The Lost Plates of Jack and Leiana

 We made it to French Polynesia. The island we are on, Raiatea, is basically surrounded by coral reefs. There is one chanel to get into the island around the coral reef. It just happens to be across from the Faaroa River as the coral doesn't like the fresh water flowing over it.  You can see the waves breaking over the reef in the distance behind this little island. We walked a bit around the town. That took about 20 minutes as it is a very small town. The cruise ship has twice as many people on it (almost 3000) as live on this island (like 1,300). We saw some cool murals. This white flower is only found on the mountains on this island. It is extremely rare and picking it will give you a fine of 10,000 US dollars. It is a beautiful 5 petal white flower without much of a scent. We found this "Guardian of the Port" near our ship We went kayaking in the Faaroa River. It's the only navicable river in Polynesia. Our tour guide said that Raiatea is the heart, or at least th...

 We haven't taken as many pictures of our daily activities. I did get a picture of me with the assistant cruise director, Nora from Norway. She has a great laugh and is fun to talk with. She does most of the music trivia that we suck at but enjoy going to anyways. Our best night was the 80's. Our worst night was James Bond themes. All this is to win the fabled purple tulip. This is me hoping for one.  We had a masquerade night. Part of the fun was a treasure hunt searching for broken pieces of these masks. Jack actually found one in the library. Matt would be so proud. For that, we won the coveted purple tulip. We did get the chance to see the southern cross one night in the sky. The captain turned off all the lights on the back of the boat so we could see it. We had a fabulous marine biologist onboard who lectured on whales, sharks, currents, sea slang, and other things. She is a fabulous presenter and we learned a lot from her. Jack snapped this picture because he loved that...

 We have enjoyed our small stateroom. We are just 2 doors down from the bridge so often see the navigators and captain pass by our cabin. We have enjoyed the towel animals they do. It is only about 1 towel animal a weeks. We usually get chocolates on the day we get a towel animal. We have enjoyed making origami most days. We weren't sure what to do with them. First they covered our little table top. Then they filled a drawer. We finally decided to put them on our door for everyone to enjoy. It makes it easier to spot our cabin. We did find an extra friend occupying our cabin. We decided live and let live. However, he decided he didn't like our mess and moved on.

 We didn't actually get to disembark here. The wind was too strong and the waves too high to safely tender in and out of port. We were doubly disappointed as there was a small branch near the dock we were planning to go to church to. Jack did get some pictures of the island as we sailed by.

 The first thing we wanted to do once we got off the ship was to go to the temple. We made it, but after the last morning session had already started. We still got to spend some time in the temple doing initiatory work. It wasn't a busy temple, we often had the place to ourselves. We then went to the blow holes along the coast, not too far from the temple. As the waves roll in, they meet the lava rock along the shore and spout up mini geysers of water. The blow holes are all up and down the coast, as far as the eye could see.   Near the pier the ship was docked on was a great snorkeling spot. We saw one guy from the boat snorkeling there. We snapped a picture of a few fish and coral along the dock.

 We had to tender into port. The ship was left out in the water between many beautiful islands. We took a quick picture from the ship. We took a tender to shore, about a 15-20 minute ride. We were almost to the dock when the tender pilot noticed that the engine on the port side wasn't working. He had to do some tricky manuevering to get up to the dock. As we got off the teneder, we were greated by some Tongan dancers and singers. We walked to the Catholic church. There was a statue in the plaza in front of it that reminded me of Matt with a big book in his one hand and a scroll in his other. We had to get a picture. There wasn't a whole lot to do other than shop or drive around so we came back to the ship.

 The island is basically a big beach. We tendered in and walked onto the beach. The beach was soft sand, and the water was a perfect temperature. Probably not the best snorkeling sight as it was mainly sea grass. While there were fish there, they tended to camoflage and hide under the rocks. Jack got a few cool pictures. After I tired out, he went around the point to some awesome coral. We didn't manage to get back out after lunch. Here are some of Jack's pictures. If you aren't into underwater photography, there's not much here for you. This is the island from the boat. The point on the left is where Jack found the great snorkeling and coral. Below are some of the pictures he got. A small school of fish. I loved when I got out and was able to see such a variety of colorful coral. Sometimes we even got pictures of the fish when they weren't hiding from us.

Sister Kiran is from Fiji. It is definitely a beautiful place. We walked to church, about a 20 minute walk. We got there early. It was a great experience. The ward felt so friendly. There were 6 couples from the cruise ship in church, all of us from the Northwest- Oregon and Washington. After church, we decided to walk to the temple. It was about an hour walk, mostly uphill. We had our hats, an umbrella and water so we went. The view was incredible from the temple. The temple grounds included a mission office, mission home, temple president's home and the temple. We met the nicest guard from the outer islands who insisted on taking our picture on the temple grounds. It's a smaller templel, probably the size of Melbourne.  

 We had a kayaking/snorkeling tour first thing int he morning. It was a group of about 10 of us. We paddled clear kayaks over the water of the bay. It was nice to see them but even nicer to get into the water and swim with them. While we were out, it started to rain heavily. That was fine as we were already wet and our faces were in the water. We were having such a good time that we missed the call to go back into port. We finally got back to the boat to find the second group there. It wasn't just us, one of the women on our tour was still there. She is one of the guest lecturers on the ship. We finally got back to find Sister Matariki waiting for us. It was so good to see her. We were late because of the missed boat. We got to meet her mom and dad as well briefly. It was later that we found out that they weren't members.  Some of Jack's underwater pictures: We like to call this "One of these fish is not like the others."