Beautiful Bora Bora

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Day One:

Today we arrived in Bora Bora around 1 PM. The plane ride was short, but scenic. Flying over the island before landing was beautiful! From the airport, we had to take a long ride on a boat taxi to our hotel, the Sofitel Motu. (A motu is like a tiny island separated from the coast of an island by a narrow channel of water) One thing that struck me right away was how hot and humid Bora Bora was compared to Moorea!

We splurged on an overwater bungalow. It was great! Spacious, pretty, and private. Plus, from our balcony, we could see the island from all directions...what a view! 😊 After checking out our room, we headed to the hotel snack bar for lunch. We split a cheeseburger and French fries ($22!). It was pretty good. Also, they served Heinz ketchup, so I was happy. We learned in Moorea that Tahitian ketchup is very salty with lots of vinegar.

After lunch, we headed up to the View Point, a look out at the top of the motu. What incredible sights of all of Bora Bora. We went back to our room and Bryan decided to go snorkeling. The neat thing about the overwater bungalow is that we could just jump in the water from our balcony. There were fish and coral all around us. While he explored the water, I sat on the balcony and read. Very relaxing!

We ate dinner at the hotel restaurant because we were too lazy to venture off the motu...we'd have to wait for a boat taxi to go anywhere. It was also good that we did not leave the hotel for dinner because Bryan started to come down with a cold. 😞

Day Two:

Our day started out fine enough--a gorgeous sunrise, a yummy buffet breakfast. We came back to the hotel after breakfast to get ready for our shark feeding excursion and headed out to the dock for our 8:45 pick up. At 9 AM, Bryan went and asked the front desk if they knew why no one came to pick us up. Apparently, we were supposed to meet our group at a different hotel across the lagoon! No one told us that! Luckily, they will let us go on tomorrow's excursion.

So, since we were already slathered in SPF 30, we decided to snorkel around our bungalow. It was much deeper and nicer than Moorea, plus there were lots more fish. We relaxed in our room till around noon. Then, we took the water taxi across the lagoon and walked around the island a bit.

We ate lunch at La Bounty. It was good--Bryan had a cheeseburger and I had a Hawaiian pizza. Since neither of us like seafood very much, we were very limited in our food options in French Polynesia! We ate a lot of Americanized meals. Anyway, as we ate, it started pouring down rain! We sat in the restaurant until it was just sprinkling, then headed back to our hotel.

It poured for the rest of the day! Not only did it rain, it was incredibly windy too. So, we sat in our room and read all afternoon. We had dinner reservations for 7:30 PM at Le Maitai for their buffet and Polynesian show. So, in the downpour, we took the boat back across the lagoon and headed to the restaurant. Sadly, the food was only okay. The show was really cheesy, but the music was good.

So, that is our pathetic first whole day in Bora Bora. We went to bed excited about our shark feeding trip in the morning!

Day Three:

Today was another rainy, windy, cold day in Bora Bora. The only difference was, we were out in the elements! One would think that if you cannot see five feet in front of you because of horizontal rains, you would not go out on a boat for FOUR hours.....wrong!

Despite the rain and cold, the shark feeding excursion was really fun! For the actual shark feeding part, we stopped out by the barrier reef. The guides let out a rope and we all got in the water and grabbed onto the rope. On the other side of the rope, the guides threw food in the water to attract the animals. We could see tons of sting rays and fish (a big barracuda!). Then, came about 15 sharks! The black tip reef sharks are (only) about 5 ft. long, but it was still so crazy to be that close to such scary creatures!! All the animals just swam around, happily eating, as we took lots of pictures. What a great experience!

About 15 minutes later, we hopped back on the boat and headed for the coral gardens near Hotel Bora Bora to snorkel. The part we snorkeled ranged from a depth of about 6 ft. to about 25 ft. Bryan and I chose to swim in the deeper water-where the coral was not as close to us. We saw so many cool fish! There were literally hundreds of them swimming around the coral. My favorite, which I did not get a picture of, was a blue-green, almost iridescent one. It was the prettiest color. There were also lots of clams in the coral beds.

We snorkeled for about a half an hour. Then, we traveled on the boat for about another half an hour (in the pouring rain!) to a lagoonarium on a little motu. Here we dried off for a bit, then got right back in the water. We swam in two different "pools" of water. In each, we swam WITH the manta rays, eagle rays, jack fish, black tip reef sharks, and tons of (yellow) lemon sharks. It was quite a scary experience for me! I actually did not mind the sharks so much, it was the rays that freaked me out. They were all over and I just did not want one to touch me. We also saw some sea urchins along the fences of the pools.

We got out, dried off and ate some snacks...yummy fresh fruit! There were the cutest tiny bananas that were only about 3 inches big. I also tried some fresh coconut, which was not too good...too crunchy. After our snack, they took us back to the hotel.

We arrived wet, cold, tired and hungry! So, we ate lunch at the hotel....what else, a burger and fries! Bryan still was not feeling his best and it was still raining. So, we spent the afternoon in our room, reading. Around 4 PM, it FINALLY stopped raining! 😊

For dinner, we were excited to go to the famous restaurant, Bloody Mary's. What a fun place! It was totally an American atmosphere, which to be honest, was nice for a change. Bryan said he needed to be de-Frenched, so this was a good cure. The bread was yummy, the salads had Ranch dressing (every other salad we ate had a very vinegar-y dressing), and we just kept ordering drinks--margaritas, catamarans (fruity with vodka) and pina coladas.

To order your food, there is no written menu. You walk up to a bar that has raw meat on display. Here, you tell the bartender what you want to eat. Very interesting! I ordered grilled sweet and sour chicken, Bryan got a rib eye steak...with mashed potatoes! We ate our Westernized meal while listening to country music(!) and burying our toes in the sand. There's no floor at Bloody Mary's, just sand....you check your shoes at the door! We even ran into our "friends" Chris and Jen. We met them in Moorea on the 4x4 tour, saw them again on our shark feeding excursion and met them at Bloody Mary's too. What a small world!

After dinner, we went back to our hotel and got ready for bed. Hopefully, there will be no rain for our last day in Bora Bora!

Day Four:

Today was sunny and beautiful! 😊 We got up before the sun (about 5:50 AM) and hiked up to the View Point to take pictures of the sunrise. It was amazing!

We went back to our room about 7 and got ready for the day. We picked up a rental car so we could spend the day exploring the island. (this time it was a white Fiat Panda...with air conditioning!)

All morning, we drove around the island and took pictures. We stopped in the "big" city of Vaitape and did some shopping. I bought some souvenirs here, the same ones I should have bought cheaper in Moorea. Oh well!

We ate lunch at Ben's Pizza. This "charming, open air hut" was recommended in all the literature we read. It was essentially Ben's house with plastic tables and chairs set out on the front patio. Ben cooked us a Hawaiian pizza--he was not even wearing a shirt! As we waited for our pizza, we got eaten alive by mosquitos and got to listen to Ben, his wife and son arguing with one another. It was a very strange experience....but the pizza was good. 😊

After lunch, we went to find the World War II guns on the island. The ones we had access to were way out on a peninsula (the rest are on private property). So, we had to park and then walk about a half an hour. On the dirt trail, there were some great picture spots--looking out over the lagoon, Hiro, the big rock there, Mt. Otemanu. However, the trail was overgrown with grass and trees. Plus, parts of the trail were right above a garbage dump, so there were many flies!

We finally found the WWII guns. There were two of them, along with a cement bunker. While the trip there was gross, it was neat to see a piece of history. After taking pictures, we hightailed it back to the car, all sweaty and tired.

We went back to the hotel just in time to rent a kayak. We paddled to the far side of the motu where there were coral gardens. The coral was all over the surface, which I do not like. So, I stayed in the kayak while Bryan snorkeled. He said he saw tons of cool fish there. We did not stay long because we had to return the kayak (the shop was closing for the day).

We went to the Bamboo House for dinner. The ambiance at the restaurant reminded me of Les Timpaniers in Moorea...quiet and romantic with lots of candlelight. It was nice. Bryan was excited to order pasta, instead of his usual steak. I, however, ordered prime rib! I also finally got to try a Maitai to drink...boy, have I been missing out. They are delicious! For dessert, we had chocolate cake with coconut ice cream. I did not think I would like the ice cream, but the coconut flavor was not too strong. It worked really well with the cake. Mmm!

After dinner, we went back to the hotel. We had to pack and get ready for the last part of our trip, Rangiroa!

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