Enroute Moorea, Society Islands, French Polynesia
Our expectation on the quality of ferry service was not too high. So Papeete is the major commercial port for the region. Come on, the second largest commercial port in the region had guys on outboards bringing in fruit and a grand total of one cargo ship that goes about 8 knots best speed. So it can’t be that much more advanced right?
The distance between Tahiti and Moorea is not much more than a stone’s throw in island terms, a little over 10 miles to the rest of the world. Add in the docking, loading and unloading process and we figured it would take us about four hours to make the transit.
Our first hint that we had underestimated the situation was that the 5 passenger ferries that service this route (!!) are each bigger than the one resupply ship for the rest of this country…and not by a little bit.
Our second hint was the nicely upholstered airline style lounge area aboard with the flat screen TVs showing old black and white island TV.
But what really convinced us was when the 4 jet turbine engines kicked in (they have those here!?) and we hurtled across the channel between the two islands at about 25 knots!
This may not seem very fast to those of you living in the DSL wired, jet setting, car driving crowd but Continue reading “Blasting on to Moorea – we’re going plaid!”
