(Photo of Cook's Bay in Moorea)

In February, while we were still waiting for our box of parts to arrive, our son's friend, Brian Janek, visited. We took time off from working on the boat to do some fun touring. On Tahiti, we drove all the way around the island, stopping at the Grottos de Maraa (underground pools where the French painter Paul Gauguin swam), toured the gardens, took a 2.5-hour hike up the mountain, drove up to the Tahiti Iti Belvedere (lookout), had a great lunch at TerreMer, and hiked up to 3 waterfalls. (See Photos) We ended at the Papeete Yacht Club for a much needed cold drink. It was 95 F that day!

Tony and Brian did a 2-tank dive one day. The first dive (95 feet) was a little disappointing. The second dive (35-40 feet) was much better as they saw a plane wreck, 2 ship wrecks and lots of fish.

We also went to the Roulettes, food trucks, one night in Papeete. They have about 20 food venders including sushi, sashimi, seared tuna (my favorite), roasted pig (Tony's favorite), Chinese food, crepes, etc. It is such a fun evening with hundreds of people and children playing in the park every night. It is also pretty reasonably priced and very good food. (See Photos)

We felt bad that we couldn't take Brian sailing, so we went by ferry to Moorea (20 miles away) and stayed a couple nights there. Moorea is a small (6 x 8 miles in size), sleepy island compared to Tahiti. We drove all the way around the island, drove up to the viewpoint with a spectacular view of both Cook's Bay and Opunohu Bay. Tony & Brian did a reportedly 2-hour hike over a mountain ridge one day. I picked out the hike for them and played taxi driver, dropping them off on one side and picking them up on the other side. They got down 4 hours later, almost past sunset, and were not very happy with me about the misleading information on the length and steepness of the hike! They recommend always taking a guide when hiking here because there are NO trail maps, the trails are not well marked, sometimes not marked, and you can get lost. Tony said that there was one point when there were no markers and they had to just guess which way to go. Thankfully they chose the right path!

The best part of Moorea was the snorkeling. One day we did a 1.5-hour drift snorkel with a pretty good current. It was fabulous and we saw tons of fish we'd never seen before! Our favorite was the Pennant Bannerfish, the Picasso Triggerfish, and the Yellow Boxfish. (See Photos) (See Video)

Brian then flew to the Tuamotu Islands and went diving for a week and had some great dives. He showed us all the videos and I can't wait to go the Tuamotus in 2016!

More Later - G&T