Papeete - Tahiti

Papeete – Tahiti

Another two days at sea and we docked at Papeete, French Polynesia’s capital city in Tahiti in the Society Islands.

It is a spectacular sight coming into the harbour with steep rugged peaks rising up into the sky shrouded in early mist. Unfortunately the sun wasn’t high enough to burn off the lingering cloud from the previous days rain but as it got later and hotter during the day it certainly improved and showed itself to be the beautiful backdrop that Tahiti is known for.

Population just over 26,000            and both Tahitian and French is spoken, French appeared to be the primary language.

It was at Point Venus not far from the city where James Cook’s astronomer tracked the transit of Venus across the sun and is now a notable historical site and hence the name.

Nancy and I wandered ashore at a respectable time greeted by tropical sounds and sights as islanders in traditional dress sang and danced welcomes to us all. Strolling into a busy Saturday morning city (town) there seemed to be small groups everywhere of islanders playing instruments and singing typical Polynesian songs, as with most South Pacific Islands and NZ, guitars and ukuleles and variations of ukuleles seem to be the most prominent instruments.

We found a general market place and wandered around the stalls checking out fruit and general touristy items, all too expensive for our liking. At one end of the market place was a fish market where every type of tropical fish imaginable was on display for sale including local crayfish and an obviously high Tuna presence. I had local coffee that was mild but nice and reasonably priced and Nancy found a French pastry !!!

Papeete is a busy port city, streets are fairly narrow and the traffic is crazy they drive on the right (most of the time) but they did respect traffic lights and pedestrian crossings.

A lot of the buildings still have that early colonial look about them and even though it is a reasonably busy little city it had a very laid back feel about it.

Black pearls seem to be all the rage in these islands and every second establishment seemed to be selling jewellery notably black pearls. We didn’t see any real bargains but we did hear of someone who purchased “Genuine” Niki runners at a very good discount, wore them once on the boat and the side collapsed on one of the shoes.

 Along one wall of the market place were tables where ladies were weaving beautiful flowers into garlands and the smell was incredible.

On the opposite side of the wharf where we were berthed lay a huge luxury yacht as in sailing yacht. It was at least half the length of Sea Princess, the mast was that high it had a red light on top to warn low flying aircraft and it even had a small sea plane secured to the back deck. Absolutely immaculate, shiny new stainless everywhere and bright white shiny hull, it could quite easily have been brand new. Rumour has it is owned by a crowd called Spitfire Investments??