AdventuresAboardAvatar: Still in Mo'orea

Turns out, we still have some friends to hang out with, Rick and Jasna on Calypso!! They have already been in French Polynesia for 2.5 years! Of course anyone with a European visa can stay as long as they like. But the catch is, if you stay longer than 3 years with your boat, then they want you to pay to import your boat. So usually that is when it is a good idea to leave.

We hung out at the head of Bay D'Opuaneau inside the reef, right off the white sand beach park. The rainbows were breath taking! This place is incredibly beautiful!! There are several trees that grow flowers in them. When the wind blows the flowers blow away and land in the water, floating by the boat. It kind of just adds to the beauty, really!

Little Sophie likes going everywhere with us and we took her on several kayak rides or paddle board rides, since she could not go ashore. On a snorkel right near the boat, over by the beach, I saw some amazing sites. There was one rock that was completely covered with Anoemonies. These are slimy, 1000 finger looking creatures, that wave in the current. And usually there is some type of clown fish, or Anoemone fish who lives there and guards it. The first one I saw only had a baby, a little blue and white spotted fish. But one had a fairly large, Yellowtailed Orangefin Anemonefish. He even dashed out in front of me, but never far from his guard spot. I saw Raccoonfish, which have a mask too. The Sixbar Wrasse has a pink star around his eye. The Moorish Idol, which is our favorite, has a long dorsal fin on his black and yellow body. Then, I saw a turtle!! I followed him on the bottom for a bit, then watched as he surfaced to take a breath of air. I think that is when he saw me, and he darted off with just a few flips of his flippers. It was an amazing snorkel and right next to the boat!!

We were all invited to ATMOS from Amsterdam for a Bastille Day (July 14) party. This is France's Independence day and there are always big festivals. But this was just a potluck anchorage party on their lovely 60 foot yacht. She is a very Dutch looking boat with a canoe stern and flush fordeck for dance parties. There were quite a few people there and we all had a fabulous time. Not to mention the boat was immaculate!

Calypso and we decided to head back to Tahiti to see the rest of the Heiva festival, which goes on all month of July. Also they were going back to pick up a part for their engine, a new head! Rick has his work cut out for him. So on the way it was so gorgeous, we took photos of each other. They look so lovely with Moorea in the background! Sophie was driving the boat and asked us, when are we going to get this autopilot cable fixed so I don't have to steer all the time? Then Calypso caught up to us, and we noticed Jasna up the mast, underway!. She and Rick are both professional writers and photographers. (At the moment they have the best selling sailing book on Amazon!!) So she took some amazing photos of Avatar undersail for us. It was so awesome of her! We thought the race was on from there to Tahiti, but we found out later they were trying to fly their Parasail (like a big kite that goes out in front of the boat when sailing downwind). Unbeknownst to us they were not being successful, and we zoomed away from them. Think the wind may not have been cooperating.

As we approach Tahiti, we are back in the big city and we have to duck for airplanes! We saw a big dead head (a floating tree) made of a huge piece of bamboo! Who knows where that came from! This is why we must always keep a sharp look out! Not a good idea to run into one of these things. As we entered the channel, a young boy on a sporty paddle board paddled like mad and caught up with us and grabbed ahold. Mike announced, “we have a hitch hiker.” He was a pretty cute Polynesian kid! I think he thought he was cool because he was waving to his friends like, “see ya”!! We all had a good giggle and then he went on his way.