DAY 8 — Sad! It’s our last day on our Catamaran with our captain Turo Aritu, who for the past week has regaled the girls…
DAY 7 — I’m face down on a massage table looking through glass at fish swimming in the lagoon as the Polynesian masseuse caresses me…
They look like they are hemming curtain rods. But actually, they are working with a kind of dried plant called Pandanus. We are again at the famous Polynesian Heiva festival that is held here in July. We first visited a Heiva on Raiatea and now on Bora Bora. Along with dancing and celebrating are competitions for dancing, canoe racing and this morning, thatch making.
We’ve just caught a 16-pound Mahi Mahi! Amazing, we all agree. The line started to pull as we were sailing and all of a sudden our captain Turo and my husband Andy are right there, reeling in the gigantic fish. We can’t believe our luck! Turo tells us a fish this size would cost $70 or more in the local market.
We are at a tiny motu or islet off the island of Taha’a called Tau Tau, in a famous snorkeling spot called The Coral Garden that is nothing like I’ve ever seen before, teeming with striped banner fish and Sergeant Majors, long skinny trumpet fish, iridescent parrotfish, triggerfish and more.
Hioe, an American educated nurse, now runs The Vanilla Valley (email: [email protected]) on the Tahitian Island of Taha’a. It was a plantation her grandfather first started, she explained, that had gotten neglected in her father’s day. “I took over eight years ago,” she says.
DAY 2 — The first morning we wake up on our boat! We eat some of the food we’d provisioned ahead- awesome croissants (this is…
No matter how snazzy the car and how short (or long) the trip, the biggest challenge is keeping the kids amused along the way. And that’s clearly a challenge a lot of us will be facing this summer.
DAY ONE (June 25, 2009) — Our captain is straight out of central casting — or a Gaugin painting. He’s tall with a big smile,…
The kids, three-D glasses on, are laughing at the Muppets very funny antics and all of the 3-D Special effects at the Muppet Show at Disney’s California Adventure. But these two kids aren’t four. They’re 18 — newly minted high school graduates. Yet they are having as much fun at California Adventure and later at the iconic Disneyland (which opened in 1955) as any kid.
The 22-year-old champion skateboarder and snowboarder has come down to Grand Cayman, his parents and sister in tow, to inaugurate Skate Cayman
Often families say the things that went wrong on trips are as memorable as what went right and that’s certainly true when you are camping and so completely out of your comfort zone
This summer, whether you want to learn to dive with your tween or snorkel with your kindergartner, teach your grade-schooler to sail or fly on a trapeze, you’ll find plenty of opportunities at Caribbean resorts — at prices that are surprisingly affordable.
DAY FOUR (June 14, 2009) — Ready to kiss a Stingray? Eight year old Timmy and 13 year old Miles Singer are game but 12…
Douglas Cameron, the Canadian who manages the park and oversees the camp — just in its second year — says it’s as much for local kids as visitors. It has 64,000 square feet of ledges, boxes, v-hips, banks and stairs and half pipes, which to the uninitiated look like a lot of hills built into the cement.
DAY THREE (June 13, 2009) — Finally, a Caribbean beach that’s everything a Caribbean beach should be — quaint, with hammocks strung in the palm…
The skate park is amazing — all kinds of dips, jumps — the boys got there around one and didn’t quit until it got dark just after 7 pm. (More about the camp tomorrow).
This summer, when we’re all watching our vacation budgets so carefully, let’s remember there is a lot to see and do wherever you live — and those cities — large and small — want and need your business as much as far flung destinations.
Yes, ski resorts in summer. They might just be the best vacation value going in this summer of great vacation values. Ski instructors around the country whisper that they came to the mountains for the snow but stayed because of the glorious mountain summers.
Another day, another castle. But no one’s complaining. Not in Prague, which many now call The Paris of the East. It’s crowded with tourists on this brilliant summer day.