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I
stayed in the beautiful BEACHCOMBER hotel located on the beach near
the airport. The weather in Tahiti that day and night was simply incredible
and I just happened to capture one of the most beautiful sunsets I had
ever photographed.
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The
Beachcomber hotel’s pool was not crowded and there were plenty
of lounging chairs available.
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As
I wandered around the hotel grounds taking photos of the facilities,
the pool, and the beach, I just happened to notice that Tahiti...
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...obviously
had a very relaxed philosophy regarding appropriate bathing attire:
TOPLESS was totally acceptable. I TOTALLY approved!
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Being
located in the tropics, Tahiti’s scenery was very lush and colorful.
The sky and the water were both a deep blue; the beaches were a beautiful
white sand.
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For
me, these private huts (which were built directly over the ocean) were
one of the more impressive features of the hotel. Unfortunately, I was
not in a position to afford these huts and had to stay in a ‘regular’
hotel room.
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My
evening in Tahiti was spent eating a gourmet Polynesian buffet and watching
a rather nice floor show presented in the hotel.
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Native
dancers dressed in their traditional island costumes and treated the
audience to Polynesian dancing and music. This man is twirling a baton
with fire on both ends.
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Of
course, I preferred watching the native FEMALE dancers do their thing.
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The
audience was entertained for about an hour by the native dancers...
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...and
I was impressed with both the food and the floor show.
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Since
(at that point in my life) I had never seen huts built over the ocean
like these at the hotel, I went out of my way to walk all around the
grounds photographing them from different angles.
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The
blue sky and ocean provided me a wonderful backdrop for some of these
photos.
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I
can only imagine how nice it would be to actually stay in one of these
huts and to order dinner served in your room by the hotel staff. After
eating, you could sit on thehut’s balcony overlooking the ocean
and watch the sunset.
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Well,
I did not have the luxury of being on a hut’s balcony, but I was
able to wander around the grounds taking photos as the sun slowly began
to set that day in Tahiti.
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While
I had seen many spectacular sunsets from aboard ships on WESTPAC cruises,
I had never witnessed a more beautiful sunset from ashore than this
one in Tahiti.
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As
is typical in the tropics, sunsets often start out as being yellow/orange
in color and, as the sun nears the horizon, the color turns progressively
more reddish.
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On
this particular day, there was a rain squall’s cloud bank located
well away from shore toward the horizon. These clouds served to break
up the colors of the sunset as the sun neared the horizon.
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This
shot of the sun dropping below the horizon is my favorite photo of the
Tahitian sunset.
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And,
once the sun had actually dropped below the horizon, both the sky and
the ocean retained a reddish glow for a few brief minutes!
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