Fakarava, French Polynesia - February 9

SHARKS!!!!!!!!!

Clear, then cloudy, then torrential shower, HUMID, 28 degrees

‘No tours available - independent exploration of the island’ was how today was described by the ship’s destination department. OK…odd, but OK. Can’t say that in all of our days on cruises we’ve ever been told that. Before we arrived, our plan was to wander around see what there was to see and hopefully get a beer and watch the ocean…that’s

dipping a few toes with the ship not far

essentially how today played out.

A 10-minute tender ride had us on Fakarava, an island in French Polynesia of 837 inhabitants. Once off the tender, we wandered along the shore and I was struck with how blue the water was. We’ve been on water every day for the last month and many other days prior to the trip and I think the blue of the

the Pacific side

ocean is the ‘blueist’ I’ve every seen.

In less than 10 minutes we had already seen a handful of crabs and 2 sharks…SHARKS!!! My mind was already blown, but we decided to

cheers!

carry on. I could easily have turned around and headed back to the boat…I was satisfied…SHARKS! 5 minutes later…SHARKS!!! We found ourselves in a tiny spot on the beach under some trees where there were about 10 sharks, each about 6 feet long swimming around, and around…very close to the shore. I could have watched these things all day especially when there was a guy sitting under a tree strumming a ukulele and singing…it could not have been better. We figured somehow that the sharks must have

been getting fed but didn’t see anything. Later we heard that in fact, they were

canoe waiting for our wake

being fed. I tried to post a video of the sharks, but I'm not sure the ship WIFI could handle it.

Once I tore myself away from the sharks, we wandered some more, seeing very little development. I couldn’t help but wonder what living there would be like. It’s way beyond small town living. There is an airport there and they have electricity.

phone map we're the dot

There was a Catholic Church and a LDS church. They had a primary school. What little there was that

could have been open was mostly closed as it was a Sunday. There was a lot of money to make off of a boat full of tourists, but maybe they just don’t care to.

great place for breakfast

At one point Chris was chassed by a pig. I didn’t think to take a photo – I wasn’t sure what to expect form this pig, so figured I had to be ready to protect him from it, eventually a little girl came and called the pig back…crazy!

Fakarava is an atoll in French Polynesia – an atoll as I understand it, is a ring or square of coral that makes up land of a place where the sea has flooded the inside of the ring. The ring can be completely or only partially complete with a lagoon in the middle. The Fakarava atoll is rectangular, 60 km long and 21 km wide,

red carpet broadcast in the theatre

there are 2 ways in and out of the 1100 square km lagoon. It took us 5 minutes (500m) to walk from the lagoon side to the Pacific side of the piece of land our ship was anchored close to. The Pacific side was even more remote compared to the atoll side. It had some pretty big, crashing waves.

It was just a tad hot here. Really, it was more humid than it was hot – it was hot, but I think it felt hotter due to the humidity. This is the heat and humidity we expect in Asia a month from now…I suspect it’ll be hotter…can’t wait!

packing in the tender

We finally found a shack for a beer – this time it was 5.00USD for a 500mL. it was pretty delicious considering the state of melting we were in.

We could see the tender platform from where we had beer. We thought we had timed it perfectly to walk there just as it was loading. As we approached it started to leave. That is because there was a medical evacuation on it. We’re not sure what happed to the woman who was taken from the tender to an ambulance – it’s never fun to see that situation.

The rest of the day was spent with room service, the Oscars and time on the balcony. Even with the ship’s twisting and turning at anchor, we were mostly in shade.

We didn’t participate much in the ship’s Oscar party or Red-Carpet viewing. I actually forgot about it after dinner when the show was being broadcasted in the theatre, so I got no photos.