There is something special about travelling with Lindblad Expeditions staff and guests alike. They bring a sense of adventure found nowhere else. Let me give you an example; before working for Lindblad I once took a group of 180 people out to see the Great Barrier Reef. We were supposed to enter the reef from a platform. As we arrived on our ship it started to rain and all 180 people decided to stay out of the water for the day, maybe they were scared to get wet, who knows. Now here’s the difference, we may have had perfect weather the first day of our expedition, but on this particular day, the temperamental tropical weather showed us her dark side with gloomy skies and continual rain pouring down. Lindbladers (as I like to call us) didn’t hesitate to head out on an adventure and we were rewarded with a great trip to a pearl farm, fantastic drift snorkeling and dolphins seeing us off as we pulled out of Rangiroa.
4/18/2019
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National Geographic Orion
Rangiroa, French Polynesia
Our last day of our expedition took us to Rangiroa, the largest atoll in French Polynesia. Its name can be translated as “Big Sky,” and the name suits this place, as the vast lagoon of this atoll is so sprawling that you can’t see the other end. Guests enjoyed the day visiting a pearl farm. Black pearls are one of the main industries on French Polynesia, and at the farm, we could see how they use surgical precision to insert the mother of pearl bead in the black lipped oysters to produce these pearls. This island has become a center for the pearl farming industry in French Polynesia, as it is the only one with a school dedicated to the teaching of this trade and the research of the species on which it depends. We also enjoyed the lagoon’s gorgeous waters, where we set our snorkeling platform and enjoyed big numbers of fish in a coral garden. Enjoying the pristine conditions of this lagoon, our guests snorkeled among hundreds of snappers, big moray eels, and sharks. A high point of local color, it was a perfect ending to an incredible expedition in French Polynesia.
