Day trip to Maupiti

Maupiti, approaching from the Maupitit Express, the huge rock head right by the dock.
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Headed out for a day trip to Maupiti, know as the least developed of the Society Islands. This was a marvelous trip! It takes 2hrs by boat (The Maupiti Express) to get there, and we looked like some of the only tourists on the boat, 95%+ Polynesian, and a couple of guys were playing guitar and the cool Polynesian ukulele out on the front of the ship, singing, and many of the ship joined in singing also, with beautiful voices. The song sounded really nice, not sure what it was, but everyone seemed to know it. I captured this on video tape, and will be a perfect soundtrack when editing later. Everyone was so happy and friendly. Saw flying fish emerging from the water as the boat cut through, and soaring across the blue water. Maupiti was gorgeous, like a mini Bora Bora – multihued lagoon, with a treacherous wave ringed pass to the interior. A huge ~700ft rock cliff rose up from the boat dock. We rented bikes and tried to find the trail to the top of this ridge, and after one failed climb (didn’t find the correct trailhead), we were exhausted in the heat, and decided to head to the beach to cool off. The beach was picture perfect – a shallow sandy area that we heard you could walk all the way to the nearest motu (~1/3 mile away), in only waist deep water. And the water was incredibly warm, the warmest I have ever felt in the ocean, felt like 90 degrees F. Walking out further it luckily got a little cooler and deeper. We saw some large friendly Toby’s swimming around one of the coral heads. Surprisingly didn’t see any rays in these sandy shallows – I had seen a huge one as big as a table in Bora Bora, and two eagle rays from our porch. There were over a dozen folks here, we had expected it to be less crowded according to the guide book.

Cheryl on her bike just down the tiring hill we had climbed earlier in the heat, on our easy coasting return from the beach (after climbing the other side of the ridge), with some of the Maupitit backbone cliffs above.
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We headed back to the “city” and the only restaurant on the island, only to find we had just missed food time, but got a couple beers, were very thirsty – hadn’t brought enough water on our beach excursion. Everyone cleared out except for a couple local guys, who were very nice and friendly – Alan and his brother. They didn’t speak English, nor much French, but could communicate a few things in English, and with out Tahitian dictionary. They even gave us one of their beers. Wish we could have stayed at this island longer. We had thoroughly left behind the indifferent non-returned smiles and waves of Nuku Hiva (note this may have just been a bad experience on Nuku Hiva on our part, maybe my T-shirt was in bad taste, or someone died or something). We stopped by the market on the way back and picked up some water, bread and cheese and ate that on the dock while waiting for the boat to board. A melancholy send off with folks singing and saying goodbye, next time we will spend more time on this laid back undeveloped nugget in the pacific.

Rural island life of the past

The return boat ride was incredibly rough, we had heard it was rough, but the way out was fine. Even less crowded on the way back, so had full rows of seats to lay out on, though uncomfortable ridges in my back, and getting 2-3G’s, then going weightless every 3 seconds as the boat plowed mercilessly through the waves. I fell on a row of folks and then stepped on a lady’s foot up top on my way down from the top of the boat. Decided not to try to move anywhere after that.

Back to our palace on the water in Bora Bora, and had a rejuvenating shower (such a great shower here!). Made up some more tuna steaks on the grill, marinated in lime, coconut milk, soy sauce, pineapple juice, and wasabi – YUM!

Keep hearing mysterious water noises at night just out of the house light and reach of our flashlight, sounds like something large flipping around. See new varieties of fish below at night, and some pentagonal star fish that come out each night in the same place, and then go away by the morning. Going to try to track one of these to see where they come from next transition.