---

We arrived today at the Tahiti Intercontinental where we spend our final night. We have late checkout tomorrow because our flight doesn’t leave until 11:30 pm.

We have booked a 4 hour circle island tour of Tahiti Island to see the waterfalls, a mountain viewpoint and a blow hole and Paul Gauguin museum. This will give us a quick overview of our short stay on this large island. We went into town of Papeete today to do some shopping and we saw the Paul Gauguin cruise ship in port.

We’re likely to be ordering room service tonight as Mom is tired and we will just spend the afternoon tomorrow after the morning tour by the pool or beach. I’ll be doing my final try at snorkeling in their very nice fish filled lagoonarium.

The digital camera is still not working and have tried everything that you have suggested but nothing works. I have gone through the 2 underwater cameras already that we brought with us and 2 more disposable cameras that I bought at the hotel. I’m on my 3rd one which I’ll finish tomorrow. At $25 each it’s not cheap but what can I do?

We’ll see you at the airport on Monday afternoon.

Barb

The island of Moorea is very lush and has the Bali Hai mountains (from the movie South Pacific) and the lagoon waters are nice with lots of coral so this attracts many fish. In Bora Bora, the lagoon waters were crystal clear with many shades of turquoise, green and blue but not much coral so not as many fish swim by.

We did a sting ray and shark viewing tour while in Bora Bora which was nice but Mom will not snorkel. She doesn’t like how the mask grabs her hair so tight and she’s afraid of putting her head in the water and breathing through the snorkel tube. But I’m enjoying the snorkeling but only doing it for less than a half hour each day.

I will try for Internet access one more time before returning home however Internet access costs $5 for 15 minutes here.

Oh by the way, my digital camera died yesterday. The on button doesn’t let the lens open and I’ve tried various batteries and no go. Had to buy 2 disposable cameras today so I could take pics of the dolphins & whales.

Got to go.

Barb

I’m not exactly sure if Barb will be sending me any updates on their trip as all of that stuff has always been something that I have taken care of so I may be lucky to get one or two emails from her while she’s gone. Last night I spent a few minutes showing her how to upload pictures from her camera so that she can email them to me and while I was explaining this she was furiously writing down notes. Hopefully she’s able to get everything to work.

Watching Barb go through the familiar steps of packing up her suitcase yesterday was a bit unsettling knowing that I was not going and would be home by myself for the next few weeks. Barb and I have talked about this subject several times over the past few days as her departure date approached and we’ve both agreed that it’s just not the same going on separate vacations. I think that part of the fun of travelling is the mutual excitement that we both feel while going through our regular routine of preparing for a vacation. I’m not just talking about packing up our suitcases but the months of planning and researching and just generally thinking about an upcoming trip.

We have our plans mapped out for our major trips for the next two years and we definitely don’t have any thoughts about taking separate vacations for any time soon. Nonetheless, I hope that Barb and Ruth have a great time on their own Adventure and that I can update all of you on their progress.

Baden