We knew rainy days were coming because our snorkel tour in Tahiti was canceled before we even left Phoenix.  It is the rainy season in French Polynesia.  We would have taken that into account if we were specifically coming here for vacation.  That wasn’t the case.  It is an allowed stopover to break up the flight by Air Tahiti Nui.  We aren’t paying extra for that with the airline.  Of course, we are paying for our hotel and food.

Because we’ve been here before, and it isn’t a priority destination this time, we weren’t concerned with rainy days.  

With overcast skies, we explored the InterContinental Tahiti Resort.

We found some crabs and this one played a bit of hide and seek with me.

The flowers were pretty growing in the trunk of a palm.

We climbed to the top of a lookout and saw some nice views of the lagoon and island. 

Almost all of the photos in this post are light enhanced because it really was a dark day.

We saw several pretty trees that caught our eye and smelled nice!

This one we could tell from the fruit – a breadfruit tree.  There is probably a fancier name – but it grows breadfruit!

This red blossomed tree was striking and is called royal poinciana or flame tree.

This is a screw pine.

The screw pine also produces a type of breadfruit.

It wasn’t quite the same as snorkeling, but we did get to see some marine life while walking around the various ponds.

They have rehabilitation ponds where a group has been working for 19 years to help sea turtles.  They have helped over 650 turtles!

We watched this one swim into the boundary rock so we suspect it may be blind.

This is another resident of the rehabilitation pond.

There were some nice fish but getting a good picture from above on a dark, dreary day wasn’t within my photographic capabilities!

This is a view from the “lagoonarium” looking back towards the hotel restaurant and main building.

We also spent time looking out at the scene from our balcony.  We could see the lagoon and hear the breakers beyond the protective reef.

Often we were looking through rain and Randy marveled at the rowers in outrigger canoes.  We asked about them going out when it was raining and were told they don’t mind the rain and were just getting exercise rowing in the lagoon.

When we were getting ready to go down for dinner, we discovered that Randy’s phone thought it was already Monday. The hours and minutes were the same as mine, but my phone said Sunday and his said Monday.  We had to validate to make sure what day it was because we are on vacation!

The discrepancy caused us to look up the international dateline to see if we were right on the edge and, for some reason, his was tipping over and mine was not. We both have iPhones so they should behave the same.  He eventually got his phone to recognize that it really was Sunday but doesn’t know what he did to fix it.

Meanwhile we learned the international date line has this strange little jog to the east to include the Republic of Kiribati.  Its 32 atolls cover 313 square miles and include Kiritmati, also known as Christmas Island.

And that was rainy Sunday!

We had hoped to wander in to town on Monday but the continued rain was impressive enough to change our plans.

I started prepping the initial blog post for this trip.  I have always waited until we got home to write our trips and always used my computer.  However, I have found that some initial work, as I have time on a trip, makes it easier.

An hour later I had actually finished writing the blog on my iPad with my attached keyboard.  There were some things that were harder to do and others that were easier using the iPad. I’m intrigued with using it.  I don’t know if I’ll have the time to keep on blogging the trip “live.”  We’ll see how it evolves.

Later we went down to the lagoon intending to swim because if you are going to get wet, what does rain matter? The cone shaped building is the pool bar.

We had tropical drinks with PASTA straws.  They were delicious which was good because they were a bit pricy at $24 a piece.

Despite the fortification, our swimming was abbreviated at the knees.  The water and air felt just too cool.   We enjoyed our cabana time while staying mostly dry. 

After dinner, we exchanged dollars into pacific francs, the local currency of French Polynesia.  We’ll need that for our next activity, a food tour in Papeete.  We are likely to be touring in the rain.

And that was a rainy Monday!

These rainy days were January 12 and 13, 2025.