Touring Moorea

We rented a car today for 4 hours and drove around what is described in the guidebooks as one of the best drives in the world, around the outside of the island of Moorea. It was OK! The island is heavily "touristed" and that takes something away from the natural beauty, still it was pretty stunning. There is one road that goes partway up the central mountain to a lookout looking over Cooks Bay and northward. On the way up are the remains of an ancient Marae that in the time of exploration by the Europeans, was reputed to be continuously inhabited for over 600 years. The foundations are still in evidence (or at least rebuilt for the tourists). We toured a "Tiki Village" which was supposedly a recreation of a typical island village. The effect was somewhat muted as every building was a business trying to sell you something, less a re-creation, more a tourist trap. One of the locals asked if we wanted to tour the "pearl farm" they have just of the beach. We told her that we had visited a farm in Manihi and her only comment was, "Oh, you've seen a real one then". At least she was honest.
When we returned the car and made our way back to the dinghy, we saw that the big steel schooner that had left the day after we arrived had returned. The day they left, they lost a piece of canvas overboard that Cathy and I just happened to see on the way to the juice factory tour in the dinghy. We returned it this afternoon and were hopeful for a tour, we weren't disappointed. The captain (Boomer was his name) invited us on board for a tour. The ship was built in Thailand and is 110 feet long. Very traditional with only a few winches, mostly everything is done by hand. She was built, and is used, as a sail training ship and marine biology research vessel. She has a full time crew of 5-6 and carries up to 24 students. Their plan is to circumnavigate every 2 years, picking up groups of students for different legs. The students do double/triple duty as they learn how to sail the ship, provision, navigate, stand watches, study marine biology and participate in research projects. A very interesting ship and a wonderful group of people crewing. They were all a bit taken aback that we had fished this canvas piece out of the tide, a saved it with the hope of returning it. Just as dark settled over the bay tonight, a large 4 masted ship made it's way in the reef entrance and is anchored about 500 meters from us. Tomorrow we will buzz it with the dinghy, who knows, maybe they will drop something and we can get a tour of her as well!!

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