Opunohu Bay, Moorea, Society Islands
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Fri 16 May 2008 22:19
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17:29.384S 149:51.058W
Some say the island of Moorea is the most beautiful
in the whole of the South Pacific. We would say, after seeing the
Marquesas, that it is right up there with the best of them. Our crew would
say, 'There can't be a nicer place in the world'. So it's unanimous,
Moorea is gorgeous.
Picture 1 was our view from the boat at anchor and
picture 2 was taken as we dinghied up what we
liked to call Oompaloompa Bay since we are not sure how exactly to pronounce
Opunohu (think Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). We chose to anchor
just inside the lagoon's coral reef instead of deep in Oompaloompa Bay
because we wanted our crew to be able to bask in the sun (the deep bay is
almost always in the shade of the neighboring mountains), and the
snorkeling is always better by the reef.
We spent two nights and the better part of three
days anchored in Oompaloompa Bay and one of those days was spent hiking up
the road to Belvedere Lookout and back. Not a small feat - about
eight miles total in the massive heat up a steep road, but the sights
along the way and the view from the top were definitely worth it.
Actually, the ice cream we found for sale at the
agricultural school about half-way up the road to Belvedere Lookout was
worth it all on its own (Don and I, mostly I, have been craving ice cream
since Panama, which was the last place we had it). The
agricultural school in general was very cool - an unexpected diversion
along the way. While the high school aged kids attended their classes
in the small buildings clustered near the snack bar, the four of us took
the self-guided tour through part of the plantation. We ventured past
every kind of tropical fruit tree (papaya, banana, mango, avocado, breadfruit,
giant grapefruit, lime, coconut) and eventually walked to the edge of the
pineapple fields spread in neat rows across a valley surrounded by rock spires
and mountains (picture 3). Again, gorgeous. After our trek through the pineapple fields, we made our way back to the
snack bar and had pineapple and papaya juice squeezed from the farm fruit right
in front of our eyes. After that we went for the
homemade ice cream flavored with our choice of mango, vanilla, coconut,
ginger, or papaya - all grown on the grounds of the school. As the
Brits would say, 'Brilliant!'.
Powered by ice cream, we made the final ascent to
Belvedere Lookout, passing an archeological site along the way.
It was another marae similar to the one we saw on
Tahiti. Marae is the Polynesian name for the sacred place where
political meetings and religious ceremonies (sometimes including human
sacrifice) took place as recently as the late 1700's. We made it
out of the archeological site without being accosted by ghosts
and walked the remaining short distance up to the lookout. We were greeted
by a very grand view (picture 4). Both Oompaloompa and Cook bays were
visible (only Cook Bay is shown in the picture) with Mount Rotui
in-between. Quite spectacular.
Wednesday (5/7) we snorkeled around the coral a
short distance from the boat, ending up on a beautiful white coral sand
beach. As we often like to say, our lives are pure hell.
Just before sunset, we packed up the dinghy and
readied the boat for the overnight sail from Moorea to the next Society Island
to the northwest, Huahine, or as the four of us like to call it
HOO-HA-Hiney (think Al Pachino sp? in Scent of a Woman). More on our
overnight sail and HOO-HA-Hiney in a future entry.
Anne
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