#11 - Papeete, Tahiti

Our next port was Papeete in Tahiti.  Bora Bora and Morea are more scenic than the island of Tahiti.  But Tahiti is no slouch.  Beautiful jagged mountains and blue green waters, no matter where you look.  I wish I could post some pictures.  But the band width on our ship for Internet is limited and even if I were successful, it would take a couple of hours to upload just one picture.  So will try to post pictures when we get to New Zealand.

So how were these islands in French Polynesia formed, you may ask?  (Even if you didn’t ask, sit tight, cause here comes a little geography lesson).

All the islands are basically of volcanic origin.  And they are sprinkled over 2 million square miles of ocean in the eastern South Pacific.  They were formed millions of years ago when volcanoes erupted from a rising column of magma in the asthenosphere called a hot spot.  (Not to be confused with a blog spot or an age spot.  Just threw that in there to see if you read my first blog.)

The earth’s crust is divided into a dozen plates resting on a flexible magma known as the asthenosphere.  Magma escapes from accretion zones along dorsals formed on these plates and disappears within subduction zone troughs back into the magma.  (Are you paying attention?  There’s a quiz at the end.)

The hot spot remains stationary even though the Pacific lithospheric plate moves 7 to 10 centimeters a year in a westward direction.  The volcano becomes extinct when the magma is no longer expelled through the vent.  The lava on top collapses, forming a huge caldera basin, which eventually erodes and forms valleys.  

As the island sinks slowly into the ocean, coral begins to grow on the underwater sides of the island. Many tourists come to snorkel in these waters and sit on the beaches.  The weight of these tourists results in the islands sinking even faster into the ocean.  (Okay, that last part was me taking some editorial license.)

So, in a nutshell, the islands are moving and sinking.  Really.  So if you want to visit Bora Bora or Tahiti you’d better get here within the next couple million years.  

End of lesson.  No quiz.

Our cruise is actually two cruises back to back and today was the end of the first segment from LA to Tahiti. About half of the passengers disembarked and their places were filled by that many new faces for the second segment from here to Auckland.

It was sad to see the “Fun Sisters”, Rebecca and Fran, leave the ship. We’ve had such a great time with them.  But they’ve invited us to come visit them in Ohio in the dead of the winter, when they need help shoveling snow.  And they promised to decant a wine with a screw top or open a box of wine when we get there.  We, of course, reciprocated with an offer to come visit us in Florida in the heat of the summer so they can experience our welcoming humidity and find out what it feels like to step out of a shower only to realize that they need another one.