Raiatea-the beauty continues!

 I woke up kind of late this morning about 8 AM. My excursion wasn’t until 1030. I made my way up to the restaurant for breakfast. The people serving us there remembered exactly what I had yesterday and wondered if I wanted it again today. Wow!

This early in the cruise all the staff seems to know your name even though we mask and only take them off to eat.

I got my gear ready for snorkeling. Today’s tour was called a visit to a pearl farm that sits over the water amid a coral reef!

We got a demonstration on how they prepare the oysters for harvest.  If the shell has lovely colored nachre forming, they graft it inside a new pearl. They use surgical instruments to do this it’s very precise.

We also found out that many of the oysters they pull from the water already have formed a pearl. The first picture above shows two of the pearls he extracted from the oyster once he extracted them he put graft of a shell found in the Mississippi River to start the process again.

The pearls hang in special nets that are under the surface and they each have their own little pocket for each oyster that’s to protect them from turtles and other animals that might eat them.

Freshly harvested pearls!!

I have some other pictures I took with my underwater camera. I’ll have to add them to the post when I get home!

It is really hot and humid here.  That sun burns you pretty fast.  I am using SPF 50 and reapplying and still got burned a little bit today.  

Back on the ship, I changed and went to the BBQ area of the ship for lunch. It was so good— I only had one small piece of chicken with this amazing sauce on the side, I definitely wanted more but I’m trying to stay hungry for the deck party which I’ve heard is fabulous!

My lunch:

After that lunch, I had my first Margarita of the trip.  Despite getting brain freeze a couple of times I would highly recommend this!

Then I was off to sit in a shaded area on the deck and look out at the beautiful water and feel the warm tropical breeze I really feel like I’m in heaven!

Ok  we had the deck barbecue.  Wow! That was fun and of course the food was excellent!

My dinner: shrimp, grilled fish, ribs, pork, grilled chicken 🍗 

Seafood paella, all enhanced with that beautiful moon!!

Oh, forgot about the jalapeño bread!!!!

We are anchored again tonight.  I’m sleeping with the balcony doors open!! The sound of the sea will be rocking me to sleep!