16 December 2007

16 December 2007
Hello to all,
Here I sit with a little white flower tucked behind my ear, a tropical ninety degree sun streaming down soothed by a pleasant sea breeze, the sweet smell of tropical flowers on that breeze and my stomach growling because it’s still a half hour before the dining room opens for lunch. Life has its little problems but not in French Polynesia.
Dear Dottie was up bright and early on Friday morning to take me to BART and get me started on my twenty-six day adventure. We both had a great time on Thursday night at the annual Rotary Christmas Dinner/Dance at the Pleasanton Hilton. After dancing the night away, Dottie was a marvel showing up on my door step at the crack of dawn looking like she was raring to go wherever the winds might blow. I promised her that the future holds a time when we can both be leaving together on some “mysterious adventure”.
My flight to Papeete via Los Angeles was uneventful except that the flight that I was supposed to catch at 6:00 PM out of Los Angeles didn’t leave until midnight. One can only sit and read for so long before a ten hour lay-over becomes down right boring. I met Mary at Los Angeles and we both agreed that it would have been nice to have known of the delay so we could each take a later flight. But then, that’s the fun of air travel…….I guess. I slept about five hours of the eight hour trip to Papeete and was relatively well rested when we arrived.
For the uninformed (I just left that group), Papeete is the capital city of French Polynesia and is located on the island of Tahiti Nui. You might well ask about the “nui” as I did. Actually, the island of Tahiti is one of two islands joined at the hip; like a basketball and a softball touching one another. The smaller portion of the combine is Tahiti itti. I couldn’t find anyone who could define “nui” and “itti” for me so I can’t help you there. I found a map of French Polynesia in the seat pocket on my flight on Air Tahiti Nui that showed the entire area of French Polynesia and the more than one hundred sizeable islands in the group. I’ve been told that there are several hundred islands in the area that are too small for much habitation making the area of several thousand square miles a mass of islands. I would imagine that one could spend a life time exploring the area and never come close to setting foot on every island.
Our arrival in Papeete was several hours before the “Pacific Princess” was ready to receive its new passengers. Marty, who has been to this area a dozen or more times, offered to take me on a tour of the town. To say the least, the town was bustling on the Saturday morning we visited. Heavy traffic flowed through town on the main arteries and lots of folks filled the stores; probably Christmas shopping. We visited the Cathedral of Tahiti found in the middle of town. After ooing and awing over European cathedrals for years, this cathedral
would more aptly fall into the category of a nice little church rather than a “Cathedral”. Bu then, there aren’t many people in this part of the world so maybe its size was appropriate. The cathedral was the largest church we saw on our walk around town so I am probably unfair in dissing its size. We passed a cute little protestant church a few blocks to the north that made the Cathedral look really big.
The place that Marty really wanted me to see was the Papeete Pearl Museum. The museum was really very elegant and informative. There were displays describing how divers have harvested pearls from oysters for hundreds of years. In a number of places around the world, the value of pearls has only become as we know it in the last couple of centuries. One historical account told about Caribbean islands where the natives that the Spanish explorers met had so many pearls that they considered them worthless. I was surprised to learn that pearls are found in most seas in the latitudes thirty to forty degrees on either side of the equator. While harvesting oysters for their pearls could be relatively easy today using scuba diving equipment, one display reported that pearls today continue to be harvested by divers who develop an inordinate ability to stay under water for a long time.
Apparently, Tahiti and French Polynesia are famous for the black pearls that are commonly found in the area. The museum featured a sales room (can you believe that?) where I saw beautifully crafted jewelry using black pearls. I considered that this might be a place to complete my Christmas shopping until I noticed that most of the items were tagged with prices in the one to five million Tahiti Francs. Marty pointed out that a Tahiti Franc is the equivalent of about one and a half cents. Unfortunately, even taking a couple of zeros off of the prices put the black pearl jewelry our of my range for Christmas presents.
Last night, a traditional Tahitian Folkloric show was brought on board for our evening’s entertainment. The group that performed included five musicians that played mostly drums with an occasional ukulele, four men dressed in various Tahitian costumes (I guess) and four lovely young ladies wearing various states of Tahitian undress. The show consisted of an hour of dances; sometimes the whole group, sometimes just the men or women and occasionally one man or one woman. We’ve all seen the Hawaiian hula. Tahitian dancing is a lot like the hula but much faster (How do they do that?) and a heck of lot more suggestive and seductive. If the program hadn’t have been so enjoyable, it could well have been the worst night of my life. I forgot my camera. That’s a double “Drats”. After the show, the dancers offered to pose for pictures with passengers who dared to stand close to the exciting young people; men with the girls, women with the male dancers. I’m truly sorry to report that I won’t come home with a picture of myself surrounded by clinging partially clad Polynesian beauties. I mean really truly sorry.
Today our ship skipped across a twenty mile passage to Boorea Island. The information sheet we received for the day told us that Boorea is the complete opposite of Tahiti. I found no hustle and bustle but rather a sleepy lay back way of life that books on the south sea islands in the past have described. Tropical vegetation is everywhere. The houses along the shore line were no more than one hundred feet from the sea on the lee side of the island. The coral along the shores make Boorea a popular spot for snorkeling and otherwise just goofing off. The island is big into pineapple farming but you couldn’t tell on the Sunday I visited. People just seemed to be lounging around without a care in the world. The few booths selling hand made jewelry and ladies dresses were without sales people in most cases and the few ladies that were in attendance seemed like they would prefer that you not bother them by buying their wares.
A little protestant church was a couple of hundred yards away from the quay where our tender dropped us. I walked inside to find the Sunday morning worship service in full swing. I went in and sat down and tried to look totally engrossed in what the speaker was saying. Most people were similarly engrossed but about half of the congregation of about fifty had their chins on their chests. My attention span couldn’t quite meet the challenge however when I adjusted my hearing to the situation and discovered that the preacher was using a language I had never heard before. French is commonly spoken throughout French Polynesia (I guess that makes sense) but the people living on the many islands generally speak a language or a dialect that is peculiar to that one location. Whatever the language, I concluded that parishioners that were awake probably knew the language and the sleepy ones shared my lack of linguistics necessary to participate. I decided from the town of the preacher’s voice he was either telling the congregants that they would surely go to Hell doing what they were doing or maybe he was warning all to stay away from those funny smelling people from the ship who only wanted to steal their jewelry paying with worthless green colored money. I guess I’ll really never know.
My love to all,
Grandpa, Dad and Bill (the guy with the flower behind his ear)