Raiatea, Society Islands

This was a new port for us and we spent two days here.

Taken from the ship as we approached, thatch-roofed buildings for local merchants, but most of them had inelegant plastic tarps covering the thatch.

Also from the ship, the mountain we'd planned to climb on the second day since it was so close.

Murals, including the beach naupak with its half flower, on a port building.

We investigated riding a local bus to get to the three waterfalls trailhead, which was about 3 miles up the road, but the ship had rented all the buses except for the school buses. So we walked out to the main road and hitchhiked. A nice guy, who was father to two boys, picked us up and took us there with a warning to watch out for the dogs.

The first dog we encountered was very friendly and she walked with us all the way to the first waterfall, except for the few times when she went chasing after chickens. We called her Brownie.

The road went through a few family farms.

We went through an unlocked gate and were careful to close it securely. There were some dogs in this area, but they were more interested in Brownie than us.

 
We saw some nice-looking hot peppers and a simple half log bridge to a small fruit orchard.

 
We saw a bunch of Seminole pumpkins, a vigorous squash species, which is native to Mexico and one that I grow in Florida. We've seen is in Bora Bora and the Singapore Botanic Gardens and other places out here in the Pacific. We only saw male flowers here, so it must have been early in the season.

We got our feet wet crossing the creek.

We reached the first waterfall and it was somewhat of a disappointment because it had been dammed and water was piped down to residents below, we guessed. The path was not well maintained although Brownie seemed to know the way. We guessed that if you came here with a guide, that the guide would have a machete to hack his way through the jungle.

 
We decided that since the trail was so overgrown from here that we should head back down.

 
What was interesting about these ferns was that some of the spores had sprouted in place on the older fronds.

Back down near the road, we visited with Brownie's family.

 
It began to rain a bit harder, so we found shelter on a porch of a rental cottage. After 20 minutes or so, it stopped raining and we headed back to the road.

 
Our ride back to the ship was with André and his dog Bombi.

After lunch on the ship we went back out again to scout out where the trailhead was for the mountain we had planned to climb the next day. A Chinese dragon was performing in a building near the ship.

 
High school students and their coach were practicing javelin throwing. They posed for us.

We did find the trailhead up in a neighborhood.

 
This woman was selling big chunks of fresh tuna from a cold box in the back of her car. The walkway near the ship highlights the naupaka flowers again. Also while we were near the ship we talked to a fellow shipmate who was returning a motor scooter that she'd rented with her husband for the day and that caused a change in our plans for the next day. We went into the tourist center next to the ship and signed up to rent a motor scooter for the next day.

The morning light on the water from our verandah...

The tourist pavilion did not open until 7:30, but we were out there early and at about 7:20, a young man came around with a sign looking for us. He drove us to the actual rental office.

 
Dean received some instructions, but instead of just heading out into the traffic on the main street up to the World Heritage site, we crossed the street into a less traveled, neighborhood road to do a little getting used to the vehicle. Then we were on our way the 20 or so miles to the World Heritage Site. Traffic was light, and in general, drivers were polite.

This World Heritage Site is called Taputapu'atea and is significant because this is where the Polynesian wayfarers left from on their 2000-mile journey north to Hawaii. This rock points due north.

We picked up a brochure to guide us around the site.

While the brochure was relatively brief, it mentioned that there had been human sacrifices here.

This was not marked on the brochure, but it appeared to be a gravesite or a memorial site.

 
Some of the stone structures were huge, but in between, Nature was carrying on in small ways such as ghost crabs digging their burrows in the sandy soil.

This area was the landing and launching beach for the Wayfarers.

This was the wall end of the largest structure on the site.

 
This is the other side of the largest rock structure on the site, which was adorned with a number of branches that had been covered with mussel shells nailed to them and three Polynesian totems leaning against the the largest of the background rocks.

 
There was a trail to a series of overlooks on the hill next to the site. Of course, we climbed it.

The trail did not enter the inviting arches of the hibiscus shrubs.

There were some wooden platforms with stairs along the trail.

The tour buses arrived after we'd started to climb the mountain. We loved that we'd had the whole site to ourselves earlier in the day.

This view encompasses most of the heritage site.

Out on a coral reef just off shore, this looks like it could be a dive and snorkel center.

 
A nice bay as viewed from the top of the mountain. Then we headed back down the trail. The soil on the trail was very sticky clay, so we kept scraping it off our shoes. We got to the visitors center, which was filled with dozens of our shipmates, and mounted our motor scooter and left the parking lot as gracefully as we could.

We stopped to make some adjustments a few minutes down the road and saw these school kids getting ready to cross the road.

How cute!

 
We stopped a little later in a wide spot on the road where there was a fruit stand and had a kid there take our picture. I was holding the brake because Dean was busy showing him how to use the camera. We turned in the scooter and got a ride back to the dock area. It was time for a cold shower and some lunch!!

As we sailed away, it was a long, slow path along the inside of the coral reefs. As we came along the small island, we could see a slightly deeper channel right next to it which explained why so many small boats ran so close to it over the 2 days we were there.

We would have four sea days and lose a day as we crossed the International dateline: we lost Sat. Jan. 28th.
The next port was Tonga.