Day 82 Island tour

Hike
Kurt and Mark took to the surf while Andy and I joined the top-to-top group for a walk around the island. Of course this was too big an undertaking for the children - even when they were being carried - so Darius and Sabine did not mind hitchhiking. It is amazing how easy it is to get a ride - even for 5 adults - when you are carrying children.
One of the primary vehicles in all of French Polynesia is the short bed pick-up truck. They are everywhere. Giving a ride to hitchhikers is pretty easy as they just jump into the bed in the back. Every ride we got was given very graciously and in one case, the man got out of the truck to open the door for Sabine and the baby. We have heard other yachties say that the people in Huahine are very open, friendly and generous and that certainly seemed to be the case as we circled the island.
Darius wanted to hike on a forest trail so at one point we left the road to explore a forest path. After a short while it was obvious that this path had not been used in a long time and it would take several men with machetes to go very far.
We saw several sights mentioned in the Lonely Planet including the famous Huahine "blue-eyed eels". These are a protected fresh water eel that has grown very large because they are fed by the local people. As we were looking at several dozen two to three foot long creatures in a fresh water stream a tour bus pulled up with passengers from the cruise ship in the harbor. The guide stepped down to the stream and opened a can of sardines which she proceeded to feed to the eels. The six-inch diameter fish swarm around her and open their mouths like baby birds while she drops in a sardine. It is a pretty bizarre sight.
Another sight was the pearl farm and store which is reached by a short boat ride. It provided the normal description of seeding the oysters with tissue from the oyster's mantle and a sphere of fresh water muscle shell from Mississippi. The shop also sold pottery from Robert Owen the owner who it turned out is from Los Gatos, California. Yes it is a small world.
The remaining sights were the "maere" or ceremonial platforms used by the ancient polynesians. Huahine has more than any other island in the region as it was the center of religious life centuries ago. The LP (Lonely Planet) says that every maere from the Marquises to the Cooks to Hawaii has a stone from the major site in Huahine. We only got a brief look as the kids were getting tired but it made a nice introduction to the island.