Mercredi, 7 Aout, 2013, 8h20m

I have a friend who once argued with another friend about the fact that no one could see her, from the street below, if she was standing up against the window  from her ninth floor room, mostly without clothing, saying “Good Morning, New Orleans!”  Well, she lost the bet, as later that day, from the street below, she looked up to see other people looking out of their own ninth floor windows.  This morning, not that I would do it, but there were others giving it a go. Oops.

This morning, we woke to yet another gorgeous day here in Tahiti. Low-low tide is around 7h30m right now, and it is amazing what one can see under the ocean when the waves have receeded enough to allow one to see more of the floor. The rocks that are out in the inlet area just outside our hotel beach appear, like the Loch Ness monster and her undulating tail from all the photos I have seen. The first morning, I truly believed that it was seaweed washed up onto the beach area,there was so much of it. It had rained pretty heavily the night before, and being from an area where seaweed is prevalent on pur frequented beaches,I thought nothing of it until we retrieved our binoculars and discovered it to be underwater rocks and coral instead of seaweed. It makes sense. We are basically too far away from anything to have a ton of seaweed floating about. The ocean floor drops off rather precipitously not too far off shore.

Yesterday, we saw so many amazing things. We saw a waterfall that was 200 feet tall. That is the tallest one I have ever seen. We saw “Danger: malaria zone” signs, and noticed a great deal of tiny mosquitoes fluttering about when we went into the jungle before coming upon the waterfall. We saw a little boy, probably two or so, swimming the ocean with his family, his little naked body nearly covered in the black sand specks from the beach we were on. We drank a Tahitian beer and some Tahitian rum, and I sampled some French wine. We saw a blowhole, a lava tube where the ocean’s current forces air through the tube and out, where it will literally blow your shirt above your head. (Ask me how I found out!)  We saw waterfalls from several mountains while simply driving down the road. We saw small houses, larger houses, but no mansions. We saw people carrying French loaves everywhere, sometimes five or more at a time. We saw so much, and, like all of our adventures, it was simply amazing.

Today,we will set off for Moorea, which is about 30m by boat from Tahiti. I look forward to being on the ocean, and I look forward to seeing what another part of this beautiful country has to offer.