Page 5: Moorea 2005

From august 2004 until september 2005 we lived in Moorea the sister island of Tahiti, 17 km away.
We had arrived in Papeete on a wednesday and after a first week-end in Moorea we went bach to Tahiti, packed our gear and the next wednesday we were in Moorea to stay.
The idea was to be based in paradise, work, save money and the day we had enough, go travel and come back when the money was finished.
The first three months I was taking the ferry every week day in the morning to sell my pictures in Tahiti, starting with Papeete and then back in Moorea in the evening.
I started to sell enlargements of my best photos to decorate medical waiting rooms in France in 1998; there was no competitors I was alone on that market, doctors liked photography and travelling, they had no time no take care of decoration, they had enough money to buy a few photographs, I was delivering pictures ready to be hooked on their walls and they were very happy to take a break for some half an hour or so and dream a bit between two sick patients.
So it worked good and I started to sell our latest photos from the Easter Island, Chile and Bolivia were we had been travelling just before.
It took me three months to visit all doctors, dentists, masseurs, etc... clinics, hospitals... in Tahiti and in Moorea and then we had to find a new way to make money because I couldn't decently go back to the first doctor after only three months.
In France my customers were seeing me once every 2 or 3 years and that was ok;; with new pictures each time.

Living on the beach near Affareaitu on Moorea we realised some tourists were going on a pirogue to a small motu (tiny island) just in front of our house; 2 minutes away with the 40 horses powered pirogue that was leaving 100 meters away from our fare (house).
So one day we decided to go and check what this was about...
And we discovered TeIki Pembrun's "Lagoonarium" a little paradise in paradise.
Teiki had set an underwater fence to make a huge natural aquarium in front of one of the beach; the tourist could swim with two different species of turtles, two types of sharks, two types of rays and a multitude of coloured fishes plus some moray eels.
They would pay for the boat trip and then everything was to enjoy freely on the motu for the day; palms, masks and snorkel, tea, coffee and some small bungalows where they could rest in the shade.
This was brilliant so we decided to spend all the money we just made and buy our first digital camera, a water proof housing and our first computer too.
We would take under water pictures of the tourists with sharks, turtles and rays; we would show them their pictures on the computer and burn a CD when they wanted…

Some days there were no tourists and so we would take pictures for our own pleasure; I took that picture of Cécile under water and then turned it up side down for a better effect.