Last night, just as we were leaving Taha’a after a great day on the beach, a beautiful rainbow appeared over the water. Hopefully, it was a sign of good things to come. The islands, with the exception of Rangiroa, had gotten progressively better as the trip went along. As I said, Bora Bora was “stunning”, Motu Mahana was “perfect” and now we’re on the way to Moorea, described by many as the “most beautiful island in the world”. At this point, it has some hard acts to follow. But I had spent five days staring at Moorea from the Intercontinental and was really anxious to see it from a little closer perspective.
Again we arrived very early in the morning and I was on deck before sunrise. The sail-in to Moorea is the most dramatic of all, in my opinion, probably due to the many jagged mountain peaks. Bora Bora has two, Moorea has a bunch, including the famous “Bali Hai” from the movie “South Pacific”. We were going to be here for two days so I would get the chance to see them from both land and sea. We sailed into Cook’s Bay, where we would be anchored for the duration of our stay. Moorea is roughly heart-shaped with Mount Rotui in the center, Cook’s Bay on the east and Opunohu Bay on the west. Both bays are gorgeous and the lagoon rivals the one at Bora Bora. I’m beginning to think that Moorea wins the title of “most beautiful island”.
Prior to leaving home, I had submitted requests for two shore excursions, one for each day. However, when I got to my cabin and looked at the tickets, I found that Regent had rescheduled my requested excursions so that they were now scheduled against each other on the same day. I had to make a choice and I chose to search for spinner dolphins, a very acrobatic dolphin which I had never before seen. As I’ve said, I’m an animal lover. But that meant that I
had nothing scheduled for our first day in Moorea. Even though I had done lots of island drives, nothing else looked particularly appealing. It’s supposed to be a beautiful island so I booked the tour. It turned out to be your standard drive, except that the beauty of Moorea made it special. The jagged peaks are so pronounced that you can’t help but be impressed by them. We made several stops on the drive to the 
Belvedere Overlook but the views from the top were the real treat. We had a panoramic view of both Cook’s Bay and Opunohu Bay, split by Mount Rotui. We could see the ship anchored in Cook’s Bay. Not as spectacular as in Bora Bora but gorgeous nevertheless. There wasn’t anything remarkable about the rest of the drive other than the fantastic views of the mountains. It wasn’t my best excursion but not too bad for a last-minute substitute. I went back to the ship, looking forward to my dolphin experience tomorrow.I awoke the next morning, the last full day of the cruise. Tonight we would sail back to Papeete, spend one last
night on the ship and disembark the following day. So I was down to my last excursion, the spinner dolphins. Let’s make it a good one! We were scheduled to leave very early on our search for the dolphins, somewhere in the neighborhood of 8:00 am, as I remember. This was not just a sightseeing trip. Our guide has conducted a research project here for years so this is both science and tourism. I’m sure that he tolerates the tourists in order to help fund the research, not because he really enjoys conducting tours. But I didn’t care, I wanted to see some dolphins!
I have to admit to a major screw-up here. I’m a little more nimble than a lot of cruise passengers and I always try to be one of the first to board any means of transportation. That way, I can choose the best available seat. I was first at the boat, which had a center aisle with rows of two-person seats on either side. Naturally, I chose the first row outside seat. That way, I would have unobstructed views both front and side. Clever me! What I failed to notice, and probably wouldn’t have considered anyway, was that the bow and floor of the boat were painted bright white. There was a canopy which protected
from direct overhead sun but, early in the morning, that did absolutely nothing to protect from the reflected rays off that white paint. I was wearing a hat with a bill which also did nothing. As the morning wore on, I could feel my face getting cooked. The boat was packed so I couldn’t change seats. By the end of the trip, I was miserable. I was blistered by the next day and used cocoa butter cream for probably a week or so. Fortunately, there didn’t seem to be any real harm done but I think that I’ll pay more attention to the little details in the future.
Back to the dolphins. We were told that dolphins were found about ninety percent of the time but there were no guarantees. For a couple of hours, we were concerned that this trip would fall into the ten percent category. No dolphins made my burning face even harder to take. We tried most of the usual hangouts with no luck and the guide started to mention that ten percent thing. We had traveled about halfway around the island when we saw them. There were some happy people right about then, especially me! It wasn’t too exciting at first. We saw a few fins and tails but not much else. Then suddenly they started putting on a show, jumping out of the water, spinning like a 
corkscrew, flipping head over tail, fishtailing like a marlin on a hook. It was wonderful. I had the camera aimed in their general direction, hoping to catch one when it jumped. The problem was that you had no idea where that would be. My tactic was just to point and snap, hoping the dolphin would be somewhere in the frame. And it worked several times. I got five or six decent pictures, although most were a little blurry. I think I needed a much faster lens to really get crisp shots. I was happy with what I got. I think I did better than most of the others.Because it had taken so long to find them, we couldn’t stay with the dolphins for very long. We had a long ride back to the dock. It seemed even longer to me as I held my cap over my face most of the way back. I did get some good pictures of the island’s mountain profile from the water. It’s much more dramatic from a distance and over water. We finally reached the dock and I ducked under a palm to wait for the next tender. It couldn’t get there fast enough. Back to the cabin for some cream! Hard to believe that I’ve spent two months in the sun and I was going to get sun poisoning on the last day. To use Phil Mickelson’s words, I am such an idiot!
We sail for Papeete at five!
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