Our trip to paradise began with a hop from DFW to LAX where we met up with our friends from Houston. The Air Tahiti Nui flight from LAX to Papeete was inbound from Paris where it had been delayed due to the Icelandic volcano. The extra four hour wait wasn’t as bad as the shortened night’s rest when we arrived at Papeete – a 1:30 am arrival with our next flight to Raiatea departing at 7:20 am. But a couple of hours sleep after a shower definitely recharges the body!

We were apprehensive about the weight of all our baggage for the Air Tahiti interisland flight – their website says 44lbs/person with an extra 11 pounds allowed if you can prove you’re a diver. We had closer to 100 lbs. each. But as we experienced 5 years earlier, it was not a problem. Our friends had to pay an extra $30 since one bag was over 25 kilos – all of our bags were 50 lbs or under.

We got to the Moorings just after 9 am and had our bags aboard our 40 ft. Catamaran swiftly and had our chart briefing done by 11 am – just needed our provisions and we were off! But provisions were seriously delayed – worst provisioning experience from the Moorings in all the times we chartered with them. We were 3.5 hours delayed and were frustrated – grrrrrr. Could the volcano be affecting provisioning in Tahiti ?
We were finally off to our first nights destination close to 4 pm.

Jeff-iti, the tahitian nickname of our our friend from Houston made pina coladas for the fine women we had on this cruise and we then deployed our new hand line we had acquired to start the hunt for fish! We decided on an anchorage at 16’36.61 S / 15xxxx. Beautiful view of Tahaa and we could hear the waves crashing on the reef 300 yards away. Dinner of fresh tuna (provided by the Moorings, not our hand line – yet!) and we were off to the trampoline up front for the star show – remarkably clear night.

Tomorrow we are off to Huahine – we are sailing again in paradise!

Background

Marriage is a wonderful thing! Five years ago we got married on a motu in Tahiti while sailing around on a sailboat with friends. It was a very beautiful ceremony arranged by the Le Taha'a Resort & Spa where we would stay for a number of days at the end of the sailing trip.

The day of our wedding, we called the resort on our VHF from the northern area of Taha'a as we were making our way to them - the main reason for our call was that our kiwi friend that was with us on the trip had skillfully managed to hook his ear with a fishing lure while casting for fish for breakfast. I'm quite sure that none of us would have had fish for breakfast had he actually been able to catch something - but since he had this hook impaled in his ear, we needed to take some corrective action.

I don't like injuries and blood - I get very squeamish at the sight. Nevertheless, we all attempted to maneuver the hook out of his earlobe without causing major damage and decided we weren't qualified in the least. So, off we went to the Le Taha'a Resort where we needed to be later in the day anyway to see if they could help.

As it turned out, a doctor was visiting the resort for routine checkups and was supposed to depart by boat that morning. The resort (they are a five star resort in every way!) said they would hold the doctor until we got there so he could assess what steps to do to free the new earing that our kiwi friend had acquired.

An hour or so later, we arrived at the pier of the resort and the french doctor took the kiwi off to work on his ear and we decided to start on the wedding logistics. They staff had arranged for us to use one of those bungalows that are over the water as our staging area and it would be available around midday since our wedding was slated for roughly 5 pm. We elected to wait at the pool bar consuming some great drinks!

Soon our kiwi friend showed up with his newly bandaged ear - he was ready for a drink! The french doctor patched him up very rapidly and the kiwi was in great spirits. After enough sterilizing pina coladas to be sure he had the right blood alcohol level to ward off infection, it was time to actually get ready for the ceremony. The first order of preparation was to get massages - deluxe!

Totally relaxed, we changed into our wedding attire and awaited the signal that it was time to start. The signal was two canoes paddling to our bungalow to pick us up! After a short row to the tiny motu that was park of the larger Motu Tau Tau, we disembarked to the sound of live tahitian music and a path of flowers to the tahitian priestess that would conduct the ceremony. How much more romantic could we get - married on the beach with the mountains of Bora Bora in the background with beautiful tahitian music and even a little flower girl. After the exchange of vows and proclomation of our union, we were handed a traditional tahitian wedding concoction in a coconut...we were drunk from all the romance of the event to start with and boy, did this concoction add the power of an alcohol buzz as well. It was a wonderful elixir that disappeared rapidly along with the fruit spread delivered in front of us.

Photos were snapped in all possible spots to document the beauty of the event and then we were escorted to a single canoe for the trip back to the bungalow. As soon as our paddling tahitian muscleman was out of sight of the wedding party, he suddenly stopped paddling and jumped out to push the canoe (the water was only waist deep) saying that it was much, much easier to walk us the final one-third of the way than paddle.

After champagne in the bungalow with another wonderful spread of finger foods, we got ready for dinner which was five star! At the end of the dinner, we agreed that five years hence, we would return to this paradise to celebrate our 5th anniversary! After the perfect wedding and a great meal with friends, it was time to head back to our sailboat and continue our voyage.

So now we begin the 5th anniversary cruise!