I woke up super early this morning. I was going to take a boat excursion at 9 AM and I wanted to get back up to Taravao Belvedere and back in time for the excursion.
I had noticed that early in the morning was lower humidity and less clouds while the late morning had higher humidity and the mountains were usually covered in clouds. Thus my only good opportunity to see Taravao Belvedere properly would be this morning.
I took a few pictures of a bird from my bungalow just before I left.
I arrived a the lookout early in the morning before anyone else. I relaxed and enjoyed the view for a bit, setting my GoPro up for a time lapse video. Eventually some grounds crew arrived with their noisy gardening tools and I left. There was a spot just a little higher up I drove to and put the drone up briefly.
A few pictures on the way down from Belvedere de Taravao.
I stopped briefly on the way back to the lodger to take another photo.
After using the facilities in my bungalow I drove to the Teahupoo marina to catch the boat.
The tour was going to cost $80 (translates to 8,000 CPF because that is the exchange rate they give everyone $1 = 100 CPF while the actual exchange rate is $1 = 120 CPF).
It was supposed to start at 9 AM and arrive back at 1 PM. The boat did leave a little later than 9 AM. I picked the wrong side of the boat to sit on. The first place we went to was the surf break to watch the surfers. The waves were probably 3 meters high, nothing too spectacular, but still high enough. I did manage to get a decent photo of one of the surfers.
I took a bunch of photos of the island
We went for a hike in the jungle, over coral, through streams and eventually climbed up through a lava tube which had a waterfall to a small swimming hole with another waterfall. It was really nice, however my water shoes decided they weren’t designed for hiking. By the time I made it to the waterfall the rubber soles were flapping around. By the time I reached the coral on the way back I had no rubber on the water shoes at all, only the insole was surviving. Luckily I had made it back without having to steal a large leaf to wrap around my feet.
The next stop was to a little stream that had a deep pool and a rope swing. Everyone took a turn on the rope swing and it was a lot of fun. The water here was refreshing. As I swam back to the boat I could feel two different temperatures of the water. There was a layer of fresh water on top and a layer of sea water on the bottom.
The crew had made some rum punch and cut a bunch of fruits as well as some potato chips for a snack.
We briefly went snorkeling along a reef. There really weren’t that many fish there, but the water was clear.
We did get to see some dolphins playing in the water. We escaped the lagoon briefly to see if there were any whales, but we didn’t see any today. It was a little late in the season for them to be around Tahiti.
A few last photos while heading back to the marina.
I had some snacks and ham leftover from my previous trip to the market. I decided to relax at the lodge and enjoy the sunset since this was likely to be the only sunset I would get to see (it wasn’t raining today). I decided to eat my snacks rather than to drive 15 kilometers each way (Hertz would charge me $15 for that drive).
I took some more pictures of a butterfly, a bird and some of the flowers at the lodge.
The sunset was actually quite nice today.
Today’s timeline:
