August 29

Today we went whale watching. The person who took us out on our tour was Michael Poole, a marine biologist that worked here the same time as my mum--he owns a whale watching business. He leads tours three days of the week, and leaves the rest of the week free for his research. We went on a tour with about 20 other people, most Americans, two from France and most of them newlyweds. French Polynesia is a popular honeymoon destination. Most of them were wearing miniskirts and heels. We could only laugh at their folly—we would be going outside the reef. This means that there were meter high swells all the time and, since it is always windy here, the ocean was choppy on top of the swells. This was the second time I had experienced open ocean swells, the first time being in Fort Bragg. We don’t have swells in Vancouver because we are surrounded by islands. Here, there is just open ocean.

As we left the lagoon through a natural break in the reef, Michael explained how humpbacked whales stay close to the reef because the orcas, the Humpback’s predators, stay out in the open ocean. Michael explained how to look for the whales and we were off. We found three whales immediately. We saw them blow and dive, but we waited there in the hopes that they would come back up. The humpbacks did come up, but they started traveling, so we couldn’t go into the water and see them. However since they were traveling we got great views of their backs and blowholes.

Humans are like Piranhas. We travel in packs and are a danger to living things. There are rules for how close you can get to the whales and how many boats there can be, but not everyone one follows the regulations. At one point, there were five boats, and we were all in a semi circle around it. The last two boats broke the rules by being there. We left those whales because it was obvious some of us had to go, and the others weren’t going to be considerate.

This was the closest I had ever been to whales, especially humpbacks. At all times we could see them easily without binoculars. We got fantastic views of their footprint, the circular upwelling left by the whales under water, and…we could see their blow holes! Their blowholes are a flap of skin that opens to let their breath out. We could hear the noise their exhalations made. And they talked! When the came up to breath they made a deep, groaning rumbling noise! When the whales were just floating below the surface you could see them through the water. Once they swam underneath the boat and you could see them! They breached just off of our bow several times and slapped the water with their five meter long fins and tail. The Humpbacks head is so strange; it is all little bumps and nodules.

Whale watching here is different that doing it in Canada. Here, you can go in the water with the whales. We could only go in when the whales weren’t moving, so the opportunities were rare. At one point Michael called, “quick, to the back, get in the water”! I was the first one there and I was down in the water in a flash. I held on to the ladder, fearful to let go lest I be swept away. I lowered my snorkeled face in the water and—there were whales! Two of them, one suspended below me and one in front of me. They were gone for a second as the boat pulled my head above the water, but I thrust it back under again and there they were: the whales hung as if encased in blue jello. Another wave and they were gone, just the richest deepest blue left in their wake. Their undersides are white, fading into grey on the sides. If I where to hug them at their thinnest part, my arms wouldn’t have touched. I got the best view because I was the first in the water. Of the rest of my family, only Momma got to see them under water.

While I had a life changing experience, other people didn’t even notice that there were whales out there. They were too busy being sick. One guy kept his eyes closed the whole time and didn’t move, another person just barfed nonstop, that is, when he wasn’t in the water with the whales. Daddy threw up in between photographs. He got in the water, but the whales were gone and he didn’t get to see them.

Later the same day:

We, for once, did a typical tourist thing—but a really good one. Taufa and Romilda took us to Tiki Village, a little village built to look like a traditional native Tahitian one. They talk about traditional foods, show how they are made, and then serve you a dinner of those same foods. After dinner the dancers do a traditional dance.

As we were walking around the village I saw furniture through the window. I thought that maybe sometimes there were tours through the houses, there are, but later I also learned that the dancers live there. There are at least a hundred dancers, so it must get expensive to pay them. The proprietor’s way of working around that was to give the dancers a free place to live, so then he doesn’t need to pay them as much. During the day the do traditional Tahitian crafts, which are then sold.

The dancing was indescribable, but I will try anyway. The women do a kind of but wiggle, but somehow in their lower body, only their hips move, nothing else. They wave their arms about in time to the music, which is alternately very fast and slow. The men go into a half crouch and move their knees back and forth. It sounds silly here, but it was very amazing to watch. Also, it is very hard to do properly. Before the professionals started dancing, we, the audience, got to try the dance. The women moved too much of their upper body, and the men just fell over. It was the funniest thing I had seen for a very long time. The whole audience was doubled over with laughter.

There were also fire dancers. They had batons that were lit on both ends, and most people had two of the batons. They swirled the batons around so much they were an orange blur encasing the dancers body. You could see the heat distortion on their bodies. I don’t know how they stood being so close to the fire. Once, a dancer put the two lit ends of the baton on their feet. He did do this on purpose and afterward he had no burns. The same guy lay on the ground so that only his feet and head touched the ground. Then he passed the fire underneath his back so that the flames licked his back. The dancers made pyramids, all the while whirling their fire sticks.

It was an amazing evening all around. Except that I couldn’t try the dance: my skirt would have fallen off. I was wearing a Pareo, a cloth that you wrap around you and tie in various different ways. The style I was wearing my Pareo in was just wrapped around my waist like a skirt and tucked in. The fabric kept on un-tucking itself so I had to hold it together. If I had danced then it would have completely unraveled.