Tuesday, September 4^th, 2001.  6pm
Sitting on the deck of our bungalow, staring out at the ocean between typing.
(It is pitch black outside right now)

A very eventful day here on the island of Moorea.  We just got back from having burgers for dinner again.  I tried the milk here, and won’t be doing that again.  I specified that if it wasn’t COLD that I didn’t want it, but she brought it over anyway.  As I said before, refrigerators don’t work here like they do elsewhere in the world.  It was lukewarm… and very sweet.  Tasted kind of like I remember the milk in Mexico tasting.  I remember liking it much more back then.  The burgers were pretty good for being $12.  Anyway, I suppose I will pick up from where I left off. 

            We barely made it to our 4X4 island tour on time.  Leave it to us to be late on an island!  The driver was a very friendly Tahitian named Bobby.  Very friendly, very funny, and very nice.  His English (One of five languages that he speaks) was broken with a thick French accent.  His driving was maniacal.  We picked up the other riders, eight in all, and headed off to meet our sister truck containing another eight passengers.  First stop – a small market to pick up supplies.  Tami and I skipped breakfast, so we picked up some junk food, bread, and water.  The truck was an open-top 4x4 vehicle… bumpy ride, and no seatbelts (that worked) or protection for the passengers.  We were smushed next to 6 other people we didn’t know, but quickly became friendly with.  Their names are already forgotten.  After pulling out, we got out at a freshwater river were the other guide (or “Gid” as Bobby pronounced it) Tom, jumped in the water.  He pulled out a can of sardines and began tossing them gently into the water.  Why you ask?  To lure out the freshwater eels of course!  As big as my arm, and as long as my leg!  They were really neat looking, and are considered a delicacy in the Orient.  He lifted one gently out of the water, explaining that there is a very specific way to handle them in order to keep from being bitten.  He then asked if anyone else wanted to touch.  I asked if he was serious, then jumped down the 5-foot ravine to where he was.  Nobody else followed.  He threw out some more sardines, and waited for a big one to come out.  He began lifting it and then let me take over.  Pretty cool… the thing was as strong as an ox, and as slimy as I imagined it would feel.  Obviously, I lived – and still have all of my fingers or I couldn’t have typed this.  We headed back down the road circling Moorea.  Our next major stop was at the Pineapple plantation.  To get there, we had to do a little 4x4ing… through a couple small streams and hills.  I never actually knew that pineapples grew in the ground – not in a tree.  The land of Moorea is so lush and green… I have never seen such natural beauty.  There are Pine trees here – a gift from the French to help stop erosion.  Now they cover a large portion of the interior.  I didn’t expect to see them here.  The mountains – which are actually the walls of the former volcano – rise majestically into the sky.  During the first part of the morning clouds hid their tops.  (The clouds seem to settle lower here than I am used to)  It was gorgeous… kind of like the mountains of China that are frequently painted.  We liked them a lot and spent a lot of film on them.  We drove half way up one of them and took several nice photos.  We also saw several chickens running around the rest stop.  Tami and I spent more time than we should have feeding them some of the bread that we bought – there were three cute baby chicks that made it easy to get distracted by.  We stopped by a sacrificial temple, learned about a lot of the plants, and then headed to the place were they made local brews.  We sampled something called the “Tahitian Drink”.  Very fruity… alcoholic… and not my style.  Next was the waterfall.  Or should I say... “water-trickle”?  Unfortunately, someone had the water set on low… but the ride and hike to get there was an adventure in itself.  The hike was a mudslide, and we were only wearing thongs on our feet.  Nice and smart of us.  Anyway, when we got back to the truck our guides had prepared a feast of fruits for us.  The pineapple of Tahiti is much sweeter than that of ours in the US.  I ate a slice, and even sampled a bite of coconut.  After this it was time to head back to our hotel.  

            We made it back 5 minutes late for our SCUBA dive appointment.  (Late again – I thought they went by island time here!)  Anyway, they had waited for us – however, we were now rushed to gather our gear.  Since we haven’t been diving since our training, it was pretty scary to be rushed through it.  This was the first for several things for us.  We have never dived from a boat, never used weight belts (ours were integrated during training – a newer technology) or been deeper than 20 feet.  We got everything together and boarded the boat with two other divers.  The divemaster’s name was Christoph.  There was no real time to worry about anything.  We went through the opening in the reef and passed a little bit further out to sea.  Let me remind you that this is REAL Sea – no coast stuff, and this is something that I never thought I would ever do.  Tami was great.  She sat up on the edge of the boat, held her mask and regulator, and then fell back into the ocean.  I followed soon after.  First impression?  Amazing.  I have used words like this several times over the last few days.  I mean it every time that I do.  These are images that I cannot fully express in words, and “amazing” hardly does them justice.  We looked down at the bottom immediately, and could see the entire way down.  Fish were everywhere.  Colors that make birds look tame – in quantities that would make any fisherman squirm.  We slowly made our decent to the bottom.  Once there, a rather large and sinister-looking eel immediately greeted us.

The guide egged him out a bit.  It was the first time that I have ever witnessed something so dangerous in the wild.  No cage or glass between us.  Then a shark swam over.  The water was clear… and not too cold at all.  Wait, did I just say “shark”?  Yes.  Our first one – a black tip reef shark.  Probably 6 feet.

I have now faced my fears… and it really wasn’t that big of deal.  Tami wasn’t scared either – it was kind of just there.  It circled us a couple times, and then took off in a show of immense power.  It was just gone.  It was the first of three that we would see on this dive.  The eel was one of 4.

            The coral was gorgeous, and the floor of the ocean was littered with shells, cucumbers, and other sea life.  It was beautiful.  My air was the first to run low after 40 minutes beneath sea level.  After going down about 65 feet, Tami and I began the ascension ending our first true dive.  We paused for three minutes 10 feet beneath the boat for our safety stop – a depressurizing technique.  Thus ended the dive.  The boat ride back to shore was cold – but we were pumped up from the successful dive.

            We spent a little time later beneath the beautiful star-filled sky, staring into a lit area of ocean beneath the deck.  It is amazing how alive the ocean is even at night.  It was a romantic pause to a day filled with adventure.  I have enjoyed every moment with Tami, and these days will forever be imprinted within my memories.

            I end this entry with the drumbeats of Tahitian music playing loudly in the background.  The dinner area is throwing a Polynesian Dance tonight.  We went out for a bit to watch.  We are really here.  This is real.  This really is Polynesia, and those are real Polynesians.  I say again, this is an amazing trip.  We are lucky people to be here.   Finished now at 8pm – sitting in bed.