Tahiti is the largest of the 118 islands and atolls that comprise French Polynesia.  It is almost two islands.  The main island Tahiti-Nui (big Tahiti) is joined by a slender isthmus to Tahiti-Iti (little Tahiti.

We were welcomed by local ladies handing out flowers and on the way to the buses we passed a local band, playing traditional music, dressed in traditional style.  A nice touch we see quite often on the world cruise.  We were in port from 7 am until 6 pm and our round-island tour was 4 1/2 hours.  We drove south along the coast to Vaipahi Garden’s.  The Paul Gauguin Museum is located on the grounds but we did not tour it, nor see any of the artist’s famous paintings.  Vaipahi Garden is not very large, but then none of the islands themselves are large.
Viapahi has several species of rare trees and flowers on the grounds.

As usual when we tour a garden I take lots of photos of the flowers.  I often try to photograph name tags so I know what they are but there were none here and I was too lazy to look up the ones I didn’t know so I just didn’t name any of them.  The path was a loop trail that we were able to wander at our leisure.

 Grapefruit                                                         Next was a refreshment stop at a seaside restaurant that has its own fish farm so you can walk the pier and choose your dinner. We took a short side road to hike up to Viamahuta waterfall. We stopped at the Arahoho Blowhole but the wave action was not strong enough to make it blow.  We returned to the ship about 1, had a taco salad from the Lido Grill and then left the ship again to wander around town for awhile.  It was very hot and humid so we didn’t linger ashore very long before returning to our cabin to cool off before dinner and sail-away.

We sailed slowly overnight and anchored off Viatape, Bora Bora where we stayed for two days.  We loved, loved, loved Bora Bora.