Tahiti and The French Society Islands

Lynn and I recently returned from a 2 week trip to Tahiti and The French Society Islands.  I thought that you might like to see the slide show that I produced from this exotic trip.

May Day in Tahiti

It was May 1. May Day...an observed national and religious holiday here in the French Society Islands. We decided to take a drive and get our bearings. Papeete is not a big city but it is not a village either. Approximately 180,000 people live here. Buildings a generally not more than 2 stories. Most of the commerce is done right along the Pacific. We learned from the concierge at the hotel that the 2 big things to do in Tahiti in addition to water sports are a twisty drive up a mountain to see the view and to have dinner. He said that the drive and view are great, but that the food in the restaurant would not be memorable.  He said don't do this trip if the mountain is clouded over as it was on this day.   The other highlight is eating dinner at the food trucks that are setup at sunset at a small paved park in Papeete.

We stopped at a nearby grocery store for a few things, mostly soda and water. We wanted to get some wine for the room, but no liquor was sold on this holiday. We drove into town and walked. We stopped at Les 3 Brasseurs..a patio bar across from the ferry terminal for  a pitcher of their home brewed dark beer.  It was very good. This was relaxing.

We returned to the hotel after our drive. We bought snorkel gear at an outdoor store before we left Florida. I decided to try my new mask an snorkel out in the lagoon in front of the Intercontinental. The ladies wanted to catch some rays. I was thrilled with the diving gear. I was also impressed with the assortment of tropical fish that were abundant here..trigger fish, parrot fish, mullet and many other beautiful species. After our time on the beach we returned to our rooms to get ready for the evening.

Traveling in Tahiti

Tuesday, April 30 - Delta night flight from TPA to LAX was uneventful. Flight was comfortable, nice leather seats. Our later flight to PPT required a connection to Air France.  Lots of construction at LAX...a long walk to Terminal 2 after some bad gate information from the Delta folks.  But, once at Air France, and another security check, we still had at least an hour before our 8+ hour onward flight to Papeete. Arrival was early in Papeete. We had to wait for our gate. Tahiti immigration was much too long. 2 hours standing in line in a non-airconditioned terminal can be a pain.

Four of us were traveling together. We had rented the cheapest economy car from Hertz, but the kind rental agent upgraded us to a Kia Soul. Incidentally the daily rate was about $40 US, but we also had to pay .58 per kilometer traveled and we like to drive!  The Kia is not  a large car by any means, but we were able to get our 8 pieces of luggage into the car for our short drive to our nearby hotel, The Intercontinental Tahiti. This is a large 3 story sprawling hotel on the Pacific Ocean. Our room is a standard room with a balcony and a lagoon view...palm trees, the Pacific an an occasional sailboat or kayak in the view. It is not a large room, but it is comfortable with a queen size bed, a desk a dresser and an average size bathroom.

We stopped in our new accommodations for about 30 minutes to freshen up.  The stopper in the sink wouldn't open. The small refrigerator needed to be defrosted. We called housekeeping. They took care of both issues immediately.  An American  Breakfast was included with our room.  We had fruits, eggs and coffee...a nice start to our Tahiti adventure. We will spend 3 nights in this hotel.

More later...

Packing for Tahiti Trip

Shortly we  will be flying to Papeete, Tahiti for our two week trip around French Polynesia.  Our trip includes spending a few days before and after our cruise at the Intercontinental Hotel in Papeete.  That is one of the hotels that features exotic  bungalows over the water.  They are expensive...so we opted to just spend one night in that type of accommodation and the remainder in more reasonable rooms.  This is a trip that Lynn has wanted to do for at least 5 years.  And something (usually Africa!) always has gotten in the way.  Not this time though!  We heard about the trip and within 30 minutes we were booked.  Our ship is the Paul Gauguin...a small ship (Only 300+ passengers).  Highlights of the trip are snorkeling opportunities and 4 wheel drive trips on the islands.   I will be spending one day  with a local professional photographer, Renaud Sayada.  I assume that we will be taking landscape and nature photos.

We are packing light.  For camera gear this time I am abandoning my heavy Nikon DSLRs for a lighter micro 4/3 package.  I recently bought the Olympus OM-D EM-5 with two lenses a 12-50mm and a 50-150mm lens,  I think that this should be sufficient.  I also purchased the Olympus TGH point and shoot, waterproof camera for underwater shots.  I have never photographed underwater before so this will be a new and I hope fun experience.  I also will be taking my Canon G1X camera for general shooting.  I have included a photo  that I took last year in a dimly lit restaurant in New York City with the G1X in low light at ISO 3200 with this camera.  The resolution that this camera delivers is amazing.  I only wish that Canon would either upgrade the camera or come up with new firmware for this camera.  It suffers when used for macro photography..

More later...

More on New Gear for Tahiti trip.

For this exotic future adventure to the tropics (Tahiti and the Society Islands) I decided that some new light gear was in order so after doing some research here is what I purchased.  Since so many of our adventures from the ship will have to do with snorkeling I needed some type of an underwater camera. I have never done any underwater photography and I really don't have any plans to get real serious about it in the future so I don't need anything too expensive. I settled on the compact Olympus TG 1 iHS. This camera has been replaced by the TG 1 iHS.  But, like I said earlier I want to spend as little money as possible for this item. I was able to save an additional $100 by buying this camera reconditioned from Olympus. Here is a link to the specs for the TG 1 iHS.

 http://www.getolympus.com/us/en/tough-tg-1.html

More later...

New Gear on the way for Future Trip

We have booked an exotic trip to Tahiti and the Society Islands.  We fly from Tampa to LAX then to Papeete, Tahiti. We will spend 3 days in Tahiti before our cruise on the Paul Gaugin ship. This is a trip that Lynn has wanted to do for he past 4 or 5 years, but it always seems like when the opportunity comes up we are headed to another corner of the world.  Honestly, I didn't really have a clue about exactly where Tahiti was before booking this trip. The Society Islands are in the South Pacific south of Hawaii and west of Easter Island. We will visit Bora Bora, Moorea and other islands.  Reading the itinerary it appears that most of our activities will be in the water. That means snorkeling.  In spite of  of taking a scuba diving class in college and growing up in the Florida Keys I haven't ever scuba dived. Snorkeling calls for an underwater camera. Since I am not skilled in underwater photography I decided to search out an inexpensive  compact camera.  My choice is an Olympus compact that is good to 33 feet underwater. More later...