It’s the wet season in French Polynesia and storms, even cyclones are not uncommon. A day earlier they had experienced damagingly high winds and very heavy rain but, fortunately for us, the weather had improved.
People wear a flower behind one ear to signal that they are married or engaged and the other that they are available. I didn’t get any offers so I must have chosen the wrong ear.
Some beaches have black sand and some have white sand. The black ones are the result of volcanic ash being washed ashore. The white ones only occur where there is a reef as the sand is actually coral that has been digested by parrot fish.
There were several men enjoying the ocean swell, but with variable surfing abilities.
Chickens roam wild everywhere, in Tahiti and other Polynesian islands.
Tahiti features in the Mutiny on the Bounty story as Captain Bligh’s mission was to collect breadfruit plants that grow there. Also, the Polynesian women that settled on Pitcairn island with the mutineers were from Tahiti.
Moray eels, like salmon in Scotland, swim up the rivers in Tahiti to spawn.
Tahiti was very pleasant, but perhaps a little too commercial and overcrowded for my liking. Maybe ‘Bora Bora’, our next destination, would be better (and it was!)
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