Unlike the other French Polynesian Islands we visited on this cruise, Fakarava is flat, no mountains, just a long skinny, roughly rectangular island, think of it as a picture frame, 37 miles long and 13 miles wide around a deep lagoon with two entrances.  It is home to about 840 residents.  We visited on Palm Sunday.  The ship must time its entry and exit from the lagoon around tidal currents.  It’s a tender port and we waited for open tendering at around 10:30 before going ashore.

There is not much tourist infrastructure and because it was Palm Sunday the weekend market was not functioning.  There is a tourist office but it is not very helpful.  I asked about the bus tour and the guy at the office said he didn’t handle that but we should just wait around for the bus to come back.  He didn’t know when that would be.  I asked him about hiring a boat and driver.  He said they were all out for the day and would not take any more tours.  We found out later, when we were back on the ship, that was not true.  They did take afternoon tours.

But we did find the bus.  It was a $10 tour, the travel bargain of the cruise.  The bus was a wooden box with bench seats running the length of the bus on a truck chassis.  The lady guide spent most of the tour strumming a ukulele and singing.  It was a happy bus letting us off at the light house, built in the 50s from coral.  Our guide was proud to say it was built by a woman.  We also visited a smaller light house, some beaches, and the town.  The group of shipmates on the bus were in good spirits.  The tour was a lot of fun.

We had originally planned to walk to a beach after the tour.  The guy in the tourist office assured us it was 5 minutes by foot, by the fleet of foot.  Other cruisers warned us it was more like 15 minutes.  One said her friend tried and gave up because it was so hot and humid.  We were both hot and exhausted too.   After about three hours ashore we went back to the ship for a cold coke.  I took a swim in the ship’s pool and rested up for the Orange Party later that night.

Captain Thomas described our sail out.  He said we would point the ship to the larger entrance and travel about 5 nautical knots with a 4 knot following current.  The ship will “pop out of the lagoon like a cork.”  And so, it did.  And right after checked out the sunset.

We spent most of the early evening in the Ocean Bar listening to the misnamed dance band.  It’s really a jazz combo.  After dinner we made an appearance at the Orange Party. A feature of Holland America celebrating the Dutch Royal House of Orange.  I have mixed feelings celebrating the House of Orange but we are on a Dutch ship and not in Belfast. Staff enjoyed themselves even more than we did.  We made a brief appearance because we wanted to get to bed a bit early because overnight, we moved the clock forward (the wrong direction) to Nuka Hiva time, our final port before San Diego.