21-22 March -- Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia

We docked during the night of the 21st after our short voyage from Moorea and were treated to a spectacular show by a Tahitian Dance Group.  So wonderful to exoerience their culture and history!!

The morning in port was cloudy and very humid, but the sun broke through as we took a morning stroll through downtown.  Papeete is a bustling city and very metropolitan, with its high end shops and expensive yachts in the harbor. Personally the other islands we visited were much more fun to walk around and experience the people.

Mid-morning we're off to tour the island and the sights of this great island.  Papeete has a population of around 160,000 and with Moorea, accounts for about 75% of the French Polynesian populace.

Our tour guide, Douglas, came to the islands as a 7-year old.  He was full of ancedotes about almost everything that we saw.  Our first stop was the James Norman Hall museum, famous author who wrote 3 Bounty books and quite prolific, even writing a book of poetry to his baby daughter.

  

It was very interesting to hear his life story as related by the museum curator.  He actually served in both the French flying corp and the British Army during WWII, even though he was American.

A lot of his novels were made into films, the most famous was the "Mutiny on the Bounty" films.  His son was a director and won Oscars for Butch Cassidy and teh Sundance Kid and American Pie.

Then onto the black sand beaches of Point Venus and the site of the only lighthouse on the island.  This was the landing site for the original HMS Bounty.

The overlook photos show the bay we entered this morning and the coral reef atoll.  Of course there was a nice couple that visited there.  The one photo is of a 45-year old ironwood tree which are very prevalent to the islands.

Lastly we were able to see Crown Mountain as the rain squall and clouds that were over Papeete broke long enough for us to get this shot.  It's not often due to teh low clouds that cover this mountain during the rainy season.  The mountain appears to have 5 diadems (points, thus resembling the upward points of a crown.

And we're off westward to our next island!!