Cooks Bay Moorea

Cooks Bay

After eleven days at the Tahiti Yacht Club, and lots of fun with Apple and Zen, we motored in 3 knots of wind to the nearby island Moorea. It took all of four hours to arrive in Cooks Bay, named after the famed British explorer. Quite a few of our friends, who we had not seen in a while were anchored in beautiful Cooks Bay. The night that we arrived there was a Tahitian dance performance by a local group. At the end of the performance they invited the audience to dance with them. Who should they pick but Ewout, who does not like to dance at all... but he could not refuse this lovely lady in her grass skirt.

Why did she ask me?

A couple of days later Jet and Judith went pareo making with a couple of other women. Pareos are printed pieces of cloth that you wrap around yourself. We made a big turquoise pareo with lots of dolphins on it. Jet thinks it is too nice to wear and she wants to hang it in her room as a memory of our trip when we live in a house again.

Pareo Making

Mike from Apple rented a car and drove us around Moorea. We went snorkeling near a beautiful beach. Afterwards we visited a French patisserie, where we had chocolate mousse cake and cappuchino. We felt so sophisticated/normal to be driving in a car and drinking coffees again.

Juice (?) Tasting

One day we visited the juice factory on the island with our friends from Love Song. They grow a lot of pineapples on Moorea and make lovely juices. You can taste all the juices you like even the alcoholic ones at 10 in the morning. After lunch Hein Jet and Ewout went to a Berkeley research lab, where they helped lure mosquitoes for a genetic test.

Hein helps Berkeley grad student lure mosquitoes

Another day we did a hike to a belvedere point overlooking Cooks Bay and Opunohu Bay (which is the next bay over). On the hike you pass a lot of Marae, which were sacred offering places, where the Polynesians used to offer humans (brrr) to their gods. After the hike we could feel our leg muscles for the next two days!!

The Soccer Field

As we always feel that we need more exercise, being on a boat, we started to play pick-up games of soccer in the afternoons. Mike and Veronica from Apple would play with us and also Aedgard from Lariekoek, who is a really good goalie. We played on the shore at the lawn of the Bali Hai hotel.

Eltjo trying to stare down Veronica from Apple

Every day a couple more boats would join us. One day a Dutch boat came in 'Senang' with two boys, Luc (10) and Bob (9) and they all played with us. They were all quite good, especially the Mom, Vara, who had never played soccer before! Then the Whisper crew joined (Mary, Scott, Timothy (10) and Finn (7) and some of the hotel guests. We had a really good time.

Les Grands Ballets de Tahiti

On the French mother's day (June 7th), which is different from the American one (yes I celebrated twice!), Les Grands Ballets de Tahiti performed at the Bali Hai hotel. They had the most amazing costumes and especially the men were such energetic dancers, great to watch ;).
The local museum was another little treasure. We learned how to drill with a shell-wood-coconut drill and how to play a nose flute.

The Nose Flute

It was difficult to tear ourselves away from Cooks Bay. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves here and started to understand why the mutineers on the Bounty had rebelled after leaving the Society Islands. But leave we must and after three wonderful weeks we left Cooks Bay early one morning to swim with the Sting Rays in the next bay.

Eltjo gathers courage to swim with the sting rays

That night we did an overnight sail to Huahine, the first of the leeward group of the Society Islands. We had two passengers for the crossing: a French/Spanish couple called Stefan and Marta respectively. They were really nice and we enjoyed their company even though it was only for a day.

Bye Bye Cooks Bay!!