Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Wednesday in Moorea

Wednesday we woke up in our cute little house and got down to business... RELAXING. THIS was a vacation! No reunion! A relaxing vacation!
We ate breakfast outside on the table overlooking the water. The boys colored.
They lined up and raced cars in the bizarre glass room.
And then Taylor's family dropped in. Okay so it wasn't actually bad. Taylor's parents and Barb and Clint's flight wasn't until the day after they got off the cruise ship and they decided to spend the night also on Moorea but in their own hotel. We had planned to maybe meet up for dinner but it turned out Taylor's phone didn't get service on our side of the island so we just bagged dinner and had a relaxing Tuesday night. Wednesday morning we drove around to the other side until we found them (and a cell signal) and then they came back and hung out at our house until they had to leave to catch their ferry to the plane home.
Barbara took the boys out snorkeling again.
And helped them build a trap for the nocturnal crabs.
Black pearls are native to Tahiti so there were these shells literally everywhere. People on American beaches would die to find such intact, large beautiful shells but there were just hundreds of them everywhere.
Unfortunately what there wasn't was good sand castle building sand. The sand on the beaches was actually really coarse. I assume that's because there's not much of a tide with the barrier reef and all so the sand mostly is just small rocks- still sand, but not fine enough to pack and hold a shape. We tried several times and even one morning after it had rained substantially, but to no avail. No sand castles on Moorea. Luckily these are boys and they're just as happy making mud pies and stacking up shells around crab holes.
This was our front porch on the house. To the right is the ocean and inside the window is the kitchen. We LIVED on these lounges- partly because it was in the 90's and humid inside, even with the windows open, and partly because why not? The view was amazing, the breeze was refreshing, and we were RELAXING!!!
There was a small sea kayak that came with the house so the first morning we were there, Taylor got up bright and early around 5am and without telling anyone he was leaving, paddled off into the sunrise. He got about halfway out to the barrier reef when he realized he was taking on water. He turned around and headed back but it was a lost cause. 1/4 of the way back he had to get off and drag the kayak the rest of the way. This would have been funny enough without all the other Tahitians out on their sea kayaks and outriggers doing their morning fishes- because remember, everyone there is up bright and early too. And everyone at home on the beaches got to watch the crazy American drag back in his kayak too. Luckily Taylor is a very strong swimmer and is used to pushes heavy objects/people around in the water from his days playing water polo in college. He made it all the way back with the kayak well before I or the boys woke up. And we enjoyed his story over breakfast.
This picture is of that kayak but it's actually Clint who was determined to kayak himself even though he knew there was a hole. At least he stayed close to shore this time- but still after just a few minutes you can see the back end is sinking.
And here's the whole group, minus grams taking the picture from the beach.

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