Bora Bora

 Our second day in Bora Bora and we woke to a drizzly, over cast sky. Apparently this is uncommon at this time of the year, but December-March it’s sometimes like this for a month at a time.

Anyway, after breakfast we went ashore to walk around Viatape, the main town on the island. Because the flat, inhabited area of each island is such a narrow band there seems to not be an obvious town centre but various things are strung out over a long distance. We mostly just walked along the muddy street and looked in a few tourist shops – where we were outraged by the prices (sometimes $10 or more for a fridge magnet). In the end we did splash out on a couple of postcards, and then of course had to find the post office. We made our way back to the ship and it was only mid-morning.

Late morning we had a light lunch because I was heading off on my snorkelling trip at midday. Lynn bravely volunteered to stay behind and start doing the packing – which she broke up with a second lunch and some reading.

For my trip we went ashore and then were loaded onto two 20 foot centre-console speed boats. That meant there were only 5 customers on my boat, and we headed off into the rain to circumnavigate the island with stops to get in the water.

The first stop was a gap between the small islets near the barrier reef. The guide got in with us and lead us on a winding path through the coral in water maybe 10 feet deep.

The second stop was back near the main island, where the shallow water dropped away into the deep water of the channel. We found a large female manta ray, 12 feet wide, which after a few minutes was joined by a slightly smaller male. We watched them swim a loop back and forth along the edge of the reef for some time.

In the third location there was a current coming through the reed which made the water clearer. We found three eagle rays suspended into the water, swimming into the current. Swimming back to the boat we saw sting rays and a number of black tipped reef sharks.

A small distance further on was another patch of coral and a lot of fish. All up I took far too many photos, and I have grouped these together here.

In the evening we went to the quiz (just okay today), had a late dinner and then went to the crew talent show, which was entertaining and variable in quality.

Bora Bora

This was the first of two days in Bora Bora.

After we got up and organised, we decided to go to the small island that Windstar uses, Motu Tapu. Really just a sandy islet that is owned by the nearby Conrad Hotel. We walked about and snorkelled off a couple of points. The water was beautiful and turquoise – it seems that a lot of the lagoon is that colour because it’s only a meter deep, which is nice to splash around but not especially interesting. There are also dark patches, channels 10 meters or so deep, but these were a fair way off.

We went back to the ship, refreshed and had lunch, then early afternoon we went on an island tour, this time in a bus. Well, a wooden box made up as a bus on the back of a truck.

It turned out that it was a circumnavigation of the island on the coastal ring round, which is the standard feature of all these mountainous islands. This involved a place that made pareaus (the local sarong) and then a series of points with nice views, of the mountains, beaches, and often of expensive hotels with over-water bungalows. That pretty much summed up the island.

We got back to the boat around 3.30pm. This gave us another rest, and then at 5pm all the passengers were shuttled back to Motu Tapu where there was a barbeque and the Pacific island staples of Polynesian dancing and fire dancing. There was also a great sunset, and we were not out too late.

Taha'a

Fortunately I was starting to feel better today, because we had things to do. We woke up as we arrived at Taha'a. In these polynesian languages you tend to pronounce each vowel individually. So it's "ta-ha-a".

Anyway, the important thing is we're back in the Society Islands group. This includes Tahiti, and we're within view of Bora Bora, where we'll be tomorrow. Unfortunately that also makes it the last section of the cruise.

We had a 7am breakfast - early for us - then went ashore for an island tour. This was about 30 people on benches in the back of utes. We landed on the east side, at Fa'a'aha Bay, then they drove us up the mountains to a viewing point.

From there we went down to the west side of the island and drove clockwise. Stopping at a pearl farm where they explained the process for culturing pearl and (naturally) then tried to sell people pearls. 

Next we went on to a vanilla farm, where the same cycle happened. The vanilla bean process was fairly interesting, but honestly just riding around the island was the best part.

We were then taken back to the bay and boated out to the ship. We had a quick lunch, then got changed and went by boat out to the small island, Motu Mahaea, which the cruise ship had set up for the afternoon. A barbeque, bar, deck chairs and various watersports equipment. The logistics was quite impressive.

It turned out to be fairly windy and there was a bit of a current. So the only thing we could really do was go snorkelling off the south side of the island (right side in the picture above). Which was great. Typical of things we've seen before, but very pleasant.

We got back to the boat mid afternoon to freshen up and rest. At around 5 the boat unmoored to make it across to Bora Bora in the evening where we could spend the night at anchor in calm water.

Rather than leave the reef where we were, on the east, the ship motored south, between Taha'a and Raiatea and up to the west side to a channel there. Then it's a short hop north west to Bora Bora.