Ferry
We could have flown from Tahiti to Bora Bora, but this trip already involves over a dozen flights.
The only alternative is the ferry. And, there’s only one ferry. The schedule is complicated and varies depending on the season. It stops at several islands along the way. We picked Taha’a as our stop, making a total of three French Polynesian islands.
The only departure from Tahiti was at 7 a.m., so we scheduled a taxi to pick us up at 6 a.m.
We left our two large suitcases at the resort to pick up on our return, taking the remaining four smaller suitcases.
We waited for our taxi. And waited. And waited. We had the hotel front desk call our taxi. No answer. They called a cab from the airport, which arrived a few minutes later. Fortunately, we arrived at the Pape’ete Ferry Terminal in plenty of time to board our ferry. Had we missed it, we would have been stranded until the next ferry two days later!
After 6 hours, we arrived at the Taha’a terminal in the pouring rain. Our introduction to Taha’a was rain, heat, humidity, and mud!
I found a relatively dry location for Alice and our luggage while I ventured out in the rain to find the car I had arranged to pick us up. After checking out each car in the parking lot, I gave up and went into the shelter where I had left Alice.
I found someone from the ferry company’s luggage department who spoke a little English. She called our pension (French for guest house). A few moments later, our driver came into the shelter. He had been waiting for us. But he was in an unlabeled pickup truck, not a car, so I hadn’t seen him. He said he had planned to put our luggage in the bed of the pickup truck, but in the rain, that wasn’t an option. So we piled into the pickup truck with our luggage in our laps. Alice was a good sport about the adventure!
Our bungalow
When we arrived in the pouring rain, everything was mud. The photo above was taken the next day, when it looked much nicer!
I had booked a “One-Bedroom Bungalow.” It had a small bedroom, bathroom, and tiny kitchen, so I guess it qualified as such. There were no fans anywhere in the bungalow. I didn’t realize at first that the air conditioning was set to “dry,” not “cool.” Once we fixed that, it became a little more livable inside. It was still sweltering outside.
Breakfast and dinner were served family-style at a long wooden table. This provided us the opportunity to chat with the other guests at the pension in French and in English. We met a couple from Normandy, France, on their honeymoon. Another guest was an archaeologist from California; his wife was from Quebec. The “restaurant” was outside. It had a roof but no walls. In the evening, a live band played.
From my research, I knew there was absolutely nothing within walking distance of the pension. Taha’a is a small island with few residents. Knowing that we wouldn’t be able to get to a grocery store, we bought some staple items before we left Florida, and bought some fresh food on our grocery store run in Tahiti. This enabled us to make lunch daily and eat it on our porch.
One morning, we went for a walk along the road in cooler but still hot air. It looked and felt like a tropical jungle. We didn’t see anyone except a few cars and motorcycles.
They had a private dock, where I did some snorkeling while Alice sunbathed on the small beach.
When we left, they gave each of us a bead necklace, explaining that they would have given them to us when we arrived if it hadn’t been raining so hard.
We saw lots of tupa crabs. Fortunately, the tuba crabs never caused us any trouble; we just shooed the crabs off our porch. The dogs barked but never came onto the pension property.