This section covers Moorea, Raiatea and Bora Bora, all part of the Leeward Islands of French Polynesia. Moorea and Bora Bora vie for the most beautiful islands in the world. While Moorea is a few hours sail from Tahiti, the others are a short overnight away. These emerald-green island are almost completely encircled by offshore islets and reefs, with a large central islane, and only a few narrow passes to the open sea. This creates a magnificent lagoon of infinte depths and colors, but deep - anchoring in 60 to 120 ft of water.
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Cooks Bay on Moorea is in the running for the most spectacular anchorage we have been in. Everywhere you turn (except for the narrow pass out) you are surrounded by beautiful peaks and cliffs.
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This mountain, commonly called Sharks Tooth, was also part of the incredible landscape around Cooks Bay, Moorea.
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Folks from three of the rally boats rented scooters one day on Moorea to do a circumnavigation of the island by road. This is a view of the reef necklace on the east side of the island. In the foreground is one of the expensive hotels, and in the middle distance, the ferry from Tahiti is lining up the entrance to a pass through the reef.
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Last seen racing a scooter in Bermuda, Leslie tries for the hillclimb record in Moorea.
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The Scooter Patrol! From left to right: Amanda (Ocean Song), Dick, Murray (OS), Leslie, Carolyn (Nademia), Alistair (Nademia), William (guest on OS) and Samantha (same).
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During our scooter circumnavigation of Moorea we came across this old church, the first Protestant church on the island.
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One day we went to "swim with the sharks and stingrays". This is Leslie's first chance to pet a stingray. Is that look amazement, fear or shock? (Leslie claims her eyebrows are up because the facemask is pulling on them.)
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The "swim with the sharks" was billed as safe, as the black-tipped reef sharks typically do not eat humans. However, when one of these seven-foot long beasts comes up toward you, primal fear tries to replace logic!
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And when you swim with the stingrays, you can come eyeball-to-eyeball with the stingray.
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The Tiare, or Tahitian Gardenia, is the primary flower for wearing behind the ear or making leis. In the mountains on Raiatea grows this rare, sacred version with five petals.
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In the Society Islands they love to have flowers everywhere! Leslie was impressed by the flowers arranged around a sink in a public restroom in Raiatea!
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While cruising around Raiatea, we anchored off Opoa, a small village near the site of many sacred Marae. To visit, however, we had to anchor in over 103 feet of water. We carry 250 feet of chain splice to 50 feet of nylon rode, but still had less than 3:1 scope ... and coral heads to leeward. I woke up at night everytime we had a gust over 20 knots, but the boat did not move at all. This kind of depth is typical in the Society Islands.
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Raiatea is the locus of one of the dominant sects of old Polynesia - the cult of 'Oro. This cult spread from Raiatea as far as New Zealand, from the point of land on which this marae (sacred worship site) is located. There were many marae here, and this is the best archaeological site in French Polynesia.
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This marae backed up to the water's edge, and may have been the site for blessing large, oceanic catamarans that carried the cult's tikis and gods to distant islands. All the canoes from other islands would enter and leave the worship site via the sacred pass seen in the middle distance in this photo. You may be able to see the nearby island of Huahine in the far distance.
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On Raiatea and Tahaa, we saw many of these "mailboxes" into which the baker left his bagettes on his morning circuit. Mathew, age 9, was very proud to have his photo taken with the bagette box in front of his house.
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The waves breaking on the reefs continue to impress us, especially so when running a pass into or out of a lagoon. This eight- to ten-footer in Raiatea was on the side of the pass not used by the surfers.
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"Bali Hai will call you ..." This is the famous visage of Bora Bora, which James Michner call the most beautiful island in the world. Our crew Christy caught this shot from just south of the sole pass through Bora Bora's reef. We don't know which is more beautiful, Bora Bora or Moorea, but we were glad we visited both.
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