we'd all be very happily productive and in no rush to "leave the office" :-)

Yesterday at Rangiroa was fascinating. This place is really CUT OFF from the rest of the world; felt this even more so than we did on Huahine. While Huahine was lush, this island is bare and dry, with only coconut and breadfruit as food-bearing plants, and a landscape that is all sand and coral fragments. So the sense of isolation is even more keen.

The lagoon at Rangiroa was advertized as spectacular with sea creatures and did not disappoint. Dolphins came and played with the tenders that took us off the ship, and our two excursions (we took a glass bottom boat tour in the morning, and I had a scuba dive in the afternoon) provided lots to see.

The boat tour was fun - amazing how a few tuna fish heads and baguette ends stimulated mass feeding frenzies! It was amazing what a quick job the fish did on that fish head. Neither one of us has a delicate stomach, fortunately, and Dick got some surprisingly good photos considering he was taking them thru the glass at the bottom of the boat.

I was really lucky with the afternoon dive. I had talked a fellow passenger, Noel from Kentucky, who is quite an experienced diver and a very "hail well met" fellow, into joining me. He has his own gear, including a computer to keep track of his nitrogen levels, etc. (More on that later.) Fortunately for me (and hopefully for you too), he has a dive camera and very kindly copied the photos onto a flash drive for me so that I could upload them for you!

I was hoping the dive would be a "ride the rip current" dive thru the main channel connecting the lagoon to the ocean (and to which the Frommers guidebook gave a high recommendation: "but not for the weak-hearted!") As it turned out, the afternoon tides didn't make that dive feasible, so we did a 25m dive off the outer coast where dolphins, turtles and sharks were known to be. I had much better luck equalizing pressure in my ears this time around, and so was feeling a lot more confident.

The thrilling moment came pretty quickly and had us dive a bit deeper than originally planned: two dolphins adopted us and not only let us make hand contact, but literally "danced" with us for over 10 minutes, standing on their tails so noses pointed straight up, bobbing up and down or swimming around us, but staying very still while we petted/stroked their skin. They seemed to like it and were certainly in no hurry to leave. Magical experience.
Unfortunately the excitement and added depth had me zip thru the air in my tank.



Not long after we left the dolphins, we came to a large sea turtle and I got to swim up close and take a look. But soon I was at beginning of the red zone and signaled our leader that I'd reached that point. (Not to alarm anyone - that only means that in a normal dive it would be time for me to start up - I was in no danger.) Anyway, she handed me her alternate air regulator and I borrowed some of her air while we saved what was left of mine for the ascent later. Connected, we drifted along a few minutes and took in some amazing, densely packed schools of fish, and then time to gradually come up. While I and two other divers in our group were surfaced, the leader and Noel stayed down for what seemed like a long time, and I was amazed (and a bit self-conscious) that there was such a difference between their air usage and mine! Oh well, guess experience teaches you all the ways to not consume air so quickly, I consoled myself in my thoughts. It turns out, however, that Noel had a bit of a problem. He had dived in the morning and while the original dive plan for the afternoon would have been OK re: his nitrogen limit, we'd spent too much time at deeper depth with the dolphins and his dive computer was telling him he needed to spend 25 minutes a few meters below the surface before he could come up. The problem? He didn't have 25 minutes of air (nor could our leader spare him enough). They stayed down as long as they could and then made the decision that the dive computer would leave a healthy enough margin for error that he'd be ok coming up earlier than the computer advised.

After the dive shop shuttled us back to the Princess tender pick-up point, we grabbed a beer from a little roadside stand and celebrated a wonderful dive (and I could keep an eye on him for symptoms of decompression sickness!). It turns out that his assessment of the computer's margin of error was indeed the case and he had no problems when I saw him later in the evening at dinner (and he graciously offered to put his photos on my flash).

We have a two-tank dive planned at Bora Bora, and I'm really excited that this trip is giving me so many opportunities to get back into scuba diving!

Dick here: I had a quieter day of course, but I continue to get more active and energetic with each day. Rangiroa is really out in the middle of nowhere in a really beautiful way. It has an incredible sense of peaceful isolation. I found myself wondering if I could live here. It is an atoll only. There is no mountain or hill. It is also enormous. The entire island of Tahiti could fit into the lagoon and you can't see the far side of the atoll since it is so far away.

The glass bottom boat was fun. The guides drove the local fish population crazy with the head of a fresh killed tuna. The most interesting sight was the eels who hide under rocks and dart out for a quick bite.

While Jim was having his wonderful experience dancing with dolphins I went to the lecture series on Polynesia that we have been attending. This guy is the greatest lecturer. His enthusiasm is enormous. He is totally disorganized and his lecture has a strong free association aspect. Everything reminds him of something else and he bounces around but always totally holds your attention. I wish he were leading tours on the islands.

We are eating too much! While the food is generally good the availability is very bad. I have stopped eating dessert after dinner though the waiter pushed a cherries jubilee on me last night. I fought valiantly but lost. Of course I need to put weight back on but would rather do it with a less rich diet.

We didn't win the trivia contest last night for the first time. Boo! [Jim: It was my fault - I was sure "The Sound of Music" was a 1967 movie, and so thought the 1965 Oscar-winning movie starring Julie Andrews was Mary Poppins! However, I did restore some honor by getting the answer to this question: What do a florist, a composer and a business planner have in common? Answer below]

We have met so many really nice people from all over the world. Especially New Zealanders.

Leaving Rangiroa to head for Raiatea we had a 'sea day' i.e. we were not in any port but were cruising. Sea days have a very relaxing sense to them. You don't have any shore excursions booked so you don't have any place you have to be. [Jim: But, there are so many activities, you may have just as full a day]

[Jim: answer to question: All make arrangements.]

Raiatea I opened an eye this morning and through the slight break in the drapes saw trees going by. We had slept in a little and were pulling into Raiatea.

We took a tour this morning in a 4 wheel drive Land Rover that took us into the islands central caldera which now is basically a large valley. We went to another vanilla plantation that seemed a little more authentic and heard a well done talk on the complexities of vanilla production. It really is a drawn out procedure.

We then went to what is considered the most sacred temple area in all of Polynesia: Taputapuatea. Try saying it :-). Temples here aren't enclosed but are open air platforms of stone with large flat stones placed on edge at one end. They apparently performed human sacrifices here at one point, usually young boys.

I particularly like Raiatea. If I were to live here, it is one of the islands I would consider along with Moorea. I don't want this vacation to end!!!