Wednesday, January 29th—Our 26th Cruise Day—Bora Bora

Wednesday, January 29^th—Our 26^th Cruise Day—Bora Bora

We departed Moorea about 5:00 PM on January 28^th and sailed overnight to Bora Bora—arriving the next day at about 8:00 AM. The distance from Moorea to Bora Bora is about 165 miles, and this would be our third (and last!) island in the Society Islands of French Polynesia. We were anchored off the town of Vaitape—this would be a “tender port.”

The navigator Roogeveen was the first European to sight Bora Bora in 1722 and was followed by Captain James Cook in 1796.

Bora Bora is a “barrier reef island”—described by Wikipedia as follows:

In 1842, Darwin explained the creation of coral atolls in the southern Pacific Ocean based upon observations made during a five-year voyage aboard the HMS Beagle from 1831 to 1836. Accepted as basically correct, his explanation involved considering that several tropical island types—from high volcanic island, through barrier reef island, to atoll—represented a sequence of gradual subsidence of what started as an oceanic volcano. He reasoned that a fringing coral reef surrounding a volcanic island in the tropical sea will grow upwards as the island subsides (sinks), becoming an "almost atoll", or barrier reef island, as typified by an island such as Aitutaki in the Cook Islands, Bora Bora and others in the Society Islands. The fringing reef becomes a barrier reef for the reason that the outer part of the reef maintains itself near sea level through biotic growth, while the inner part of the reef falls behind, becoming a lagoon because conditions are less favorable for the coral and calcareous algae responsible for most reef growth. In time, subsidence carries the old volcano below the ocean surface and the barrier reef remains. At this point, the island has become an atoll.

It can be seen from a map and the description above that Bora Bora is a “barrier reef island” or “almost atoll”—meaning that there is a large central island of volcanic origin, surrounded by a lagoon, and outside the lagoon is a circle of coral reefs and islands. The local name for an island in the outer reef islands is “motu.”

Today, Bora Bora enjoys the reputation of being one of the most beautiful and unspoiled islands in the South Pacific—a description with which we would heartily agree!

Since we had just one day on Bora Bora and since the water, beaches, and motu islands were the highlights, we decided to take the three hour Holland America excursion titled “Motu Islet Lagoon Cruise and Beach Break.” So our day started about 8:30 AM when we met with our tour group and took a tender ashore to the town of Vaitape. After arriving on shore, we boarded the catamaran that would take us out on our tour.

The catamaran first took us past Raititi Point, and then past Motu Toopua and Motu Tapu. After a 45 minute trip (we had front seats on the catamaran, and therefore a great view), we anchored and tied up just off the beach of a private motu and waded ashore. There we were given about an hour and a half to relax on the beach, go snorkeling, and explore the island. Bill choose to go snorkeling right away—there was a nice little coral reef to explore—while Pat enjoyed reading her book on a picnic table. But before long, Bill was able to convince Pat to go into the water, which we did until a snack was served that consisted of fruit, crackers, cakes and coconut, which was just perfect for that time of day.

Soon after lunch, we re-boarded the catamaran and began our journey back to Vaitape. Along the way, we anchored in a shallow section of the reef for stingray feeding and black tip shark viewing—similar to what we did in Moorea. And even though we had had a similar experience the day before, it was still awe inspiring to hold a stingray that was almost as large as we were and observe close up a school of sharks—each of which was 5 feet long or more!

After our shark/ray encounter, we hoisted anchor and continued on towards Vaitape. Along the way we again saw the overwater, thatched roof bungalows that are offered as hotel rooms—at great expense. This style of overwater hotel rooms is common in all of French Polynesia—including Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora, and New Caledonia.

Back in Vaitape, it was early afternoon and the last tender was not until 4:30 PM, so we had some time to explore on our own. Matira Beach—at the southern end of the central island—was recommended to us, so we decided to go down that way, and maybe get something to eat and do some swimming on the beach.

Public transportation on Bora Bora—and other French Polynesian Islands—is often via “Le Truck.” And as the name implies, these were trucks which had benches placed in their pick-up bed for passengers to sit upon. It was a little difficult, but into “Le Truck” we climbed and soon we were on our way to Matira Beach.

During the 20 minute drive to the beach, we passed “Bloody Mary’s”—a very famous restaurant and pub on Povai Bay. But we didn’t stop—we were traveling independently and had to be careful about our time. (If we missed the last tender, we would be on our own to get to our next port of call!) When we arrived at Matira Beach, it was HOT!!!! We went down and onto the beach, but soon were looking for a watering hole out of the sun. Fortunately we quickly found a place which was right on the beach with a beautiful view. We ordered lunch and more than one can of the local beer (who’s counting?) and soon were joined by our friends Gaston and Carol Lacroix. Gaston and Carol are French Canadians (Fortunately for us they speak good English!) and also passengers on the Amsterdam who just happened to come into the same restaurant at the time we were there. And so we enjoyed lunch and more than one beer together. And this has happened to us so many times—we go off exploring on our own, and then by chance run into friends who are like minded. Call it serendipity!

Bill took a quick swim from the beach, but by about 3:30, it was time to head back to Vaitape via “Le Truck” to catch a tender back to the Amsterdam. We arrived in Vaitape before 4:00 PM, and discovered that there was a Chinese grocery store near the port, and we hoped to get several cartons of fruit juice to take back with us. Fruit juice and rum drinks are the perfect beverage for hot days in French Polynesia! So after purchasing about 10 cartons of fruit juice (we already had rum on board!), we caught one of the last tenders back, and soon were onboard the Amsterdam enjoying the sail-away party.

We left Bora Bora about 5:30 PM, and our ship continued in a westward direction. We would have Thursday, January 30^th and Friday January 31^st as very welcome “sea days” after 3 wonderful but very intense days on three different islands of the Society Islands. Our next port of call would be Pago Pago, American Samoa on Saturday, February 1^st.