Wednesday July 25, 2007
It is our last day on Moorea. We jump in the dinghy and take a quick ride to Cook’s Bay via the small channel marked with markers through the huge coral reef. The biggest village development is on Cook’s Bay. We find a way to tie the dinghy up and go ashore. Walking on the blacktop road the bright sun makes it hot. Donna and Nancy find relief in an air conditioned pearl jewelry store again and again without making a purchase. John and Ant go to the local outdoor café for a cup of cappuccino and a pastry. I hang out under a shade tree and read outside the jewelry stores in case my credit card is requested.
Going back to Bella Donna we have the confidence to venture across the reef picking our own path. It is high noon and the dangerous boomers are very visible. Ant sits on the bow pointing them out. That’s it we have traversed the reef and are in the lagoon surrounding the Sheraton Resort. This has cut some distance off the marked path, but by the time we get to Bella Donna we did not save any time.
It’s time to swim with the sharks and sting rays. This time the dinghy goes the opposite direction following the marked path through the reef. Just like the other day, there are a lot of people already visiting with them. We wedge our boat right in the middle where someone else must have just vacated. We have our usual Wahoo and the sting rays seem to smell it through the plastic bags we have it in or they remember the people willing to part with Wahoo from our visit a few days ago. Either way we are pushed and shoved by string rays and we haven’t even opened the bags yet. The feeding goes on for a while. I was bitten only ounce by an over anxious ray, but the ray’s teeth are not real sharp; it did not even scratch my skin. I gave a young Polynesian woman with her 4 year old daughter a piece of Wahoo. Rays surrounded them and the little girl went from interested and wanting to touch to go away and leave us alone. A Polynesian man in the group tells a story of how the sting rays started coming to play with people. He says that wild sting rays are usually too scared of people and don’t come close much. A few years ago he found a ray with a spear through his body. He removed the spear and feed the ray until he was healthy enough to swim off and get his own food. He noticed the ray would come back often for human touch and something to eat. The ray started bringing friends with him; more people started coming and now it is what you see.
We must hurry back to Bella Donna; it is almost sundown. No it is not for a sundowner; I can tell what you are thinking. It is because we must leave Moorea and head for Huahine. We have stayed here so long Moorea is like a familiar home now, but we are travelers and we must move on.
We leave the stillness of the crystal clear lagoon just after sunset into the big dark rolling
God Bless Bella Donna.
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