Rest of French Poly

**Magnificient Moorea**
What a photogenic island! Some say it is the model for the island Bali Hai in South Pacific. So many volcanic spires making steep mountain scenes. Everywhere a new astounding view! After the race to Moorea we took time to replace a leaky "ships service water pump" and clean up all the spilled water in the 4 holds. We sailed around to anchor in Robinsons Cove a famous cruiser's location in Opunohu Bay. We walked along the road surrounding the island, bought fruit, took a break at lunch at the Sheraton Resort and decided to rent a scooter to see the rest of Moorea. While taking in the sights we saw this traditional Polynesian altar at an old church, vanilla orchids, and checked out several restored Maraes. These are ancient ceremonial platforms used by the Polynesians over 500 years ago.	Belvedere Lookout is a famous scenic location in the mountains with views of the famous bays, Cooks Bay and Opunohu Bay. It was a rainy day but it finally cleared enough for us to ride up to see it and snap some photos. We passed the Agricultural School and enjoyed beautiful garden views of growing tropical plants. We only crashed the scooter once!!! Went over backwards on a big bump, very slowly...only got scratches!!! We will get a car next time, at our age!!! We got to see a beautiful island and get in some snorkeling, too. We had a good internet connection and used it to update this site and plan future cruising all the way to New Zealand.

Moorea in Sunset from Tahiti	Anchored off Reef	Opunohu Bay	Jagged Rocks	Landing Dinghy	Fruit Stand	CYAN off Maraeto Beach
Fresh Fruit	Death Trap!!!	Old Catholic Church	Native Altar	Ancient Marae	Vanilla Bean Orchids	Belvedere Lookout

**Wonderful Huahine**
Huahine is not as well cruised as other islands and the anchorages were more private. What a rainbow to welcome us as we anchored there! We took the dinghy to a village and these photos were of a Tourist Resort in the traditional style. The palm roofed oval shelter is typical of Polynesian homes of yesterday but many still live in them in out-of-way villages.	We passed an excavation of an ancient village and took the dinghy ashore to look around the Marae. This was a built-up platform of large stones used for worship and celebrations. They usually were built right on the water facing the rising sun. There was usually one in most villages of any size and many still have their remains however rundown they may be.

**Around Raiatea**
After anchoring in Raiatea we found a secluded island stream coming down from the mountains that would accomodate our dinghy even if we had to shove it off by hand from sand bars a few times. We traveled about 2 miles upstream until we hit the the fall line with rapids.	The scenes along this creek were just one amazing view after another and all the photos would just be too much here. We let the dinghy just float back to the bay with the current after getting out to walk around several farm areas to see what they were growing...usually bananas and taro!