{"id":4424,"date":"2016-11-07T13:01:25","date_gmt":"2016-11-07T21:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=4424"},"modified":"2016-11-07T13:01:25","modified_gmt":"2016-11-07T21:01:25","slug":"sharks-snorkels-and-armani-flip-flops-moorea-french-polynesia-11052016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=4424","title":{"rendered":"Sharks, Snorkels and Armani Flip-flops \u2013 Moorea, French Polynesia \u2013 [11\/05\/2016]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"shark\"There are honestly few ports I develop an attachment to (I develop attachments to people<\/em>\u00a0 I go to port with<\/em> but that\u2019s not precisely the same thing) let alone any in which I could have anything considered a routine \u2013 but Moorea? Moorea I have a go to.<\/p>\n

The two visits I\u2019ve been lucky enough to make to Moorea before this, the tour has been unplanned; I\u2019ve just joined with random crew members jumping on a boat and heading out. This time though, I at least knew in advance enough to trade off my IPM.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re going out in Moorea<\/em><\/p>\n

We are?<\/em><\/p>\n

Yeah, I\u2019m taking you to swim with sharks and stuff<\/em><\/p>\n

Moorea has one of the loveliest coastlines I\u2019ve ever come across; the water is a colour of blue I\u2019ve not even seen in any other French Polynesian port let alone elsewhere in the world. And because of that they offer a fantastic \u2013 and well-priced \u2013 lagoon tour.\u00a0 I\u2019ve done it twice, and I was jelly-bean bouncy to do it again.<\/p>\n

Four guest entertainers and ourselves shelled over our cash, slipped ticket bands on our wrists and clamoured into the local boat to head to the island. At first it was just us, which was lovely and chill as we zipped past the over-water bungalows and the remains of what was once Club Med Moorea (now reduced to nothing but the remains of the dock and the burned out husks of the main buildings it\u2019s been that way for years now), but they had changed the order of the tour without really advertising it so instead of going to the snorkeling site first we went to the island to pick up a gabble of upset guests who were disappointed that they<\/em> hadn\u2019t seen the stingrays yet. Hello people, you are \u201cstranded\u201d for an hour or so in a tropical paradise, relax<\/em>!!<\/p>\n

We did get out to see the sharks and stingrays of course\u2026and it was amazing<\/em>. I am so glad for my under water camera. The pilots of the tour boats chum the water so all the animals \u2013 sharks included \u2013 come right up around your feet. They don\u2019t have a taste for people thankfully, just for fish. I love snorkeling, although lately it\u2019s just driving my desire to learn to scuba dive, there is a whole world under the water that I would consider it a privilege to see. As it was, just getting close enough to a black-tipped reef shark to take a decent picture was enough of a thrill.<\/p>\n

The time in the natural aquarium (which is really what the lagoon is for all intents) was all too short, we were soon dropped off back on the island, where there was juice and extremely yummy local fruit waiting for us.\u00a0 If that is, you\u2019re willing to hop off the boat into the water and wade to the beach. Amras was a bit leery of that for a reason that ended up making me laugh<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t go in the water in these flipflops<\/em><\/p>\n

Umm..why?<\/em><\/p>\n

Because you can\u2019t go in the water in flip-flops, the suction makes it end up so you can\u2019t walk..why did you think?<\/em><\/p>\n

I dunno, I thought it was cause they were\u2026designer flip-flops or something<\/em><\/p>\n

Seriously? *laugh* yes darhling I can\u2019t get my Armani flip-flops wet\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Oh shut up<\/em><\/p>\n

The rest of the day was spent lying on white sand listening to the patter of the local French dialect and trying to snap the perfect picture that would actually capture the beauty of what we were looking at. We made our way a little further down the beach then the drop off point, so there were few other ship people in sight, just us, and a lot of local people who probably wondered what we were doing there.\u00a0 And Amras being typical Amras (and a typical muso), perked up his ears<\/p>\n

Ah, autotune<\/em><\/p>\n

I choked back a laugh,<\/p>\n

Only you my dear, could lie on a beach in a tropical paradise, next to a girl, and complain about the auto tune on the local radio station..<\/em><\/p>\n

LOL, okay, that\u2019s going to end up in a blog isn\u2019t it?<\/em><\/p>\n

Absolutely<\/em><\/p>\n

Eventually \u2013 despite not particularly wanting to \u2013 we had to load ourselves back onto the boat and start zipping back to the ship. Being me, I sat in the front, where we wrapped ourselves in towels that swiftly got completely soaked by the salt-spray, which was absolutely brilliant for me. The whole boat couldn\u2019t stop laughing, as there was absolutely no point in trying to stay dry!<\/p>\n

And hey, salt water, sunshine and laughter certainly never hurt anyone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are honestly few ports I develop an attachment to (I develop attachments to people\u00a0 I go to port with but that\u2019s not precisely the same thing) let alone any in which I could have anything considered a routine \u2013 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[16,88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ports-of-call","category-tropical-rain-2016"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-19m","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4426,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4424\/revisions\/4426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}