Quit Whining and Go Somewhere

The next day was our flight back to Rarotonga. We saw Theresa there again and her brother-in-law from Aitutaki was there too, a nice guy.

Then a weird thing happened.
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Today we got picked up from our hotel to go on the Kia Orana cruise. The captain was named “Captain Fantastic” and he was great. Our boat was small and only had 7 people. Most of the other cruise boats were pretty big and slow. Ours was fast! In our group was Dieter from Hamburg, a weirdo who spoke English but it never made any sense.

First our boat took us way out in the gorgeous blue crystal clear water to a shallow area to snorkel. We could actually jump right out into the sand and black and white fish swam right by us. We put on our gear and Jim helped me get in the water like always, but it wasn’t that hard this time since the water was warm and clear. I wasn’t as scared. And after about a minute, I didn’t need to hold onto him and I floated around on my own. It was one of those special moments from our trip–snorkeling on my own in that insanely clear and warm water. [sigh]

We swam (I float, I wear a lifejacket.) to big chunks of rock with coral. There weren’t that many fish but the water was SO CLEAR that it was like air. Like a swimming pool! We saw a strange fish orange/yellow fish with a long tail and a weird roundish-thing before the tail.

Me feeding fish!!
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The next day we went to this bar/restaurant on the beach called Samade. It was a very cool place with perfect island decor and everything is all on the beach in the sand. It was on the stunning ... [Continue reading this entry]

The next morning was the Saturday Market in Rarotonga. I was very excited. It turned out to be pretty good, too. Jim got a fish and chicken kebab and a steak sandwich. I got a gross ... [Continue reading this entry]

The road in Rarotonga is basically, well, just one road and it goes around the perimeter of the island. It takes about 40 minutes to drive around the whole thing. Lots of people ride motorbikes. We rode the ... [Continue reading this entry]

We arrived in Rarotonga at 1 AM from Auckland and the Backpacker place had a van there to pick us up. Lots of us packed into the crappy van and drove to the hostel, and I noticed lots of ... [Continue reading this entry]

Click here to see a map of where the Cook Islands are. Kia Orana! I only have a second, but I wanted to say that Rarotonga is beautiful and we also spent a few days in Aitutaki, another island here. ... [Continue reading this entry]