Tuesday 8 March 2016

8am laundry for decks 2 to 5

9am lecture “Taputapuatea cultural landscape”

9am to 12 noon – bracelet and earing shell making workshop

12 noon and 12:30 Lunch

2:30 to 5pm – pick up optional excursion vouchers

5pm – Dance Class Pool Deck

6pm – Meeting to talk about Rangiroa

6:30 to 8pm – Musical Entertainment – Veranda Bar

7:30 and 8pm – Dinner

9pm French Documentary – Sharks

Not only was it a lazy at sea day, but we had an extra half hour of sleep as we had to move our clocks back 30 minutes to adjust from Marquesian to Tahitian time. There were a lot of activities on board the ship with it being a day at sea. With so many small things happening everyone could pick and choose if they want to do some, all, or none of them.

Following breakfast, I did attend the 9am lecture on the “Tapuatapuatea Cultural Landscape”. It was interesting to learn about the Tapuatapuatea sacred and historic Marae location on Raiatea where our lecturer Tahiarii was from. He also spoke about his journey a few years ago on one of the traditional Polynesian sailboats that sailed from New Zealand to Raiatea to recreate one of the ancient voyages. He also talked about how much of the celestial navigation traditions have been lost due to it not being passed down in recent generations. I found it fascinating to learn that the Polynesian had a sort of blind navigator that would feel the direction of the ocean swells, feel the sun, taste the water and use non-celestial means to arrive at their destination even during cloudy skies.

The rest of the day had options to take part in workshops of making bracelets and earrings with shells in the morning and dance classes in the evening. In the afternoon all passengers that had signed up for optional shore excursions in Rangiroa or Bora Bora were also assigned to pick up their excursion vouchers.

One optional excursion in Rangiroa was Scuba diving for experienced divers. In Bora Bora, there are many more options including Scuba diving for beginners and certified divers, a helicopter tour, a guided tour of the island by Truck (a long wooden open aired and covered local school bus), a two and a half hour swim with stingrays and sharks or a three hour motorized canoe tour that circumnavigates the Bora Bora lagoon. My favourite excursion for Bora Bora is the stingray and shark feeding tour which is incredible on a sunny day.

While the 5pm Polynesian dance class was taking place, I decided that I would take a break in my room. With such a nice balcony, it is tempting to spend hours in my room looking out over the water. I never did get a chance to read my book though. The break was interrupted by the speaker in our bedroom and hallways announcing that the 6pm Rangiroa orientation was about to take place.

The evening presentation was fairly straight forward as was the case for most nights. Most of the information was also on the handout that was sent to each room. We were lucky enough to get our instructions in English.

Following a late night dinner I headed to the Lounge to get some work done. I arrived at 10pm to find that there was nobody there to watch the movie on Rangiroa that had just started. Perhaps everyone was just too tired following the evening Happy Hour at the bar.