Christi started the morning by finishing the bottom. Much to her dismay, everything she had scrubbed yesterday had a fine little layer of growth return. She decided to just pretend like nothing had grown back and to just work on the previously uncleaned areas. It took her an hour.

From there we went snorkeling in the coral reef next to our boat. As we were swimming out there, the people we had met from San Diego, Eric and Gisela, came up to us in their dinghy. They were also going snorkeling, so we all went together. The reef had small spots of color, but was mostly all light brown. There were a lot of coral shaped like Bryce Canyon, which was neat. There were a few fish, but not a ton. We did see a couple new fish we have not seen before. One had a beak and came in a few colors. We saw one black tipped reef shark about 5 feet long. There were a lot of plants growing on the coral that had long spindly branches with thorny looking things at the ends. The most noteworthy plant looked like a single dark pink rose stuck on the side of a coral head. It almost looked like someone had glued a plastic flower to the coral. We only saw one.

After snorkeling, our plan was to go to the Bastille Day celebration in Cook’s Bay. The problem was we didn’t know how we were going to get there. We could move Kosmos to Cook’s Bay. We have already written about how many hours it takes to move the boat, even if it is only a few miles, and we have not even got into how long it takes to get Kosmos situated once we get to our destination. Moving Kosmos was too much effort and not going to happen. We could take the dinghy, but the channel markers were not lit and going through the coral filled water in the dark was a disaster waiting to happen. There is a Sheraton nearby our anchorage. We decided the best option was to take the dinghy to the beach and walk over to the Sheraton, pose as hotel guests and get a ride from them. If they wouldn’t take us, we could hitchhike or walk, though it was a long walk. Several people had told us it was safe to hitchhike here.

The celebration began at 1930 (7:30 pm). We left Kosmos at 1500 (3:00 pm), figuring that would give us plenty of time to walk there (if necessary), buy tickets to the show and get dinner. Eric and Gisela joined us in our adventure. We went to the Sheraton and they told us they couldn’t help us. So we started walking and stuck out our thumbs. It didn’t take very long before a pickup with two older Polynesian women carrying bibles in the bed stopped for us. The innocuous looking ladies and bibles made Christi a little less fearful of being picked up by “hitchhiker Joe”. The 4 of us hopped in and a few minutes later we were at our destination.

By 4:15 we had tickets in hand. We wandered around the town looking for an open restaurant. In French Polynesia, almost all restaurants close in between lunch and dinner, re-opening somewhere between 1700 and 1900 (5-7 pm) so it was no surprise nothing was open. The first place that would open was at 1730 (5:30 pm). We went to a time share resort and sat on the deck overlooking the bay until the restaurant opened. We were going to get beers to enjoy while we sat, but in French Polynesia they don’t sell alcohol at public events, on Sundays or on holidays. The lady at the mini-market said she was sorry she couldn’t sell beer on Bastille Day, so we got juice.

Dinner was extraordinarily expensive. It was good, but not good enough to justify the money. Christi got profiteroles (pastry shells) stuffed with shrimp and lobster. Eric got bacon wrapped scallops. Portions were on the small side. Here is Christi with Eric and Gisela in front of the restaurant. Christi is wearing the necklace we bought from Jean-Paul.

After dinner we went to the soccer field where the show was taking place. It seemed every inhabitant and tourist on the island was there. It was packed. They had run out of seating in the bleachers, so everyone was grabbing chairs and finding places to put them. For a few minutes we were in the front row off to the side, but people put chairs in front of us. Even so, the seats were excellent.

The show was three hours long. The first half seemed to be a variety of individual dances put on by different groups on the island. A bunch of boys between 5 and 12 did a couple of dances. There were a couple dances by a group of men. Some teenage girls did several dances, often accompanied by additional dancers of various age groups, both men and women. The last two dances were done by a professional dance troupe. All the dances were very different from one another and from what we had seen at other shows, but similar in that the women did a lot of hip shaking and flowy arm movements and the men did a lot of brusque movements that resembled activities like rowing or hunting. There were a variety of costumes. We are noticing that the women’s costumes all begin with short skirts and small or no headdresses, then at the first costume change the skirt gets a puffy grass big belt like things over it and a bigger headdress, then with each costume change the grass skirts get longer or puffier and the headdresses get bigger. The men all had the little skirts that are just a flap over each side (didn’t notice any flashing at this show). Sometimes the men would have grass breast plates and grass arm and leg bandanas, as well.

The second half of the show was done by the professional troupe. Very little of the content of the show had been translated to English in the first half, but they did translate the introduction into English for the second half. This was the story of someone or something coming out of a long, deep sleep (maybe God?) and deciding to procreate. The men were warriors from heaven and the women were the maidens of the earth and they were joining together to copulate in hopes of fertility. No, we are not making this up. These are the words used in the intro. We were expecting an especially erotic show after that intro, but it wasn’t much different than any of the other dances we have seen. The men danced as a group and the women danced as a separate group, and towards the end the men and women danced as one big group and then eventually in male/female couples. Every now and again 4 women dressed in white would come out and dance. We couldn’t figure out who the women were and what their role in the copulation process was.

After the show was over we hitchhiked back to the dingy. We were picked up after only a few minutes by a lady who had been sitting near us. Getting a ride back made a good end to a really fun day, spent with good company.