South Pacific Highlights

Blimey, so much to say after our 3 weeks in the US and the South Pacific. In a nutshell, it was bloody great. (Apart from the being up now blogging at 3am part, due to the horror jetlag after a 36 hour journey home, but hey ho, I know your hearts are bleeding for me… not).

 

Photos to follow once I've got a grip of the 1000 to choose from – every shade of turquoise yoyu can possibly imagine, with bells on.

But for now, here are some headlines on what stood out and what's still making me smile despite the ridiculous hour and that Scrumpy and Mojo are both badgering me for their breakfast as 'if Mummy's up, it must be time for food').

Aaaaaah, it was fab

– Getting bitten by the sacred blue-eyed eels of Huahine as I decided to get into their shallow stream and handfeed them tuna. Check them on on Google – big wide mouths and bloody fish teeth.

– Seeing 6 humpback whales off Maupiti – which came over to 'play' with us (we thought the catamaran was a gone-r, didn;t now whether to shoot photos or crap ourselves). Under the boat, by the boat, whaletails up, spouts a-blowing, so close you can see the Tods-shoes-like bumps on their whaley faces (how many times can 4 cynical old gits say 'wow' over and over again? Answer: lots)

– Managing to get the perfect 'money shot', one whale breaching fully out of the water – Sea Worldtastic

– Fishing solidly for 2 weeks, having all the lures ripped away by the ginormous fishmonsters of the deep but finally catching a Pacific Barracuda (Ross) and a Pacific Needlefish (me). About to dig out the sushi rice, rolling mat, wasabi, nori and ginger that we'd specially brought for our 'fish moment' only to then read the description of them in the Fish Book: 'good food value but some people are put off by the green flesh' – urrgggh.

– Diving into the sea fully dressed (and somewhat sloshed) to rescue the 4th steak off the BBQ when Ross dropped it as he triumphally flourished it, ready to serve

– Duck diving down 5 metres to get Ross's £300 glasses off the bottom after the dsilly plank jumped in to cool off, forgetting they were on his shiny bonce

– Seeing an underwater sea snake and hairy sea millipede for the first time

– Being chased by dolphins, under the bow wave

- 'Men making fire' (Ross & Mr H) on a deserted island beach, and scoffing the best BBQ burgers ever, with a Hinano Tahiti beer as we watched the sun go down (then ran for the dinghy as huge crabs were starting to emerge from some unfeasibly enormous holes in the sand..)

– Having to stand with a local lady and say a prayer before tucking into a Polynesian buffet (also known as 'bananas 4-ways' and an unhealthy obsession with a root vegetable called taro… or 'disgusting' for short)

– Not puking once, despite the fairly high seas and force 7-8 winds on several days. God bless Stugeron.

– Gate crashing a beach wedding on Maupiti with atrocious Tahitian karaoke and getting some beers from a jungle man dressed only in leaves

– Jumping out of our tiny cheap hire car as it started rolling rapidly backwards down the only – but incredibly steep - hill on one island, unable to tug us 4 lardies up it. Having to put up the others repeating my squeals of 'don't like it, Ross let me out' for the next 24 hours..

 

– Ogling the bell hops at the InterConti Tahiti – a perfect cougar moment, as they're all strapping 20-somethings, barechested and tattoed in short, tight man-sarongs with daggers. Beats a dull uniform, any day.

– Being given flower garlands and single flowers everywhere we went, to tuck behind the left ear if married and the right if 'still looking'

– Nearly being arrested by the Bora Bora police for anchoring too close to the coral (local boat operators pissed off that we weren't using their services to get to the best coral garden on the island). Taking a photo on the underwater camera to prove that we were – of course – only anchored on the sand, just in case..

– Snorkelling in hot pursuit of 2 stingrays underwater with their accompanying cleaner jack fish and pipefish. And backpedalling (or whatever the snorkelling equivalent is) rapidly when they stopped and whipped up their tails at me…. Steve Irwin moment…

– Sailing into the most beautiful island – Maupiti – turquoise, shimmering, low level, a narrow and terrifying pass (the gap beween the reef) – an absolute picture postcard gem

- Eating a lot, a lot of humid baguette

– Seeing Ross's legs brown for the first time ever

– Having a sense of humour failure when being forced to moor our bloody massive (and I'm sure hugely expensive to mend!) 47 foot boat in just 90cm of water – yes another 'don't like it, don't like it' wobbling lower lip moment

– Buying a pearl from a pearl farm in a lagoon

– Having endless untameable Helga horns hair, humidity is not my friend

– Hurling myself again into the water fully dressed to rescue the dinghy cable and failing in spades

– Requesting 'teaaaaaaa' every morning through our porthole and the earliest riser Ross very knidly obliging

– Exploring a giant bamboo forest on a tiny island beach

– Collecting 3 pointed spiral shells and debating how best to kill and extract their tentacally crabby contents. Hmm, that cupboard really did honk for a while, not sure I got all of it out. 

– Watching our tiny on board gecko licking orange juice off the outside of a breakfast glass

– Watching Polynesian men racing wooden canoes with side outriggers in preparation for the upcoming 80 mile, 3 day 'between the islands' annual race

– Kayaking up the mangroves in search of the 'abandoned garden' (yes, that island's terrific highlight!)

– Getting laughed at by J&R for bring a massive can of 30 mini hotdogs and some corned beef to the boat, despite the 20kg flight limit

– Being known as 'Sous' for 2 weeks, as in Janine's assistant boat chef. I think I even failed the 'cutting the cucumber nicely' test 

– Hawksey becoming obsessed and shouting 'birds' at sea – all day, every day – in the quest to help Ross catch a fish

- Managing to get 5 litres of spirits into Tahiti, in case we couldn't find any – and going home with, hmm, none of it…

 

And I could go on – but I already have for ages. Suffice it to say, it was worth heading to the other side of the world and the middle of absoultely nowhere to visit our 5 gorgeous Leeward/Society islands (Bora-Bora, Raiatea, Tahaa, Maupiti and Huahine), via Tahiti. If the once in a lifetime chance ever falls at your door, I'd say – take it x