Tahiti Weeks 3 & 4

Our time in Tahiti has been superb. These last two weeks had the incredible experiences of the interior safari crater tour, Teahupoo pipeline waves experience, and the Moorea by boat tour that are captured in individual posts. But, even better was doing the daily things together that we love. Below are some of the great, and not so great, memories from our final weeks on the island.

Family playtime at the beach and pool each morning and afternoon. Nora has been converted to a pool lover! Now that she can put her face in the water all she wants to do is practice in the pool. Scarlett, on the other hand, loves the beach. She is happiest swimming in the ocean directly where the waves break. Both of their swimming abilities (and confidence!) in the water have improved dramatically this month. Hazel loves swimming in the pool and eating the sand, so she is happy in either place.

Date Afternoons with Whitney. We found a wonderful babysitter (Tracy) who came over to watch the girls for two hours each week. Whitney and I would go to the beach bar of the adjoining resort, order a drink and some fries and get some trip planning done or just talk. This corrected a mistake we made in Costa Rica where we didn’t get this time together each week and sorely missed it. Date afternoons are something we have done for several years and it was phenomenal to get this time back into our week. Perfect chance to relax together and talk.

BBQ with Tracy’s family (babysitter) and a local football game. Another (unexpected) upside of getting some babysitting time in was that Tracy invited us over for a BBQ with her family. It was an amazing afternoon visiting with a local family and letting the kids all run around and play together. After lunch we accompanied Tracy, her husband, sister and 2 little kids to a local football (soccer) game. This is a day none of us will forget and will likely be remembered as one of the most wonderful days of this experience.

Surf lessons with Scarlett. We had 5 lessons during our time here, I did the first one with her and the rest she did on her own. Three were with local kids and one was a private lesson. I was in the water “helping” the kids get back past the break and Yoan (surf teacher) would stay behind the break giving the kids instructions and helping them pick up the next wave. I learned a lot from Yoan and it was a lot of fun helping the kids have a safe and fun surf lesson.

More Baguettes and Crepes. The almost daily trips to the Carrefour (in our suburb of Arue) grocery store were a blend of fun and epic meltdowns. We quickly learned that at least Nora, but sometimes Scarlett too, would meltdown every time we entered the store. Our pictures may be on a ‘do not admit’ board at at least one of the local Carrefours after a particularly spirited trip. We varied the time of day we would go to the grocery store, but to no avail. We instead for these last two weeks went with the “parent of the year” almost full proof solution… we sat the kids in the grocery cart, put our iPhones on airplane mode and gave them each a phone. Done. We could enjoy the stroll around the grocery store, the other patrons could shop in peace and the girls were happy. Some days there was a Tahitian band playing so we could enjoy them for a few minutes on the way out. Gives you a sense of how good the baguettes and crepes are…

ANT INFESTATION! So, it turns out if you let yourself and your kids eat lots of snacks (i.e. baguettes) in the car in a tropical climate, it will attract ants. We got to the car one morning to find literally thousands of tiny ants crawling everywhere. We then got to go to the local car wash, remove EVERYTHING (think 3 carseats) from the car and get a good vacuuming done. I thought that cleared the way for eating in the car without ants. But Whitney felt differently, so no more snacking in the car was implemented and it delivered a few extra complaints from all team members over the last ten days!

Marquesas and Tahitian Dance Shows. The adjoining resort had a 30 minute dance performance starting at 7:30pm each Thursday and Friday night. The girls loved it! So we went to it five times. It was after bedtime so after 2 nights in a row it did make for a bit of a rough weekend of recovery. But worth it for the dancing and music.

Fern Grotto and Water Gardens. These were two lovely places south of Papeete. We explored each for ~30 minutes. A fun walk around exploring yet more amazing Tahiti nature.

Repeat snorkeling at Vaiava Beach. Nora even put her face in the water! She saw sand! It was a brilliant, sunny day so even more spectacular than last time. Whitney and Scarlett literally snorkeled in the coral reef a few meters off this beach.

Arahoho Blowhole and Waterfalls. Another two gems of Tahiti. There is a very old lava tube that formed in the rock cliffs just a short ways from where we were staying. When the Pacific ocean collides with the rocks it creates a blowhole that shoots water back out into the ocean and air out the other end. It was really fun. Plus it was the perfect whale watching point! We were lucky enough to see a whale in the few minutes we were there. About half a mile down the road from the blowhole were three spectacular waterfalls. There was a lovely 100 meter walk along a well maintained path to get to the biggest of the falls. It was awesome.

Ruolottes (food trucks). On our second last night we went to downtown Papeete where every night from about 6:30pm until late you can sit in the marina front park and eat from any of a dozen or so food trucks. The setting is awesome. You are surrounded by Papeete downtown, the Tahitian mountains behind you and the marina with the sunsetting behind the island of Moorea in front. The food was great! It was a difficult choice, but we went with Thai street food. Hazel had a HUGE blowout before we could go get the Nutella banana crepe Whitney had her eyes on, but a great night nonetheless.

Tomb of Pomare V - On our very last day we visited the tomb of Pomare V, the last ‘king’ of Polynesia. Apparently the tomb was built for his mother and prior monarch, Queen Pomare IV. However, after her death and burial he had her body removed from the tomb and claimed it for himself. Hopefully the girls don’t follow that practice one day…!

Below are some pictures from the past two weeks. Our month in Tahiti has been amazing. Next stop Sydney!