Vacation - Tahiti and Easter Island - Day 12-15

Our flight to Tahiti came in late at night and we went back the Manava, the same hotel we used when we arrived from Los Angeles. Unfortunately, they did not upgrade us to a beach front room this time. Still, the room was nice and we literraly only slept there. We were on the the road by 8-9 o'clock, headed for the ferry terminal, to get to the island of Moorea.

A 20-30 minute ride takes you to the island of Moorea. We picked up a short term rental car (nice Ford Focus) and started on a quick tour around the island.

Me on the ferry to Moorea.


This is the Tahiti of your dreams. Clear blue water and luxury accomodations.
This is the Sofitel Moorea Beach Resort. It is very near the ferry terminal and looks back on the island of Tahiti.


On our tour, we drove up one of the mountains to a lookout. This was the view. Along the way we saw pine trees planted at a agricultural station. To us, it looked just like California in places.


After our 2-3 hour island tour (it's not that big), we returned our car and they drove us back to the resort, the Hilton Moorea Lagoon Resort and Spa.



After checking in, we were taken to our room, one of the over water bungalows. We decided that if we were going all the way to "Tahiti", we might as well do it right. We were glad we did. The rooms are beautiful and relatively private and quiet.


This was our deck/balcony.


This was the view from our deck.


The first thing I did was jump in the water, directly from our deck.


We went for a snorkel shortly afterwards. The snorkeling was fantastic. We have done some in the Caribbean, but this was at least as good if not better than any of the places there. Plus all you had to do was walk down the stairs and jump in.


This picture was actually taken on our last day there. The lighting conditions seemed to make the water sparkle even more that day and we got several great pictures of the resort and the water.


A good shot of the balconies with stairs down to the water.


Our days ended with colourful sunsets.


Our days started with a beautiful sunrises.


Me looking at the fish on the way to breakfast.


This is the dining room, where breakfast was served.


Another view of the dining room.


We got up each morning to watch the sun rise. This was one of them.


Among the fish, we saw several rays swimming under the boardwalks. We also saw some small sharks in there, more at night around the lighted water around the crepe bar.


This a view of our room from the balcony.


It is not always sunshine and good times in paradise. This downpour lasted 20-30 minutes and then it was back to sunshine on the deck.


Our room had a see-through floor to allow you to watch the water from your couch. This is me under the room.


Another sunrise.


The water under the boardwalks teemed with fish of all kinds. You just had to lean over an look down. No need to get wet. On one of the mornings coming back from breakfast, we saw this school of fish. There where hundreds of them and they swam around in unison.


This is the crepe bar, open only at night while we where there. Underneath this area of the boardwalk they are running some experiments on trying to encourage coral growth, so some of the water has been fenced off to keep the snorkelers out. This is where we usually saw the sharks, attracted by the fish, which were probably attracted by the lights at night.



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So that is pretty much the end of our trip. We flew back to Los Angeles overnight, spent a couple of hours at LAX and then arrived home in the evening.

One aside though, if you are ever at LAX for a couple of hours and want something to do, try a meal at the restaurant there. The view is nice, food is great and resaonably priced. You also get to sit in the iconic structure that represents LAX. The interior is decorated in a futuristic Jetsons manner. While you are there, don't forget to check out the washrooms.

Restaurant at LAX.


Interior of restaurant.

Vacation - Easter Island and Tahiti - Day 1-3

View from our room at the Manava.


So our trip started with a flight to Los Angeles, where most connections to French Polynesia fly from. We scheduled our flights to allow a few days to visit my wife's family in the LA area. While we were there, as usual, we did a little geocaching, which is a hobby you do with your GPS. In this case we were carrying what are called travel bugs. These items are left in geocaches for people to find and carry to other geocaches around the world. The owner sets the goal for each travel bug. When we travel, we always try to pick up an appropriate travel bug (destination and or activity) and take it with us.

Mikey the travel bug wants to inspect bridges.
Buzz wants to travel around and see space related things. This is Buzz at about 35,000 feet, a little closer to space and part way to Tahiti.


This was our Air Tahiti Nui plane, with some travel bugs posing in front of it.


On day 3 we flew from Los Angeles to the city of Papeete on the island of Tahiti in French Polynesia. They actually boarded early and closed the doors prior to departure time and pushed back exactly on time. We left LA at 1PM and arrived in Papeete at 6:20 PM. With the 3 hour time difference, this works out to an 8-1/2 hour flight. We started off in EDT, then to Pacific Daylight time (-3 hrs) for a couple of days and on to Tahiti (another -3 hours) for only 36 hours.

We tried to stay awake on the flight, which is aided by the individual seat video systems that Air Tahiti Nui has on their planes. This appears pretty standard now, as all Air Canada planes and the later Chilean LAN planes all had this. What is not common on North American carriers are the free pillow, blanket, and personal goody bag you are given. The goody bag contains ear phones, socks for your feet, post it notes to signify if you want to sleep or be awaken for meals, and a few other things I can't remember. All in all, a nice change from the penny pinching NA airlines we normally fly on. Of course the flight is not cheap. A couple of movies later, along with a meal and snack, we arrived at the Faa'a International Airport.



We decided to rent a car for the 36 hours we were in Tahiti. Our Rental vehicle came with a manual transmission which is the norm here, as automatics cost a LOT more. Even with me navigating, we found our hotel for the night, the Manava, without much trouble.

We were upgraded to a beach front suite which was very nice. The view from the patio was beautiful. The flat surface you see in front of the ocean is the infinity pool. In the background is Moorea, where we will travel to at the end of our trip.



We were able to get a start on fish watching early the next morning by just looking over the jetty in front of the hotel. Still adjusting to the time, we were up early and started on our all day island tour of Tahiti, which will be the topic of my next installment. Don't worry, there will be more pictures and less text in the following entries.

Vacation - Easter Island and Tahiti - Intro

Well we have just returned from our 17 day vacation to Easter Island, with a side trip to Tahiti. As we are only now starting our adjustment to EDT (6 hours ahead of Tahiti), not to mention a huge pile of laundry, this will be a short post with only a couple of pictures (from several hundred.)

My wife has wanted to visit Easter Island for 30 years. Our joint financial and work schedules made this the time to go. We had a wonderful time and created a lot of memories. Just wanted to make a quick post with a couple of photos of things to come.

I think I will proceed on a day by day basis so the whole trip will take a few weeks to unfold. Here are the first couple of photos to whet your appetite.

This is the typical Easter Island photo showing the moai. The moai shown in this picture are incomplete ones left at the quarry where all the Easter Island moai were created. One of my highlights of the trip was a 17 km hike we made along the north shore of the island. Pictures of that will show up in a week or two.







This is a picture of the resort we stayed at, the Hilton Moorea Lagoon and Spa, while in Moorea, which is one of the many islands of French Polynesia. Tahiti is actually the main island of French Polynesia that you fly to in order to get to islands such Moorea and Bora Bora.

We stayed in the over water bungalows shown in this picture. It was beautiful, just as the snorkeling was.