Day 16 - Wed 24Apr2024 - Papeete, Tahiti - Day 1

 Our alarms went off at 7am and we could see Moorea out of the balcony window, so we knew we were close.  We showered, dressed and went up to the LIDO for breakfast   There we watched the ship enter the harbor, rotate counter clockwise, and back into its berth position.  This puts our port side stateroom on the city view side of the dock.  We finished breakfast and went back to the stateroom and assembled our gear for today's snorkeling adventure.  We were in the Princess Theater at 8:15am along with at least 500 other folks on Princess excursions.  We had several announcements trying to explain the delay which came down to slow clearance procedures.  Finally, an hour late, we were released to disembark the ship while those not on a Princess excursion had to continue waiting.  It's a fairly long pier walk and fortunately our catamaran was located there so we didn't have to take a bus or anything.  




We were quickly boarded on the catamaran, given a safety briefing, and soon were underway out into the harbor.  There we encountered a nice pod of dolphins which was a nice way to start the trip.  We sailed out and around the airport and then reached our snorkeling spot.  The Captain took me down to see the small 4 cylinder diesel engine (one of two).





  Everyone prepared their gear and entered the water which was warm and clear.  There were, however, a few non snorkelers who stayed on the catamaran. I have an underwater camera and I headed for the coral reef and spotted a fair amount of colorful coral and a few small fish. The water was probably 7-10 feet deep and I snorkeled around the coral and eventually started diving so I could get closer to the fish on the bottom.  Near the end of our time in the water, Angela found me and we stayed together for the rest of the trip.  On balance, it wasn't the best snorkeling we've ever experienced; but it was definitely better than Belize a month ago.  We were among the last out of the water.  We then sailed directly back into the harbor and disembarked the catarmaran and headed back to the ship.



Onboard we showered and changed into dry clothes and had a light lunch in the LIDO before heading out to explore the downtown area near the ship.  We found some fabric stores and Angela bought some items for a craft project she is doing onboard.  We also walked up to the ferry terminal and back along the wharf area and then to the City Market which was in the process of closing.  Since it was so hot we headed back to the ship and encountered a fellow selling Ukuleles and he gave Angela some replacement fishing line for her Moorean ukulele which has a broken string.   At the ship gangway we ran into a shore excursions representative where we explained that we learned that the snorkeling trip we are booked on tomorrow is the same as the one we did today.  She explained that we might be able to exchange our tickets for another excursion or if there are any people are waitlisted, we could get a refund.  However, we had to visit the shore excursions office with our tickets at 4:30pm.  So we did just that, and the clerk wouldn't guarantee a refund, but promised to try.  So we left our tickets with him and found our other friends, Linda and Doug and chatted with them a bit before heading up to the Marketplace for dinner together which was quite nice.  





After dinner we went out on the aft deck and noted that the food truck market was in operation.  Tomorrow we might try that as our sailaway time is midnight and we only are moving across the bay to Moorea.  We attended the local Polynesian cultural show in the Princess Theater and it was quite good with a whole lot of hip movement and jiggling.  When we got back to the room, there was an envelope on our bed with a cancellation and refund notice inside.  That leaves us free to do something else!


It's been a very hot day (low 80's F) so we came back to the room and I updated my blog.  It'll be good that we don't have to get up early tomorrow unless we visit the Shore Excursions office for a replacement excursion.

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