Raiatea, French Polynesia

Before showing you some photos from today, you must admire last night’s dessert, the Valrhona chocolate bar.  It was incredibly sweet, and paired with dulce de leche ice cream.  I could only manage half of mine.

Alas, Raiatea was a bit of a disappointment, because the weather threatened and then delivered heavy rain. Some passengers did take the tender boats ashore, but probably a fourth as many as yesterday.  We stayed on board, needless to say.

Here are some pics of our early morning arrival.

We enjoyed watching the lifeboats lowered from our balcony.

Just after we anchored, a French luxury ship left the harbor.

We also enjoyed watching planes take off and land at the airstrip from our balcony.

We took our usual walk, then went to the Solarium for breakfast.  Later in the morning we enjoyed a mimosa and a Bloody Mary in the indoor pool area (while our room was serviced).  We opted for pizza for lunch for the first time.  We also finished watching The Diplomat, which is incredibly good.

We returned to our balcony as the ship left Raiatea, enjoying some really beautiful scenery on surrounding islands. At one point we were so close to land that we got a good view of the dense vegetation.

Just as we approached the end of the last island, we spotted a church.

Now we have four or five sea days (depending on how crossing the International Date Line works) before we get to New Zealand on my birthday. There’s another time zone change tonight, putting us six hours behind Texas Time. This is a big ocean, y’all!