ARRIVAL IN RANGIROA

I woke up at 05:45am. I slept very well. Shower, clothing and breakfast.

At 08:00am, Daniel drove me to the airport to go to RANGIROA. Departure at 09:30am and arrival in Rangiroa at 10:30am. We stopped at Mataiva.

At the airport of Rangiroa, Norbert, of the Pension TEVAHINE DREAM, welcomed me warmly. There was also a couple of young people who came with me at the Pension. The man was French, and had Polynesian origin and his girlfriend was Jamaican. Because our bungalows weren’t ready, Norbert drove us to a pearls farm to have a free visit. The explanation was in English and very well done. I took some beautiful pictures.

The culture of the pearls: The farmed process of the pearl oyster is very long and needs a lot of care because the species are fragile. The pearl oyster with dark lips, which lives stuck on the corals of the Polynesian lagoons, releases during certain periods of the year its sexual products which are inseminated in open water. After a drift of a month, the young oysters stick on the corals or die buried in the sand. The person who does the culture of the pearls submerging in the lagoon some artificial containers, capture these young oysters and had been raising them on underwater nets for more than 3 years, during which they will have very careful care and particularly many cleanings. The pearl oyster adult is able to be subjected to the pearl graft, that consists in reproducing thanks to the intervention of the man, the natural process of the formation of a pearl. The gestation lasts about 2 years. The pearl oyster with dark lips is so fragile that only 30 pearls up to 100 grafted pearl oysters will be collected and only one or two will be perfect. During the collection, the pearl when it has been produced, is extracted delicately of the oyster and the oyster is put back in the water of the lagoon.

At 11:45am, Norbert went to pick us up and to drive us to the Pension, our bungalows were ready.

The Pension TEVAHINE DREAM is wonderful.

My bungalow:

I went to a snack near the Pension to have lunch.

Then, in the afternoon, I went for a walk and I returned to the Pension to have a rest until dinner time.

The dinner was scheduled at 7:45pm. It was a very late dinner compared to the dinner in the other Pensions where I went to.

At the Pension, there are 5 others guests: the couple of young people who went with me from the airport, a couple of retired vet people and an American (Scott). Because two persons spoke only English, all the conversations were exclusively in English. The menu of the dinner tonight was: grilled tuna, shrimps curry, rice and floating island! It was very delicious! Our host, Norbert, had dinner at our table and cooked all the dishes except the desserts baked by his wife, Thildy. It was very friendly to have dinner at a big table with the family who welcomed us. It was exactly what I was looking for but it was not always the case unfortunately!

Then, I went to bed at 9:45pm.