Bora Bora

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Actually we didn’t ache at all today which was strange, but we still decided to have a relaxing day to make up for all the walking yesterday.

We went to the reception and chatted to Martine about which trips were best. She turned us off the ones we’d been thinking of doing and instead we found ourselves booking one for tomorrow that we hadn’t considered that she said was amazing. It was an all day island tour with snorkelling, swimming with sharks and rays and lunch on a motu.

We grabbed our beach bag and headed to the public beach which was about three minutes away. It had a wide stretch of soft white sand, with a shallow sandy bottomed lagoon that stretched as far as the eye could see. There was no coral in the water, no fish were visible, no sea cumbers, no rocks, just sand and clear pale greeny blue water. Straight away I had to jump in and found that it was colder than the beach next to our bungalow, but as the sun was already baking at 10.30am it didn’t matter. I enjoyed floating and being carried by the current along the beach side before getting out to lay on a towel for a while. I had a book with me but I just couldn’t take my eyes off the view so instead I just sat up propped on my elbows looking out over the water. Every now and again when I felt energetic I grabbed the binoculars and looked at boats in the distance. That’s how we spent the whole morning - jumping in, having a swim and then laying in the sun to dry off.

We tried to debate about where the best beach so far has been as we swam in the lagoon but it was difficult as there were so many variables. In terms of best sandy beach and lagoon I think this wins, but there is no snorkelling here so I’m just not sure.

Around lunchtime we got tempted by the smells from the snack shacks on the beach and decided it was time to head back to our room for a baguette before we spent some money. After lunch we spent some time in the shade before heading out to the little beach outside our bungalow for a while. Initially we’d been the only guests here and it had been lovely and quiet but suddenly more people had arrived and the beach had about three other people on it which made it feel busy to us.

In the evening we headed to a restaurant called Bloody Marys. It’s one of those places that everyone has to visit when they visit Bora, and outside it had long lists of famous people who’ve been there. The novelty is that there are no menus - as you arrive you are shown a platter of fish and meats on ice and told the prices, and you’re asked to pick what you want. As we’d both had steak and fish last night we both decided to go for pork ribs.

The place was really quirky with tables made from three halves of a coconut tree that were stuck together and polished, and the stools were coconut stumps with a round top on. The floor was covered with sand and all of the staff worked barefoot.

Our food was really good. Unfortunately as the meals were so expensive we couldn’t stretch to dessert even though we could have managed it.

The restaurants all have mini buses picking up guests from hotels and dropping them back, mostly for free, so by 7.30pm we headed back to grab some wine from our bungalow and sat on the beach looking at the stars. We still didn’t see any more shooting stars but I did see my first moving satellite.

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