Travel // Going Around // South Pacific // An Hour of Snorkeling in Raiatea
The ship arrived Raiatea as scheduled and at exactly 8AM today, the ship docked alongside the small port of Uturoa, the main sea port of Raiatea. When the M/S Paul Gauguin left Rarotonga, the sea state was from moderate to rough and during my watch at the bridge, the ship’s speed dropped down to 14.4 knots, exactly 0.5 knots short of the required speed in order to arrive on the next port on time. Then on the next day (that was yesterday), amazingly the sea state improved and the ship’s speed went up. When my navigational watch ended at noon, I got an average of 15.8 knots, slightly higher than the required speed which went up to 15.3 knots from 14.9 knots. Today I went out for snorkeling with my colleague on the beach by the roadside; about 10 minutes walk from the pier. There were not much people on the beach due to the threatening rain which eventually poured down. Today was my first time to snorkel in Raiatea and it was good though I did not saw a lot of fish around except for those two small fish. We cut short our snorkeling because the water started to get colder or let’s say my body’s tolerance to cold gave in…LOL….Anyway that was fine a least I was able to go out from the ship and spend some times ashore. I just finished my dinner and I am checking my email. I still have about 40 minutes left before I go up to the bridge for my navigational watch. We left Raiatea just over an hour ago and we are now sailing for Rangiroa, one of the best dive sites in the world.
