Travel with Indigo

Pete Cicchine and Chris Jensen arrived in Tahiti after a wearying flight from their and my boyhood home in Pensacola to join me for two weeks aboard Indigo.  We have been friends since we were 11 years old, having done the pre-teen and teen years together in Myrtle Grove on the west side of town. Missing on this visit is our mutual buddy, Earl (really), he also from our old neighborhood and also a close friend for as many years.

Upon their arrival, we promptly cast off lines and traveled twelve miles across the Tahiti Channel to the lovely island of Moorea. Like nearly all South Pacific islands, it is the remains of an ancient volcano that has mostly sunk into the sea leaving behind the eroded tips of its central vent, now a mountain withered to 2,800 feet. We anchor in the world famous Cook’s Bay, named for Captain James Cook who anchored here on one of his voyages of discovery.  It is perhaps the most photographed, filmed and admired bays in all the world. It is also the most beautiful.

Pete, Chris and I took the tender and went out to a tiny picturesque motu (small island in Polynesian) we had spotted on entering the bay. Its white sand beaches and dense cover of coconut palms gives it the look of a postcard photo. To our pleasant surprise, the place was equipped as a proper public park, with showers, barbecue grills, bathrooms, and the like, though on this day we were its only visitors.  On shore, we set up the camp chairs the crew had suggested we take, opened the beer cooler and a large bag of pork rinds and did yet again what we had done together so many times before but so many years ago.

The park also came equipped with a number of very long, stout bamboo poles, which we decided were for the purpose of knocking coconuts out of the tall palms, so we gave it a try.  At this, we proved inept.  Tiring of strenuous activities, we reclined in our chairs, drank beer and ate pork rinds and watched the tide ebb and the sun set. At these, we were more accomplished.

Just before the sun dropped behind the island’s craggy peaks, we took a tender ride into the large bay adjacent to Cook’s, called d’Opunohu Bay, which like many Polynesian place names is nearly unpronounceable. This is the bay used as a backdrop in the filming of just the latest version of Mutiny on the Bounty, this one starring a young Mel Gibson.

Next day we went by tender with Captain John to a special spot among the coral heads inside Moorea’s fringing reef where very large, well fed stingrays are known to congregate. And black tip reef sharks too. Captain John brought along a bag of fish scraps, hopped overboard in the four-foot deep water and was promptly besieged by the rays begging for food. He fed them and petted them as if they were lap dogs. Following his lead, Pete, Chris and I joined him though with noticeable reluctance. As Pete said, “I spent my  life avoiding these things and here I am petting them.” As the rays dined, word of this apparently went out in the fish world and the sharks began circling, getting closer by the minute to our exposed body parts. When they got within twenty feet and began swimming about in an agitated manner, we promptly climbed back into the tender and went off in search of other adventures.

Next day we took a rental car the crew had arranged and did another of Phil’s High Speed Culture Tours around the entire island in record time, along with a trip up to the top of its highest peak.  For lunch we stopped at the Intercontinental Resort that like most all of French Polynesian this time of year was nearly vacant.