Sat time came sooner than I thought. We’ve been on station all day and are now heading south on a slightly different course, so the mast is no longer shadowing the satellite dish as much. This means that I am finally able to post my pictures from Tahiti and Rangiroa.

A bit of background on these pictures: This is the first leg of a 2.5 month long trip from January 31st through April 15th, taking me from Tahiti to Tonga to New Zealand and back home to San Diego.

There’s more below…

About this leg of my trip:

I left San Diego Jan 31 in a blurry haze on a Saturday morning, forgetting my laptop in the process (thanks Tricia for bringing that down to me). I flew out to Honolulu, met up with my coworker and travel companion Lee and had a couple of beers at the yacht club on Sand Island Access Road during my 6 hour layover, all the while dodging the rain and mud puddles. From there we caught the flight to Papeete.

We arrived in Papeete at midnight on Saturday the 31st and spent part of the next day arranging tickets to fly out to Rangiroa, a very large coral atoll about an hour north of Tahiti by plane. The rest of the day was spent navigating around town, and discovering that $6 is about par for a glass of beer in Papeete, and that my high school french is about as abysmal as I remembered it. Pointing and gesturing wildly got the job done though.

We flew out to Rangiroa on Tuesday, the next day, and checked in to our bungalow, Raira Lagon Resort (note the fancy french spelling of Lagoon). From then on we were definately on island time. Sorry, we didn’t get to stay in the bungalows OVER the water, we had to settle for the ones 15 feet from the water. Life is unfair sometimes.

Rangiroa is a huge coral atoll that used to surround a large island. The entire island of Tahiti could fit inside the atoll with room to spare. Inside the atoll is a lagoon known for incredible underwater visibility and a variety of sea life. The water just outside of our little bungalow was full of triggerfish and all kinds of other finned creatures that I couldn’t ever hope to name.

We spent the week slacking, snorkeling (I don’t have a dive cert, must rememdy that when I get home), diving (Lee does), biking down to the two sleepy towns at either end of our stretch of atoll, drinking Hinano beer, and just generaly being lazy bums. We also toured a black pearl farm which was right next door to the resort.

After the 5 days were up, we headed back to Papeete and met up with the Melville, which had transited over from Honolulu. It was time for the super bowl at this point, so the bar owner had to go home and get his personal satellite dish so that we could watch the game from a bar near the ship. It was definately interesting listening to the commentary in french. “SACRE BLEU!!!!” “oew nooooooooo!!!” “GOOOOOAAAAL”

The Sea Education Association’s student ship the Robert C. Seamans was in town, so I got to tour their small operation and give their crew a tour of the Melville. They were headed for the Marquesas and then on to Hawaii. Rough life.

As I write this, I’m on day 7 of my Melville cruise, which is destined for about 53 south - the lovely southern ocean. The weather is great thus far, but we just entered the roaring 40s, and I’m expecting it to go to shit any minute.

Oh well, that’s enough for this update. It’s time for dinner, and free beer. It’s the head chef’s birthday, and Scripps tradition dictates that the birthday boy buy everyone a beer.