Fakarava, Taha'a and Mo'orea

Fakarava is another atoll where we spent a lovely day at the beach. Fakarava is classified as an UNESCO biosphere reserve. My Rare One went snorkeling and saw a shark. Luckily, it was not in the mood for trouble.

The island of Taha'a is called "the vanilla island" and produces 80% of French Polynesia's vanilla crop. So of course we visited a vanilla farm to learn how it is grown. The woman in the red tank top is the very entrepreneurial farmer who gave us a funny and informative tour. Those are vanilla beans on the drying rack. Growing vanilla is incredibly labour intensive. The vanilla flowers must all be fertilized by hand with a Q-tip in the early morning hours. While drying, the vanilla beans require repeated individual massaging by hand to release the full flavour within.

The final island we visited was Mo'orea, possibly the most spectacularly beautiful of all. It is also more urban than the others and in that regard is similar to Tahiti which is only a few miles away. Look at that gorgeous water and reef!

Another harbour and valley on the island of Mo'orea:

You can see Mo'orea's typical volcanic mountains in this photo taken from a catamaran as we sailed out to a reef to snorkel.

French Polynesia is an ideal place for a quiet vacation of sun, sand, snorkeling, swimming and relaxing. I suspect Hawai'i was very much like this in the 1950s before it became more touristy and commercialized.

[Photos by Debra She Who Seeks, 2014]

Tahiti, Huahine, Bora Bora and Rangiroa

Tahiti is the largest and most urban of the French Polynesian islands. This photo was taken at our resort hotel in Papeete, the capital city. We took a bus tour around the island before boarding our cruise ship, the Paul Gauguin.

On the island of Huahine, there are several sacred sites of ancient Polynesian temples called marae. Standing stones were placed upright on the shore, looking out to sea. Historically, most marae were destroyed under the influence of Christian missionaries. The remaining few are now starting to be restored.

This photo of the Paul Gaguin was also taken in Huahine.

It rained cats and dogs in Bora Bora. But on the second day, it cleared up somewhat so we were able to do an island tour by "Le Truck," the local tourist bus line. Bora Bora is a beautiful place and features the craggy volcanic mountains common to most of French Polynesia.

Rangiroa is technically an atoll rather than an island per se. We wandered through a small village, down to the spectacular shore line. Look at the three different shades of blue in that water!

Tomorrow -- Selected photos of the other three islands we visited.

[All photos by Debra She Who Seeks, 2014]

Don't Hate Me

Hi everyone! My Rare One and I are now back from a cruise in Tahiti and French Polynesia. That's right -- we ditched wintery Canada for sunny paradise!

And no sunburn to report! Although we did both catch bad colds -- a hazard of constantly moving between the tropical heat outdoors and air conditioning indoors, as well as living in the germ stew of a cruise ship. Oh well, at least it wasn't the norovirus, LOL!

I'm also happy to report that the captain was a sober and responsible Serbian seaman who didn't pull a Costa Concordia on us. But as a precaution anyway when booking, we had upgraded to a stateroom with a balcony so that, if worse came to worst, we could always jump off the ship. Now that's just good prairie girl practicality.

Tomorrow and Friday I'll post a few photos of the various islands that we visited.

Short Hiatus

See you in April! Be good and behave yourselves, eh?

In the Confessional

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been *mumble* years since my last confession. Through my own weakness, I have committed a mortal blogging sin, the circumstances of which are as follows.

A couple of weeks ago, Leeanna of Can We Have a New Witch, Ours Melted surprised and delighted me with both an ABC Award and a Sunshine Blogger Award! And then Kestril Trueseeker of Kestril's Rhythms and Groove honoured me with a Sunshine Blogger Award too!

As a recipient, I was supposed to come up with 11 facts about myself plus do an A-B-C meme that looked like a lot of fun. And then, of course, pass on the awards to other people.

Yes, Father, I promised the girls that I'd do so. Yes, I faithfully promised them. But I've been so christly busy -- oh sorry, Father, just add it to my list of sins -- that I haven't had time to do it and now I've run out of time and . . . and . . . *sobbing loudly* I won't be able to do it after all! And I feel soooooooooo guilty! I can't eat. I can't sleep. My hair is falling out from the stress of it all. Please, Father, give me absolution so that I can move forward from this transgression and live a productive life again!

✞      ✞      ✞      ✞      ✞      ✞      ✞      ✞      ✞      ✞      ✞      ✞

So whaddya say, Blogosphere? Would you forgive this miserable sinner? What penance should the wretch do?

Truck Nuts

Truck nuts are popular in Alberta. You can hardly drive down the street without seeing some half-ton sporting a pair. Personally, I think they're hilarious. My Rare One does not think they're funny. They really piss her off. We all have our pet peeves, I guess. What's yours?

Yay, It's Oscar Night!

Don't you just LOVE the Oscars? I do. I've watched them every year since I was a kid. Here are my fearless predictions for the top categories to be awarded this evening:

Best Supporting Actor: Barkhad Abdi, "Captain Phillips." Just because he ad-libbed the best, most chilling line in the entire movie: "I am the captain now."

Best Supporting Actress: Lupito Nyong'o, "12 Years a Slave." She is amazing in that most distressing of all movies.

Best Actor: This is a toughie but I'm going with Matthew McConaughey, "Dallas Buyers Club." Hollywood loves anyone who gets skinny for a role.

Best Actress: Everyone says this is Amy Adams' year to finally win an Oscar. She's not a particular fave of mine and I thought her part in "American Hustle" largely involved just showing a lot of cleavage but okay, I'll go along with majority opinion here.

Best Picture: "12 Years a Slave," if there's any justice in this world.

Best Director: Steve McQueen, "12 Years a Slave." That agonizingly long-held shot of the tippytoes hanging/strangulation scene was brilliant direction of unspeakable horror. Appalling and haunting, all at the same time.

So we'll see tonight how right or wrong I turn out to be! But there's no contest about the next award. The Oscar for Sexiest Butch in a Tux goes to . . . .