June 1, 2007
We arrived in Moorea today a few hours before lunch time. The fifteen minute flight seemed like nothing compared to the 14 hours we spent in air the day before (although no one was complaining about the Air Tahiti Nui flight which gave us free movies, drinks, games, and good food!). We unpacked and set up our mosquito nets, which we will definitely need. We have already spotted more spiders than can be counted in the girls’ room, which is like a walk in closet with ten beds. Also, all of our rooms have multiple geckos in them. After unpacking and lunch, we headed out to the public beach for the first snorkel. Dr. Londraville taught us the basics of snorkeling and then sent us out to the reef on our own. We saw many organisms including sea cucumbers, star fishes, damsel fishes, butterfly fishes, and clown fish (anemone fishes that are only found in this part of the world). After snorkeling here we jumped in the back of the pick up truck and traveled to the next snorkel location, White House. This beach contained coral that ranged from very shallow (we had to worry about our stomachs scraping the coral) to over 30 feet deep. Here we saw some exciting species including an eel, trumpet fish, mudskippers, and even a reef shark! Sarah and Brittany’s first instinct when seeing the shark was to swim to shore, but they ended up looking for more! Laura picked up a pretty shell here and it turned out to be a poisonous cone snail! Luckily she was not stung. We had a few mishaps: Shawna broke her mask already (it has a hole in it!), Sarah impaled herself with her bug wipe repellent container, and we had a few bumps and bruises from the reef. We finished off the day with a gecko hunt. We not only found geckos, but we also spotted HUGE spiders (wolf spiders), an 8 inch centipede, giant land crabs, and one skink (not to mention, five thousand cockroaches, none bigger than the one found in the girls’ room). During the hike, the criobe (research center) dog had a dual with a land crab. So far, Tahiti has been a blast, and we are looking forward to tomorrow’s adventures!
We arrived in Moorea today a few hours before lunch time. The fifteen minute flight seemed like nothing compared to the 14 hours we spent in air the day before (although no one was complaining about the Air Tahiti Nui flight which gave us free movies, drinks, games, and good food!). We unpacked and set up our mosquito nets, which we will definitely need. We have already spotted more spiders than can be counted in the girls’ room, which is like a walk in closet with ten beds. Also, all of our rooms have multiple geckos in them. After unpacking and lunch, we headed out to the public beach for the first snorkel. Dr. Londraville taught us the basics of snorkeling and then sent us out to the reef on our own. We saw many organisms including sea cucumbers, star fishes, damsel fishes, butterfly fishes, and clown fish (anemone fishes that are only found in this part of the world). After snorkeling here we jumped in the back of the pick up truck and traveled to the next snorkel location, White House. This beach contained coral that ranged from very shallow (we had to worry about our stomachs scraping the coral) to over 30 feet deep. Here we saw some exciting species including an eel, trumpet fish, mudskippers, and even a reef shark! Sarah and Brittany’s first instinct when seeing the shark was to swim to shore, but they ended up looking for more! Laura picked up a pretty shell here and it turned out to be a poisonous cone snail! Luckily she was not stung. We had a few mishaps: Shawna broke her mask already (it has a hole in it!), Sarah impaled herself with her bug wipe repellent container, and we had a few bumps and bruises from the reef. We finished off the day with a gecko hunt. We not only found geckos, but we also spotted HUGE spiders (wolf spiders), an 8 inch centipede, giant land crabs, and one skink (not to mention, five thousand cockroaches, none bigger than the one found in the girls’ room). During the hike, the criobe (research center) dog had a dual with a land crab. So far, Tahiti has been a blast, and we are looking forward to tomorrow’s adventures!
