Taha'a

The 27th is our last sea day. It rained on and off much of the day and overnight.

Steve worked on the puzzle and blog posts. Donna attended the cultural talk about dance.

We arrived at Taha’a around 7 am. The ship sailed past Raiatea which is the island just south of Taha’a. Raiatea and Taha’a share an atoll that surrounds both islands.

We had our Vanilla plantation tour at 8:15 in the morning. Tender to the island then a boat to the next bay to the north to the plantation.

The boat crew sang and blew a conch shell.

A short walk to the plantation, saw a myna and a red-vented bulbul on the way. Merlin reported a silver eye, but we didn’t see it.

The tour of the vanilla plantation was mostly a sit down presentation, but the speaker was quite knowledgeable. He wasn’t the owner, but maybe the farm manager. Vanilla grows as a vine wrapping around another tree. It flowers only for one day and needs to be pollinated by hand.

There was some time afterwards to look around at the vanilla growing nearby, just samples.

Then over to the south to snorkel. Lots of small fish and black-tipped sharks, up to five feet in length.

It rained as we were sailing to be dropped off at the private island, Motu Mahaea.

Had a BBQ lunch, then kayaked a little, it was windy.

Then snorkeled off the island. The water is clear and there is nice coral garden, Steve saw a stingray.

Back on board, we sat in hot tub a bit to rinse out the salt water, then got cleaned up and trying to get things dry for tomorrow. As we were sailing away towards Bora Bora, someone had their canoe out: