Huahine

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We anchored in Huahine harbor at 8am. We had not signed up for any excursions as the ship had not offered any. Peg found a snorkel trip through TripAdvisor and the four of them took the early tender and headed for shore. We had our snorkel gear packed, but decided to just take the free shuttle to town and see what the island was like as this was one we had not visited on our prior trip years ago. We basically determined that there was nothing much to see after we walked around town (very small with one short main street). There are no banks, no post office, one small market, a couple of tourist stores selling pareos and t-shirts and people sitting on the street selling unknown fruits and vegetables. We headed back to the ship.

When we met the others for drinks during Happy Hour, they were full of comments about the good time they had, although they did not actually snorkel. But they saw the "famous" blue-eyed eels and had lunch sitting on chairs in the lagoon and made right on the spot by the family who ran the tour.

We had a reservation at Jacques and they did not have any reservation. When we got to Jacques, there they were. Because the ship was not completely full (about 1,000 instead of 1,250) there seemed to be more opportunities to go to the specialty restaurants on this cruise than usual. We found that the restaurants were never full – so either folks did not realize that they could get in even if they only had 4 reservations available for their cabin level or they chose to eat in the buffet where you could be more casual or the Grand Dining Room, which seats 650 and has a great but more general menu. We had our usual first night meal – Rob had escargot and chicken and Daryl had the foie gras and artichoke carpaccio and the sole. We met lots of new faces among the staff and arranged to sit at a table served by Sanfrico and Bikas from India. Jean-Marc is the new Maitre-d' in Jacques and is from Bordeaux.

The ship departed for Bora Bora at 8pm.