Blogs from Bora Bora, French Polynesia, Oceania

‘We travel not to escape life but for life not to escape us’ – Anon After 7 days and 15 attempts we finally won trivia. The team was on fire. It’s a good job that nobody listened to me when I said that Antarctica was the only country without an active volcano and that you only need 100,000 record sales for a platinum disc. We put Australia and 1 million respectively. There was also a religious question. ‘Who was Moses wife’. Straight away Anthony and Irene, our Canadian team members wrote ‘Zipporah’ I thought that was some brand of electronic cigarette lighter!! Bill and I had said simultaneously the default biblical name ‘Sarah’. We were thankfully overruled. With our astute teamwork... read more

In things I didn't know, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the US established a military base here during WWII. It didn't see much conflict, but apparently the returning troups (as well as a number that decided to stay permanently) were the start of the island's tourist boom. On all of the other islands I visited, local folks were fairly negative talking about Bora Bora - the ridiculous prices, volume of resorts/tourists, and somewhat less than pristine condition of the main island. These were all true, but it is still absolutely beautiful. For all of the reasons above, particularly price, I only stayed for two nights. Naturally, I assume because of this decision, it rained the full day I was there - fortunately the few hours I had on my arrival/departure dates were a bit better, ... read more

January 18,19, 2014 Overnight we cruised to Bora Bora for a 2 day stop. No dock here so we had to “ tender” out and back to the ship. This is a very beautiful place with only about 5600 residents primarily supporting the tourist business. As this was a USA supply base in the 1940’s they built a runway that is still used today for inter- island flights. Most of the big names in hotels and resorts have facilities here. Some rooms as much as 10,000.00 US per night. A lot of over-water bungalows. There are a few big hotels that closed in the recent recession and as yet have not reopened. Hope is they will open soon as it is important work for the locals. Also a few that were severely damaged in a storm ... read more

Monday, December 16, 2013. Bora. Boring. Never. At the last minute Dee Dee and I decide to take a glass-bottom boat tour. I have struggled with the idea of taking another snorkeling tour, but I’m just coughing too much for open ocean snorkeling. I’m disappointed in myself for not trying but it’s the right decision. The glass bottom boat tour is fun. We see manta rays, eels, clams. A huge variety of colorful fish. Two hours on the ocean. Turquoise waters surrounded by lush green hills. It really looks like a painting. I guess this is the place to add that the coral itself is sad. No colors. Bleached. Under attack like so many reefs in our oceans. Even the clams which are embedded in the coral are bleached. Back to the ship about noon. Just ... read more

Of course we knew it theoretically - our islet is a reef. But it is still a special feeling to stand with your bear feet on a beach that obviously consist of tons of corals. The island of Bora Bora itself is an extincted volcano. Around it corals built a ring that turned into a reef and became more and more massive. Millenniums passing by the volcano sunk into the ocean creating distance to the reef. The reef on the other hand got so wide that plants and animals saddled down on it. This way the beautiful geography of Bora Bora developed into its current formation with the shallow, turquoise lagoon and the ring of islets (motus) around it. From our bungalow on the motu we are directly looking onto the main island with its amazingly ... read more