Cook's Bay, Moorea

  Once again we made an early morning entry through a barrier reef into a harbor.

  After dropping anchor, the ship swung its stern to the head of the harbor as the morning sun strengthened.

  There not being a great deal to see just walking around, we waited until about an hour before our tour to go ashore, once again by tender.

  We ran the gauntlet of vendors at the pier (who on all our port calls have proven to be not nearly as pushy as their counterparts elsewhere in the world) and wandered around a bit before going to the meeting point for tours.

  Pam turned right for the Snorkeling Safari while I turned left for Moorea in Focus - a tour intended to teach participants how to take better pictures.

  My trip turned out to be primarily a great opportunity to take pictures from interesting locations, the climb to some of them being challenging even in a 4-wheel drive vehicle, but worth the bumps, hairpin turns and steep inclines.

  It is easy to spot the barrier reef in the next two pictures.

  Our next stop was a vantage point named "Belvedere" from which we could see both the bay we had been looking down into earlier.  Turning about 30 degrees to the right, we could see the bay in which ROTTERDAM was anchored..

  

  At the agricultural school we saw mature pineapples (albeit much smaller than its Hawaiian cousin) and an emerging pineapple.

  It was about now that the tour guide learned that the last tender to the ship was at 4:30, not 5:00, so we returned with some speed to catch that tender.

  [NOTE: This was not as stressful as it might sound since Holland America Lines guarantees that the ship will wait if you booked your tour through them.]