We watched the sun set behind the clouds last night before enjoying another fancy dinner. There are no menus on the island, and Pierre prides himself on his “surprise” dinner. The previous night he had mentioned that Foie Gras was his specialty, and Nicole and I basically said that it would go unappreciated by us, so he used his talents on other dishes. Last night, we had steak on a bed of taro with prawns and a banana soufflé (not all on one plate). I sort of nibbled at the prawns, but everything else was consumed fully. Nicole enjoyed some hot baguette bread.
After dessert, we again watched the sharks play around. Pierre had some excess bread that he tossed into the water and quickly discovered that black-tip reef sharks don’t really care for French bread. Quel dommage.
We woke up before sunrise the next day, watched the marine life from our lanai, and eventually made our way to breakfast at 7am for more French pastries. It was another beautiful day with amazing views of Taha’a and the surrounding waters. The sun was rather intense, but we appear to have not burned ourselves the entire trip. Yay us! We did a bit of kayaking again since it was overcast last time we ventured out. The brightness of the sun certainly adds something to the hues of blue water. It was pretty wild to look back from a distance at our tiny motu.
We returned to our bungalow to relax for a while. Nicole read, I worked on Japanese. We discovered that we have new neighbors. We are no longer the only people on the island. I suppose it’s just as well that we’re leaving today. We need to social distance after all. I went for another swim and saw some vibrant blue damsel fish swimming near some coral, and again saw that croissant-shaped spikey creature on the ocean floor. It is apparently a giant spider conch, a mollusk if you will.
Once I swam back to our bungalow, I hung my board shorts out to dry for the remaining couple of hours. We enjoyed our final views of the lagoon before getting ready to board our boat around 3pm.
Pierre and Aurélie bid us farewell and we set sail for Raiatea. 30 minutes later we arrived at the airport dock. It was a busy time at the Raiatea airport with three different airplanes departing within about 45 minutes of each other. It was a bit of a humid, sweaty mess in the boarding area.
It was an uneventful, but nearly full flight to Pape’ete. When we landed, it was like a mad rush to get off the plane, which confused us a bit. There weren’t any tight connections, but with each step of our journey we get a little bit closer to our final destination of Los Angeles and as a result we find ourselves around more and more Americans. It’s already annoying.
We did a bit of shopping before going through security. The shopping options were very limited on this trip, or exorbitantly overpriced. I ended up getting a Hinano t-shirt, and the woman working the “Made-in-Tahiti” store struck gold when Nicole walked into her store. Nicole has a bit of a history of being suckered by nice women at airport souvenir shops. One time at Narita, Nicole walked out of a store with an eraser, a sushi keychain, a journal made to look like a Japanese passport, and a Japanese football jersey. I think she went in for a bottle of water. In Tahiti, Nicole managed to leave with just a vanilla candle and a tin of loose tea (also vanilla). Vanilla is big doings here, especially on Taha’a.
Along with Nicole’s recently acquired Hilton status, she also has Priority Pass, which enabled us to go to the Air Tahiti Nui lounge at the airport in Pape’ete. It was small and we had to point to various packaged food items that we wanted to eat, but the bathrooms were quite clean. I was able to have one final Hinano Ambré (basically an amber ale) before our departure.
We were given seats toward the back of the plane, which was honestly a bit more relaxing than being in the marginally better economy seats toward the front of the plane. At least this time, the gate agent didn’t sit us next to a stranger, and we had the row to ourselves.
This week has been a nice break from the monotony of our lives these past several months. It was nice to have a view from a balcony that wasn’t of another apartment building just feet away. It was also much more relaxing to open our windows and hear the ocean instead of some loud talker trying to sell insurance as they work remotely. But for more insight into traveling during a pandemic, stay tuned for the next post.
passports & pepto bismol 