The day before we arrive here, the captain, during his noon update, told us that this is the first time that a Holland ship has been at this port of call. That’s probably why there aren’t any Holland excursions here. He also told us that this island is an atoll, or coral island, and in previous years sailors referred to this island as the island of death. That’s because the island is surrounded by a reef and sailors would crash on the reef. We will be at the pilot station at 5:30am and the captain said that he wasn’t comfortable taking the ship in through the reef until it was daylight. The last tidbit from the captain was about tidal movement. At this location the tidal change can be up to 9 feet.
The island is bordered by a double barrier reef making the lagoon, the largest in the world. When we left at the end of the day, it took hours to exit and the captain blew the ship horn a number of times, presumably at locals in boats.
No excursions at this location and a local that we talked to said that we were the second cruise ship in this YEAR, the previous one was here in March. We choose to leave our snorkel gear on board and if we heard of a good snorkel location and could get decent priced transportation, we could easily return to the ship. We did find out there was decent snorkeling, however, not one taxi to be found!
This is a French territory, and the women here mostly wore untraditional Muslim attire. They were very colorfully dressed with some women wearing something white on their faces that was some kind of sunscreen.
They are having a shortage of water on the island, with the government turning off the water and only allowing residents and businesses access to water every 3rd day for a couple of hours. I can’t even begin to fathom what that must be like. There was a large covered market next to the tender port but it was not geared toward tourists. Instead, this appeared to be a market area to sell to the locals – fruits, vegetables, household products, clothes and shoes. I did find one stall that had some local made crafts.
When we got off the ship, we just walked around with Cyndi and Pat and another couple. Made our way through the town a bit, checking out some of the clothing stores that sold French fashion and shoes (much to the men’s dismay). It was INCREDIBLY HOT. I think the temp was mid 80s but so was the humidity. It didn’t take long and all of us were drowning in our own sweat. After finding a bathroom (the one bathroom that was found was filthy and had no running water (that’s a second hand account)), we walked through the market and then settled in at a local waterfront restaurant for a cool beverage and to cool off before returning to the ship.
