Day 16 Papeete, Tahiti

We arrived in the port city of Papeete about noon today. The harbor give us a wonderful view of the hills surrounding the port. It is very beautiful and very hot and very humid. Reminds us of Cincinnati on a steamy summer day. This is our first time in Tahiti but not our last. We are scheduled to be back two more times before we come home. We walked into the city and visited the pearl market. The gentleman explained to us the various grades of black pearls. The most expensive being the A+ which means that the pearl is perfectly round with no imperfections on the surface and has the dark rich color. I felt as though I was in the diamond district in New York. He had boxes and boxes of black pearls of all different sizes and qualities. Each time he brought out another box to show us a pearl he had to weigh the entire box in front of a coworker and then after he was done he replaced the pearl and re-weighed the box in front of the coworker to ensure that all the pearls were returned.
We visited an open air market that sold almost anything from raw fish to clothing to souvenirs to small cafes that served food and there was a flower vendor as well. I have only touched on a few of the highlights in the market.
We are here overnight tonight and set sail for Bora Bora tomorrow night. We are led to believe we will be able to see the Super Bowl via a feed while we are docked at Bora Bora. We'll see.

Chris - Tahiti at last! We finally made it to Tahiti with a lot of speed and waves....but safe :) The crew member that was sick apparently suffered from a blood infection which we heard was finally under control by the time we docked. He was met with an ambulance, but we were happy to hear he was better. We docked 3 hours early and found Tahiti very hot and very humid...I LOVE IT!