Island 4: Rangiroa

Our last stop was Rangiroa, which was the exact opposite of Bora Bora. It is an atoll, and basically just a ring of land – quite a few places you could see water on either side of where you were standing. We stayed at a cute little resort, but were a bit stranded, due to lack of transportation. One day we decided to ‘walk into town’ and about 45 minutes later we realized we had walked the wrong way. It was still interesting to see the non-tourism side of the islands. You could actually walk the beaches and pick up shells, which we had great fun doing. Also, it was here that we had our Great Moments in Scuba, by which I mean we acted like morons underwater. Our first dive was what is called a ‘drift dive’ – it takes place in a channel where you dive in and are carried by the current to the pickup location. We were all excited – and we set off, just the two if us and the guide. We jumped in off the boat, and immediately went straight down, to around 100 ft, where there were lots of gray sharks, which we hadn’t seen before hanging out on the ledge. The one rule the guide had given was to please not pass her. So, of course, I immediately began having major issues with this, as she was tiny and pushed less by the current than I. It must have looked pretty humorous – everyone drifting calmly along, with me trying to covertly backpedal like a madwoman. Other than that, it all went along fine, until she took us over to a shallow cave nearby – as soon as I turned against the current, my mask immediately filled with water. I never had any problems with this exercise during class, but let me tell you, it is very different when you are being dragged along; blind, knowing that somewhere in the murk they have both stopped, and you are floating out to sea. I finally got a hold of something on the shelf, and stopped myself to clear my mask. As soon as my vision clears, what do I see? We are in the cove, and David is reaching for the instructors’ emergency air regulator. Apparently, since we aren’t used to diving as deeply as we had, David had really sucked all his air up. Freaky. Finally assured that my husband wasn’t going to drown, the instructor beckoned us really close to a crevasse, which was blocked by a bunch of fish. After waving them off and leaning in, I see – eels. Tons of eels, which have always freaked me out and now I’m basically kissing one. So I backed the hell outta there, and we continued on uneventfully. However, we were too late to save our image from the instructor, who by this point must have though we were idiots. So naturally, we went diving with them again a day later, this time with her husband. We only had one moment of idiocy, when I went to David to ask for the camera (we had bought a special underwater housing for ours) and he looked at me and shrugged like “I don’t know – don’t’ you have it?” At which point we both freaked out, and started looking around, like it was going to stay with the group or something. Then we saw it – or the bright yellow strap anyway, way off in the distance. I could kiss whoever designed that thing with a brightly colored strap. So, our diver guy took off after it, so all our honeymoon wasn’t lost after all, and it didn’t become one of those ‘remember when you were an idiot’ moments in our marriage.
After that, it was a pretty chill last couple of days, only marred by a moment when this man/woman randomly put this lei around my head during the luau dinner with no explanation, which managed to make me uncomfortable for the remainder of the night. At least David had to get up and dance in front of everyone too, so I wasn’t totally alone in my embarrassment


So that was our honeymoon – it was wonderful, perfect trip. Tahiti is the realization of the idealistic island getaway. Hopefully we can make it back someday.

Island 3: Bora Bora

When we landed on Bora Bora, we immediately knew this was the tourist spot to be. Everything was done up luxury, starting with this huge two story yacht that picked us up from the airport, and took us to the island our hotel was on. So once again we got around via boat ferry; you can see my new best friend in picture above; she was always at the boat stop on the main island, and we hung out. She was very sweet and I fed her Cheetos, so she loved me too. Our actual resort was amazing - the whole thing was once giant landscaped extravaganza. You hardly even noticed the different bures scattered through it all. Ours was right by the pond and the spa, which was up in the trees to our right. You can see the picture of our bure above, from the back side, where it faced the beach. I can't even describe it really. I haven't ever stayed anywhere like it. They had many things to do to amuse ourselves at night; a really bad DVD library, a game room, and some tennis courts, which we proceeded to play absolutely terrible on. We went on our first scuba dives in French Polynesia here, so it was very exciting. Especially when we almost got eaten by a shark. David still plays it down, but I know what I saw. We were down there, looking at all the pretty fish, yadda yadda, and had been swimming around all kinds of sharks, who could care less. At the end, you have to stop at a certain level to decompress a bit, and as we were hanging there when this shark suddenly charged us. I kid you not, he just changed his mind at the last moment and veered off. David said it wasn't going to do anything, but whatever - I nearly had a heart attack. We did another dive with them later - a bunch of fun French guys - and saw a manta ray, which was amazing. I mean, I have never been so awed in my life - I felt like I was on National Geographic. The sheer size of these things is astounding. I really hope to see one again someday. Other than that, we just hung around, worked on our tans, scoped out the town, and built a sand castle, at my insistence. Also, I was beginning to see a new trend in David - apparently he gets crazy cravings for Coca-Cola when he is on vacation. At one dinner we ended up spending $15 on a single coke. I think in the end we might have spent $100 just on coke fixes. But what is vacation for than some pampering? So ended our time at Bora Bora - it really was the most picturesque of them all.

Island 2: Huahine

Our next stop was Huahine, which I would say is a bit off the tourism track. Our hotel was actually in a little cove that you could not get to except by boat. It was only a 5 minute trip to the main town nearby, and we met some interesting people on the ride. Here we spent a fair amount of time playing ping-pong in the rain, a game of sand volleyball on the beach with the hotel folks (they killed us) and at night, I discovered a great game in their cupboards – Le Jeu de Polynesie! I was so excited. I know, I’m sure some of you out there are like, “Board games? On your honeymoon!?” But if you know me, you know I LOVE Monopoly, which this was a blatant rip-off of. So I had a great time, especially the night I convinced David to drink a whole carton of something called Tahiti Drink which is basically fermented random fruit. I definitely won that night. We also spent a fair amount of time kayaking around to deserted beaches and whatnot – one day David decided he wanted to kayak out to the breakers, which are a least a mile out. That picture to the left is one he randomly shot while he was paddling out - he porbably went even furhter than that. So, I parked it on the beach with a book and he set off – it took him so long, I was actually starting to worry that he had been eaten by sharks or something. Thankfully, he wasn’t and he was back in time for us to make it to dinner at the hotel restaurant, which is over the water. I think David spent half the time leaning over the railing to look at all the fish schooling under the underwater lights.


It was quite humorous – I only wish I had my camera to capture the moment for posterity. The town was cute, and we had a good time eating fish sandwiches off a cart for lunch everyday, and just walking around. While we were here we also went horseback riding, which of course was going to happen at some point on our trip. I had a great time, and David learned that it is really hard to canter while wearing a backpack. All in all, Huahine was a great place to chill out and relax, falling asleep each night to the sound of chickens.

Island One: Moorea

Our first stop was Moorea, which means yellow lizard, as we were told maybe 500 times by various tourism folks. It was lovely, and we had a wonderful bure here all to ourselves. Here we went on a snorkeling picnic tour, and swam with sharks and stingrays (that's David getting up close and personal with one). It was a good way to see the island, and it was interesting to try all the new foods like poisson cru (citrus-cooked fish). We also rented a moped, and had great fun puttering around the island in 'style'(aka Q-tip Head)- even though I thought we were going to die a few times, because they don't have street lights over there. One evening we drove up to the interior of the island, saw some ruins, and then drove to the lookout where we shared the view with, of course, chickens. They actually kept knocking over the camera. All in all, it was a great relaxing island, with the exception of the attempted outrigger canoe trip, that you can see in the last picture, which caused our First Fight. Ah, memories. That canoe still makes us laugh.

The Honeymoon

Tahiti! I strongly urge anyone who can to go - we had a wonderful time. We went for two weeks and visited four of the islands: Moorea, Huahine, Bora Bora, and Rangiroa. Personally, Moorea was my favorite, due to the abundance of things to do without the crowds of tourists, good restaurants, and accessibility. There are so many things to comment on, it is impossible. There are the funny quirks, such as the morning ritual of running out of our bure, blind, to throw rocks at the closest rooster, attempting (and failing) to row tandem in a outrigger canoe (It ended with me getting out and David rowing it back to shore), rocketing around the island cheating death on a moped…..
The people were friendly, it was very laid back, and absolutely picturesque. The scuba diving was amazing. Really, it is a place that speaks best through pictures, so I will do my best to be quiet. Enjoy!

Relaxing in the Country - Right?

Prior to our honeymoon, David and I went to Dad's property out in Winnesboro, TX to hang out while we waited for our flight out. We had a good time, doing basically nothing. We fished a little, set off some firecrackers, and just were thankful the wedding was over.

That fish in the picture did set off our one adventure - it was the night before we headed back to Dallas to catch our flight to Tahiti, and we decided to go fishing at a neighbors'. After a long stretch of nothing happening (as it always does with fishing) I managed to catch a catfish. However, due to their tough mouths, we couldn't get the hook off. Bored, I went home to start dinner, and David put the catfish, still on the hook, back in the water to go get some pliers. A while later I am cooking on the grill, and here comes David, sans the truck. Turns out he managed to back the truck into a huge ditch. I went down the road, and there is was, resting on it's axle, while the tire hung off into space. By now it is pitch black, and we're in the middle of nowhere. So, we start walking down the road, in an attempt to get help. I decide to head over to the one neighbor I have met. As we started getting closer to their house, suddenly a pair of eyes is shining out of the darkness, attached to a shaggy dog-body. As they silently studied us, I instantly convinced myself that we weren't going to get out of this alive, imagining newspaper headlines like: "Tragedy: Newlyweds Devoured by Wolves." Thus, we made our first joint decision, and decided to get the heck out of there. After a harrowing walk home, we got on the phone ("Daddy!") and finally found someone to pull us out of the ditch. Grateful we had a way to get back to Dallas to catch our plane, we went back to the property and had a nice, uneventful rest of the evening.