When my daughter was about 8 or 9, she received a Sky Dancer as a present. It's a plastic doll whose winged skirt becomes a propeller when it spins. You launch the doll by putting it on a small platform and pulling a string to spin it. Then the doll lifts gracefully into the air and floats gently until it hits a wall, where it falls, Hindenberg-like, to the ground. Sometimes the Dancer would find a plant, and it would try to weed-whack the plant, but instead would entangle itself, and unceremoniously dangle. Sky Dancers have a death wish.
This is what came to mind when witnessing Rob's first Polynesian drone flight. I'll let the video and photo speak on my behalf.
"Coppy" (so named by my cousin's daughter) was not left hanging for long. Rob found a nearby stick that was actually and conveniently a Huck-Finn-esque fishin' pole. He looped the string around one of the props and yanked, and down Coppy came. I did not film the rescue, as I was to catch Coppy as it fell, just like a firefighter catching a baby falling from a window. Actually, not at all like a firefighter, because I missed Coppy completely; Coppy landed head-first on the hard sand. Dazed, but still functional, Coppy was able to embark on a second voyage.
For the second flight, I'm reminded not of Sky Dancers, but of Daedelus and Icarus. "Robelus" watched as Coppacus' second launch carefully avoided the trees, but flew directly into the sun, and Rob lost sight of it. For a long two minutes, we could hear, but couldn't see Coppy. Finally, Rob got it away from the sun and it landed (mostly) safely in the front yard (small face plant).
There was a strong breeze blowing during all of this, which is why the flights didn't go as planned. The video is too shaky to share, so we'll try again today when there's less wind.
Our excursion of the day was to drive to the local lookout, named the Belvedere. Mo'orea is heart-shaped, with two long, adjacent bays. When you're on the Belvedere, you can see both bays at the same time. There are two roads that take you up there: the Route des Ananas, which travels through the local farms and gets pretty bumpy at times, and the Opanahu Valley Road, which is paved and direct. We decided to take the pineapple road up and the Opanahu down. We were enjoying looking at all the farms, and were a couple of kilometers in, when Rob realized we were almost out of gas. The guidebook says the lookout is only about 4 km up, and there are gas stations everywhere. We decided we felt lucky, although Rob wasn't too happy when I kept asking him to stop every 100m or so because of some neat flower.
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We make it up to the Belvedere, and the vista is indeed wonderful. You can see both bays. There's a nice trail that takes you up up the mountain about another kilometer. It's lovely, too.
However, my favorite part was the pissed-off, lost rooster, who kept buck-buck-BACAW-ing the whole time. There were chickens and roosters wandering around all over the place, but this guy was my favorite. You can't see him, but you can hear him.
On the main road, there are two well-maintained marae. Marae are Polynesian worship sites, and they can be several hundred years old. As we approach the first one, Rob says, "I thought that was an ostrich." Understandable.
There are some really nice nature walks around the marae, as the one is a complex, and there are several sites to visit.
We spend another hour walking through a beautiful tropical forest, where I realized that it rains flowers here. There's this one tree that has huge, hand-sized flowers, and as they mature, they fall to the ground. At one spot, we got hit a couple of times by flowers.
Local Litter
Since the trip back to town was all downhill, and we were low on gas, Rob left the car out of gear and rode the brakes on the way back. Meanwhile, I'm still asking him to stop for photos of new flowers. Once the ground levels out, I start noticing Rob's body language getting tenser and tenser. It appears there are no gas stations over off this road. We drive past Oponahu bay, and are well into Cook's Bay, about 15km later, that we finally found a gas station. It doesn't sound like a lot, but Rob was really nervous we wouldn't make it. Would have made for a great anecdote, though!
We stopped at a local farmer's roadside stand and bought a couple of pineapples. Finally, I got to use some French (although it helped at customs, too). We were going to buy mangoes, but it turns out they were actually massive avocados! The guy said they wouldn't be ripe for three days, so we ended up passing on them. We did eat a whole pineapple when we got home though. Sweet, sweet pineapple.
We also went snorkelling off the beach in our back yard. It's an interesting layout of the underwater land. For about 100 meters, the water is very shallow and full of hard, sharp, rock. There are also a lot of weird sea plants that stick out. (Luckily, Rob made me pack my water shoes. I HATE wearing water shoes, but I would have died without them.) Because of this, the walk out to a swimmable depth takes quite a long time. We're trying not to step on the rocks or grass, and there's a current, so you lose your balance a lot. Plus, the water is very shallow and still, and so it's TOO warm in spots. Wah.
Photo was taken once the water was deep enough to swim in.
We decide to put on our fins once we're almost waist deep, and that's pretty comical. Sadly, no video, as we were occupied with said task. Those plants get really thick just before the drop-off, and it's kind of creepy to swim over, but it was the only way to get past them. However, the drop was spectacular!
The drop is filled with fish. We spent about an hour swimming around and taking photos. Thankfully, the water cools off nicely at this point.
I'll only share one fish photo.
The way out to the deep water was tricky, but it was even trickier on the way back, because you couldn't look up to see which way was clear. Rob ended up getting high-centered and buffeted by waves, but managed to make it to shore with very few injuries (other than his pride).
Till tomorrow!
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