SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5:

Following a breakfast in which I enjoy triple servings of papaya, I rent a car. Thirty minutes later Tara and Cheyenne are attending “dolphin orientation” at the Beachcomber Resort. For the next hour, along with four other people, they play with and kiss a dolphin. The dolphin appears to love the attention. In an area open to the sea, Cheyenne pets and feeds several wild stingrays.

I video and take photos from a distance. The girls are thrilled with their dolphin/stingray experience.

Cheyenne and Tara swimming with a dolphin.

Hunter has two dozen bites on his legs and everything we’ve tried to clear them up has done little to stop the itching blotches, which appear to be expanding. A woman in the Beachcomber says they’re “no-no” bites -- a sand flea or fly. They sell us some expensive Bora Bora Oil -- the island remedy. Hunter applies the clear oil to his legs and within a few minutes the itching subsides. (The next day, the blotches are almost gone.)

Our next stop is the island campsite, which I want to check out. For about $8 a day you can pitch a tent within a walled compound offering basic facilities and a small restaurant fronting a pristine white-sand beach.

We stop for lunch at Linareva Floating Restaurant. We’ve missed serving time. Meals on the island are only offered during small windows of time as in France and Italy. We never seem to be hungry at the proper time.

The empty restaurant is staffed by a pretty French woman with the lightest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. She’s in her early twenties and is “bouncy” friendly. We delight in talking to her.

“Are you serving anything?” I ask.

“Sodas, beer and home-made ice cream,” she titters.

“Then we’ll have beer and ice cream and the kids can have sodas and ice cream.

Great lunch.

Tara learns the woman’s life story. This is her dad’s boat. She was born on Moorea and has no desire to ever leave. Her parents separated when she was two. Her mother moved to the West Indies. She went to live with her mom for awhile, hated the Indies and quickly returned to Moorea.

On the floating restaurant for a beer and homemade ice cream lunch.

On the way back around the island, I stop at a local event. There are no tourists, but lots of Polynesians dressed in bright colors. Many of the women have crafted huge headbands of fresh flowers. Tara and the kids are hesitant to get out of the car, but Tara eventually joins me on the edge of the festivities.

A leader has a microphone and his job seems to be to rev everyone up. He speaks the native language and every so often everyone but us breaks into laughter. No one seems to mind that we are here. Many smile at us.

The excitement is about a coconut-opening contest. Four teams of two men enter a square -- one team in each corner. One man holds a sharpened stick, base to the ground, point in the air. At the appointed time, the other man slams the coconut onto the stick and uses it to rip and tear the outer covering. He has to slam it down again and again on the stick. Eventually the hairy coconut ball within is freed from it’s hull.

The first team to free five coconuts wins. There is much whooping and hollering. The winners proudly leave the field. I try unsuccessfully to fit this contest into my sporting frame of reference.

Today there is a triathlon on the island with a big Pacific-French-Franc purse to the winner. Everywhere we go there are support services for the competitors who are primarily white Europeans. All day we pass the runners and bicycle riders.

Late afternoon: We find a white sand beach frequented primarily by the Polynesian people. I’m a block from shore before the water reaches my neck. Cheyenne wants me to accompany her farther and farther from shore. We try to capture Tara and drag her into deep water but she’ll have no part of it. She is shell hunting, she says.

After cleaning up at our hotel, we go to Le Pecheur for dinner. The two young men and one woman from Utah have become friends. They’ve often taken Hunter and Cheyenne off with them to dinner or to snorkel in the bay. Today they caught a big mahi-mahi fish on a charter boat and they talk the restaurant into cooking if for them. We have some of their fish in addition to our own meal.

Most of those staying at Hotel Kaveka are from Southern California. Several join the group in the restaurant and I sense our loud playful conversation is turning off a few customers. Judging by the expression on the face of the French owner, he feels his establishment has been taken over by brash Americans.

Tara has wine and a small salad for dinner. The kids and I have ice tea and fish. The bill is well over $100 US.

Richard, Tara, Cheyenne and Hunter at dinner in Le Pecheur.

After dropping the kids at our hotel, Tara and I drive to the Ia Ora Hotel. Hunter told me that someone told him there would be blues music here this evening. At the bar/lounge, a young island woman is singing pop songs accompanied by a guitarist incorporating synthesizer effects. The waitress only speaks French, so I decide not to do the “tequila and tonic” shuffle. J&B is the first pour bottle at the bar. I ask for J&B on the rocks. She doesn’t get it. Tara takes over, but there is a lot of back and forth and pointing to get my drink and a glass of wine.

Following an intermission, the guitarist returns with a middle-aged, red-faced American in a faded island shirt. He appears to have been through the wringer, but when he starts to belt out the blues, I’m mesmerized. The guitar player turns off the synthesizer and takes off. Wow! I never learn the singer’s name, but this is as good as it gets when it comes to intimate live music.

There are only six of us in the lounge, but a few more people sit outside appearing to listen. This in Saturday night at a major resort and the place is nearly deserted. At home in LA, most clubs would be too packed to get into this time of night.

Driving back to our hotel, we pass only three cars on the road. Early to bed, even on Saturday night, appears to be the rule on Moorea.

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