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| The Bora Bora lagoon |
We had arrived in Bora Bora and taken a mooring ball (which we almost never do) because anchoring is almost universally prohibited here due both to coral preservation and the depth of the water. The mooring ball attendant drove up in his small power boat. The scene is just like you'd imagine it would be... a good looking, tan, French 20-something dude with Raybans, a relaxed super-cool affect, and, of course, a french hottie sitting next to him sporting that disinterested manner that only French women can pull off. He asked us how long we intended to be in Bora Bora and as we answered "at least 4 weeks" I was struck by how preposterous that is and how fortunate we are to have this life. Four weeks in Bora Bora, unless we decide to stay longer...........definitely didn't see this coming when we moved onto the boat in September of 2011 in Annapolis. In those days we were busy being mystified as to why any white garment getting Chesapeake "water" on it became forever brown. Times have changed.
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| As usual, we have the entire island to ourselves |
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| It's best practice to swim here- you can see the sharks coming |
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| Our world is now different fun shades of blue |
We arrived here after a wonderful time in Moorea. In Moorea, we took care to suss out some aquatic activities to do with Princess Emily, who will be gracing us with a visit in August. Emily loves critters of all kinds, and Moorea is notable for its section of the lagoon where you can swim with sharks and rays. We dinghied to this place full of doubt...........thinking it might disappoint us - kind of like a whale watching excursion with no whales. But the minute we anchored the dinghy and jumped in the water, out came the sharks and rays.
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| No reported black-tip attacks on divers (maybe nobody lived to tell) |
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| Remember not to run (only food runs) |
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| Snuggly, slimy stingrays everywhere... and some beautiful fish too |
They were literally everywhere. It seems the local tour boat operators feed them, so they associate the arrival of a boat with meal time. It did dawn on us that they might be disappointed that we didn't bring fish fingers for them, but hey......we were already in the water at that point. While the sharks seem to have manners, the rays have formed close bonds with some of the tour operators...........as in they will literally climb up a guy's back and snuggle (see above pic). OK, it's kind of a weird, slimy, fish snuggle, but definitely affectionate. Kind of cute. And OK, for a moment I felt bad about the stingray wallet I used to have. It was good that we did this shark warm-up as the next day we went scuba diving and had five sharks swim past us - we have done over 500 scuba dives but previously had only one shark encounter. We know that French Polynesia diving will bring us in contact with many sharks and some of them will not be of the friendly, black tip variety.
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| Upscale accommodations in Moorea......currently closed... |
Like many Polynesian islands, Moorea is surrounded by a protective coral reef. A hike we took allowed us to photograph the reef, island, and water color here.........absolutely amazing. When we were back in Panama in the San Blas islands, we had some doubts about coming to French Polynesia. What if we sail all those thousands of miles and it's just like the Caribbean? Fortunately, it's not. It's substantially more scenic. So those of you either from the developed world or oligarchs/autocrats from the developing world........we recommend this place........5 Tom and Kirstin stars!
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| Inland on Moorea- restrictive zoning has frustrated McDonald's, so far... |
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| View from Magic Mountain on Moorea |
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| Reef on the north coast of Moorea from Magic Mountain |
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| Our home in Moorea- L'ORIENT is nestled in the back of the bay |
But one riddle continues to be with us. Where are all the cruisers ? On our way to French Polynesia we kept hearing that there was a pile up of boats.
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| Cook's Bay- one other sailboat |
Since no countries to the west are open, French Polynesia was supposed to be quite crowded with cruisers. And yet our experience is quite different. Like everywhere else we've been, Bora Bora is nearly empty. A hundred mooring balls and perhaps 15 cruisers. It's nice this way (don't get us wrong)........just not what we expected. Enjoy the pictures.
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| A non-alcoholic drink after a vertical climb (OK it was 11:00 AM) |
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| Music to our ears......easy gas at the fuel dock |
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| More of the EU's largesse- Moorea definitely needed this (it is a Coral Research Center) ! |
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| Only half way through a six mile hike... |
