Woke up this morning to the lovely site of land outside our window, and not just any land! Mo’orea means “yellow lizard” in Tahitian, and the island is supposed to look like a heart from the air. A true Love Island ❤️! Moorea is only 11 miles northwest of Papeete Tahiti where we were on Wednesday, but it is full of jagged volcanic mountains that give it a mystical look in my opinion. For contrast, I took the first picture below of what Moorea looks like when viewed from Tahiti, and the second picture below is a tiny slice of it from off our balcony while in port.

I loved watching the crew react to Mo’orea. Because this is a repositioning cruise and not part of their “usual itinerary”, many of these stops are firsts for the crew, too. At any given time, you could see ship’s staff sneaking pictures of the sights on their phones along with the guests. 😍 Here was our view from the breakfast buffet, and the top deck of the ship. Just wow!

We were wait-listed for a ship excursion here that we couldn’t get on, so we decided we’d adventure today on our own. I had already googled enough about the island to know what I wanted to do and see (snorkel- yes, I am sure you are shocked), and Mo’orea is known for gorgeous snorkeling beaches, as well as surfing spots and significant places of Polynesian culture. Our ship had us take tenders to get into the port. The tender to Mo’orea alone could be its own excursion! 😍 As with the other ports in French Polynesia, we stepped off the tender straight into an area with crafts and vendors everywhere, including multiple snorkel excursions.

We selected an excursion that took us to the Moto Tiahura sandbar on a private island across from the mainland, that is known for being a stingray and blacktip shark nursery area. We enjoyed a gorgeous ride from the port to our snorkel island.

Before we were even off the snorkel ferry, we could see blacktip reef sharks and big stingrays in the shallow, clear water next to us! People do tend to feed them in this area, so they hang out a lot, especially the stingrays, with no apparent fear. In fact some of these tamer rays will come right up and brush against you to ask for food or pats! They evidently enjoy having their noses rubbed according to our guide, and verified by Rob!

It was one of the coolest days, among MANY cool days, we’ve had lately. I am normally a little irrationally scared of sharks, so I was proud of myself that I swam around with them unbothered. I was also surprised to realize that despite their barbed tails, I had no fear of these rays, while the harmless Manta rays we swam with on the Big Island in Kona absolutely terrified me! It must be a size thing.

The little beach we were on had a bar on it (aka a table where a local had a cooler of drinks) so we tried another local beer, Pia Tahiti, that we liked. They also had a bbq grill going that we didn’t try, as our ship has kept us (a little TOO) well-fed.

In addition to the sharks and rays, we had a nice snorkel around the channel, and enjoyed seeing more coral (including the purple one we love) and beautiful tropical fish, more giant clams, and more sea cucumbers. It is so cool seeing fish that we’ve never seen or only seen in aquariums at pet stores and watching them in their natural habitat. After our snorkeling, we took the local ferry back to our cruise ship tender dock, enjoying more of Moorea’s beauty, and tendered back to the ship. Wish we could have seen more of the island, but we will save that for next time (which I sure hope for!). Rob and I always say the cruises are like ordering the “sampler platter” but for travel- it’s not a full taste of any one place, but it gives you an idea of what you might want more of in the future!

After we got back to the ship, we showered and cleaned up, then headed to tonight’s headline show, Jimmy Mann, an Australian guy who does a tribute show to Billy Joel. The show was really good, and he is an excellent piano player! The ship’s orchestra backed him up, and they sounded great, too. An enjoyable show! From there we headed to another game show “The Battle” that had teams competing for points in different kinds of games like trivia, music recognition, etc. I have definitely noticed that we tend to see the same people participating in the shows over and over again on this ship! Afterwards, we had a late dinner in the dining room, and went to one last adults-only game show. Rob also won some money in the casino, and I lost, so we balanced out. It was another incredible day to be us!! ❤️ We are headed back out to sea now, with six more “at sea days”’as we sail for New Zealand, including an international date line crossing! As before, we will post our activitynuodates when and if we can given the shipboard WiFi situation. So, you may or may not hear from us again until we get to New Zealand, but rest assured- we are having a great time! Emails with no pictures should come thru just fine, so feel free to reach out! Thanks for adventuring with us!