Photo challenge #0 and #1

Right when we left SF we asked on Facebook if you had ideas of stuff you wanted us to do while traveling, that we should do and take pictures of.

The very first one came from our friend Jacob. This one is actually not even part of the challenge since he made Denise promise him to take the photo, even before we asked everybody else.

The story is simple. He really insisted for her to take his frisbee with us on our trip so that she could play some while in Tahiti. Needless to say, we don't have that much extra space in our luggage, so after much arguing he made her promise she would find one in Tahiti and take a photo to prove she'd done it.
The photo is right here. And you were right Jacob, she's actually pretty good at it.

This is right in front of our pensioin on Mataiva

Moorea, French Polynesia. No need to look further, it's in your backyard!

We really love our waterproof camera!

After spending some time on an Island of 200 people (see Vince's previous blog post),  we flew back to mainland Tahiti, jumped on the bus in stifling heat to city center in Papete, then took the ferry to Moorea, about 30-40 minutes.  It felt very populated comparitively... The island is bigger than the atoll we were on, but none of the islands there are really very big.  We then arrived at a resort that vaguely reminded me of the Four Seasons, in Hawaii, where we stayed for our honeymoon.  Vince had rented a lovely bungalow, as my belated Valentines day gift, just off the beach with an excellent pool, snorkeling gear, and the requisite terrible resort food.

The little paradise of Mataiva

I call it little because Mataiva is an atoll in French Polynesia, near Tahiti. It means that it's not even an island as it is a ring of sand with coconut trees everywhere and a blue lagoon in the middle. It's a whole 22km round... yeah... little.

Sand, coconut trees, and lagoon

We went there after spending a day in Papeete to wait for the twice-a-week flight that goes to Mataiva. (There are only 200 people living there so they don't really need more than that). That day gave us time to adjust to the time difference. Not that we really had to though. It's only 2 hours of difference from San Francisco but the fact that they get up at 5am there (the market of Papeete even starts at 3am on sundays) makes it that we pretty much kept the same schedule as in SF. Pretty convenient!