Day 8

Pure relaxation.

We woke up early and drank out coffee while sitting in this huge white bed gazing out the window at the incredible sea of turquoise in front of us. It was peaceful, beautiful, and surreal.

The next big task was to walk to breakfast. Life here in Bora Bora is very taxing! Daren ordered an omelet and I got two poached eggs and hash browns. We both used extra ketchup. We are to the point in the trip where a little familiarity is nice.

Literally for the rest of the entire day we laid out on our two decks. Basking in the hot sun, swimming in the perfect water and ordering room service for lunch. By evening we were sitting on the couch with a glass of wine watching CNN, the only English channel, and I am covered in Cortisone 10 because I have given myself sun poisoning and have broken out in a red itchy rash. Ahh the romance....

Day 7- Bora Bora

" WOW, wow, wow, wow , wow"- Alfalfa of the Little Rascals
We are walking the pages of a travel magazine. Bora Bora is breathtaking- green and turquoise. The airport is actually on its own island and we were ferried by boat to the dock of the Intercontinental Bora Bora and Thalaso Spa. At the dock we were met by two Tahitian men dressed in local traditional warrior costumes and a blond french girl who spoke great English. They loaded us onto our own private golf cart and escorted us to the front desk. All the while Daren and I are completely stunned by the intense beauty of this place.

Once at the front desk area we are escorted past the check in counter and out onto a beautiful and modernly decorated foyer where two glasses of local fruit juices are waiting for us. We sat down at our table and looked at each other and at the water and at the view of the main island and just started laughing. Neither of us has ever been treated in such an exclusive manner before. The blond french girl came back and we filled out all of our international travel paperwork right there at our table with the turquoise water, breathtaking island views and fantastic local juices.

Next were again taken to a private golf cart and given a tour of the property that ended at our over water bungalow, #206,

WOW! Everyplace we looked Daren and I just kept saying "Wow!". The woman guiding on the tour of our bungalow laughed and said in her thick french accent "They always just say wow."

This place is bigger than our house! Bungalow 206 is the very last one and offers nearly complete privacy from any other guests and its totally a luxury bungalow. The coffee table in the living area is all glass and looks right down into the water. ( please note the photos do not do justice since they were taken on a disposable camera)

The bedroom is a beautiful white bed that faces a huge floor to ceiling window! Stunning. The view from the window is nothing but miles of turquoise water with one sailboat in the distance. This place it so beautiful is ridiculous.

Outside the sliding glass door is a large upper deck that is covered by a woven palm leaf roof and has two lounge chairs and a small glass table that just begs for room service. From there are the stairs leading down to the little bottom deck! So cool!

The bottom deck is he perfect place to drench yourself in sun and has a ladder into the water. Daren made a pledge to do a cannon ball off of the bottom beck every day.

Day 6

Today I got my own moped.

I was a little nervous. Daren was a little more nervous and the rental guy was down right scared. I had to do several laps around the hotel parking lot until we were all comfortable enough to put me out on the road. There is one main road that runs all the way around Moorea ( which by the way means Yellow Lizard). So as long as you stay on that road you won't get lost, and stay on it we did.

The island is freaking amazing! It is so picturesque and beautiful I can't find the words to do it justice. I feel like I am on a giant movie set because everything seems way to perfect to be real. This is also the day my digital camera died. So all pictures from here on out were taken on a high tech blue disposable camera.

The island takes a good hour to ride around without any stops. It took us a solid two hours stopping at a snack shack to buy a coke, getting ice cream cones at a local shopping center and perusing several black peal stores.

For lunch we returned to Colo d'isle, the place of the pizza eating bet at dinner the night before. We split a pizza this time. My half was pizza margarita and Daren's half was "Spanish" claiming it came with pepperoni, onions, and capers. What it was really topped with were lots and lots of green peppers! The menu also boasted some sort of vegetable that they translated as "plugs" and for the life of me I have no idea what that is. HA!

After lunch we hopped back on our red mopeds with black seats. This resulted in a scalded inner thigh for me and some scaled unmentionables for my husband. Once we both stopped yelping like surprised puppies we headed to the gas station and to the black pearl shop.

I had been doing really well and was pretty comfortable with my starts and stops on my moped by this time. We even ran into the rental guy at the gas station and assured him that we were both doing great. Then three minutes later we pull into the parking lot of Moorea Black Pearls and I hop off. I hop off without turning the darn thing off and without taking my hands off of the gas! It was a comical and chaotic few moments. Daren especially liked it when while running along side of my speeding moped I hollered back at him "I got it! I got it!" Which was followed by him laughing out loud and saying "Oh you do?!"

It was such a fun way to experience the island and get to see how the islanders really live. I would also like to point out that Daren Benson has the bravest wife on the island. Of all of the couples out renting and riding mopeds we were the only ones with two. I, Sarah Benson, am brave.

Day 5

Not a cloud in the sky.
An early morning swim in the lagoon before 8:00am.

A quick workout in the hotel gym.

Two half cooked omelette's for breakfast.

And a spot in a lounge chair on the beach.

For dinner we went to Coco d'isle, a sand floored local favorite. Daren had a very tasty dish of tuna, curry and banana served in a coconut with rice. I had a fantastic pizza margarita and for $31.00 I ate the last piece in one bite.

Many of the places on the island Will arrange transportation to and from their business since taxi's are ridiculously expensive. On the way to the restaurant we took a regular shuttle cab. On the way back the Chef drove us in his van because their weren't any cabs in sight! Daren and I say in two white plastic chairs of this entirely empty white work van facing the sliding door that was secured open by a bungee! HA! It was pretty funny and we made it back safely.

Day 4- WE SWAM WITH SHARKS

WE SWAM WITH SHARKS! WE SWAM WITH FREAKING SHARKS!

This morning the sun came bursting into our room around 5:30 or 6:00. It was beautiful and I got to see my one and only Tahitian sunrise. I curled in and headed back to sleep because I knew I needed my rest. Today we we're going on the Lagoon Tours.

We grabbed a quick breakfast and I poured most of the pot of coffee onto the table, by accident, and we ran to meet out Albert Tours bus. It took us to hotel Bali Hai, yes that Bali Hai from the movie South Pacific. We boarded our boat with 43 other people and a tour guide named Siki who spoke French, English, Spanish and enough Japanese to talk to those couples as well.

We were the last couple on the boat ( totally my fault) so we ended up sitting in the back row on opposite sides of the aisle. Daren sat next to a very quite Japanese couple who were well covered in hats and sunscreen. I sat next to two classic America couples. The men here huge and arrogant and took up at least twice the space. Their jokes were bad and nonstop with fake accents and they spoke to the locals like they were deaf and stupid. Needless to say I was not a huge fan. Daren actually reached across the aisle and asked the biggest one to scoot over since he was sitting on all of my stuff and taking up so much of the bench I was falling off. HA!

Then the boat stopped ending my internal monologue of irritation. The anchor was dropped and Siki stood up and lowered the stairs into the water. They strung a long rope out and to us to jump in and hang on so that the current wouldn't sweep us away.

Daren was the first one in ( so brave) and I was the third ( so scared). One look under the water with my snorkel mask and it was official. We were swimming with sharks! Lots of sharks! I was so scared I almost turned back to the boat but Daren coached me along and when I was close enough grabbed my hand and pulled me toward him. I held onto his hand for dear life! As if a rope and Daren's hand could save me from an irritated shark.

They were black tipped reef sharks and they ranged in size from about 4 ft to 7 ft. Our guides baited then with huge steaks and they swam all around us. There were 45 sharks sharing the water with us today. It was so awesome and scary! That was Daren's favorite part of the day.

We all climbed back into the boat and headed to our next stop. When the boat stopped and the anchor was dropped we could still see several sharks in the water, but of course we are all such pros we weren't event scared. Again, Daren was one of the first off of the boat and into the swarm of sting rays! When is was my turn to get off of the boat there were bunches ( 3 or 4) of rays swimming right under the stairs. I asked them to please move along and finally stepped out of the boat and promptly swam the opposite directions of the sting rays.

There was lots of shrieking and laughing and me holding onto Daren for dear life again. The tour guides would hold food in the mouth of the rays and bring them right up on you. Literally on you. The rays flap their wings like they are flying and they will glide up onto you and flap your shoulders. They feel like rubber and are incredibly docile.

Once everyone calmed down it was incredible. The rays were my favorite part of the day. At one point I headed back to the boat to take some pictures and I was swarmed by rays from all directions. I was laughing and screaming and as I pulled my feet up underneath me I looked down and a shark swam right under my feet! I felt like some kind of tour hero. Man alive it was cool!

The tour then took us to another small island, a motu, for a fresh Mahi Mahi bbq, Tahitian rum, snorkeling and a coconut husking demonstration. The island is very rural and rustic. It was the first picnic we've ever been to where there are chickens, kittens, a dog named Tsunami, and sting rays playing all around. It was a very cool and unique experience.

Day 3- To Moorea!

We went on our first married run today. We ran around the property of our hotel until Daren spotted a gofer like thing and had to squelch the urge to scream like a girl and Sarah figured it was time for room service to shop up anyway. It was fun, easy and very humid.

We packed up our first room and headed downtown to take what they explained to us as the catamaran that will take us to Moorea. The boat is really a lot like the express ferry in Seattle. Daren and I grabbed a sandwich at the nearby snack shack place. I mumbled a bit of my newly learned french and the woman behind the counter winked at me.

We sat outside on the top deck and laughed at the fact that we chose to honeymoon in French Polynesia without either one of us speaking a real word of french!

The ferry ride was about 30 minutes and we were here! Again our arrival was trumpeted by a torrential south pacific downpour. And again, I loved it.

Our hotel, The Intercontinental Beachcomber, was about a 15 minute van ride on Albert tours. We pulled up and were instantly impressed. Hanging in the lobby was a huge white sea shell chandelier that is surprisingly stunning. The porter took us to bungalow 503. Wow! It is literally breathtaking. Our balcony is out over the gin clear water and nestled into a stunning and lush alcove with 9 other bungalows. As I head into the room to check tings out Daren headed out onto the deck. He's not out there 3 minutes and he starts shouting for me. There is a baby octopus swimming past our deck!! It was searching inside rocks and coral and changing colors then to our left a dolphin jumped. Magical.

Our hotel has Dolphins Cove where you can pay to swim with them and they do all sorts of adorable tricks. Ahh...the puppies of the sea. We watched them show off for a group of schoolkids for a good half and hour and then walked over to the Sea Turtle Rehab facility on site. We hung out with Alec Baldwin, the sea turtle ( I named him that because the though of turtles in drug and alcohol rehab is really funny!) and then walked back to our dream Tahitian bungalow for a swim in the lagoon and a drink on the deck.

It should also be noted that I finally played by first game of scrabble tonight. The score was " Mr. D" 142 and " Champ" 102. Daren chose the scrabble name of my maiden name because our honeymoon arrangements are under both of our last names but everyone in Tahiti calls us Mr and Mrs D! Its hysterical.

A little way through our game the mountains behind us light up in a vibrant pink, We grabbed our wine and took off chasing the sunset. When we got to the other side of the bungalows the sky was like nothing we've ever seen. It was stunning, brilliant, shades of pink and orange. The pictures are amazing but are only a small taste of how wonderful and intense the experience was.

It is incredible here. So amazing that I was actually brought to tears ( not the sobbing kind just the one glistening tear kind) by the sheer beauty of Gods creations here in Moorea.

We also met Lil Nubbin today. The one footed bird that hangs out with us on our deck.

For dinner we took a taxi to a placed called Le Mayflower. The restaurant was an adorable throw back to days gone by. It kind of reminded me of the movie Casablanca with that type of old school romance. We ate decent food, shared a bottled of wine and dessert. I thought I ordered vanilla ice cream but its turned out to be vanilla creme brulee. What a pleasant surprise!