February 16, 2019

Last night the countdown to the Oscars continued with the movie “The Favourite”.  Well, it was not my favorite.  The performances were good, but I didn’t really like the movie so much. We will see if the Oscar voters like it.

Today we arrived in Bora Bora by 8 AM.  We had an 8 AM tour scheduled.  Here are some pictures as we sailed into the harbor.  This is a tender port.

Bora Bora is one of the islands of Tahiti – the largest marine territory in the world, covering an area of 5.5 million kilometers (equivalent to the land mass of Europe!) Of the 118 islands I mentioned in my last post, very few are occupied.  You can see a couple of the small ones in these pictures.

Our tour was an island circumnavigation by jetboat with snorkeling at one spot and swimming at a sand bar just off Matira’s white sandy beach.  The water here is such a brilliant blue and so clear it is amazing. And the colors are ever changing. You can see the color changes as the depth changes.

Our jetboat captain was Alex and his assistant was Keatu. To our surprise, there were only 3 passengers and then Rene, our destinations manager, and one of the ship’s receptionists joined us so only five plus Alex and Keatu were on this adventure.

We had a fast and exhilarating ride around the island.  Alex pointed out many sights including the amazing hotels that are actually kind of tiki huts on pilings in the water.  We passed one of the time shares – very expensive and exclusive – Marlon Brando owns one full time. They cost – on average – $20,000/month for the smallest.  The Four Seasons Hotel costs $5000/night!

The first pictures are of the Four Seasons and the second is one of the two Intercontinental hotels on Bora Bora.

Here is one needing a new roof!

And here we are with our fellow jet boaters.

We had a snorkeling stop at the Coral Gardens which is said to be the best snorkeling on the island.

Norm took lots of fish and coral pictures with his new underwater camera.  I had some bread and the fish came right up to me to eat it.

We then went around another part of the island to a sand bar where we went for a swim.  Alex wove some coconut leaves together to make a basket and he chopped open a coconut and fruit – grapefruit, bananas and papaya, and we enjoyed it with fresh pineapple juice. All of the fruit came from Alex’s own back yard!

Here’s the name of the boat and some of me swimming as well as the sting ray that swam right by me!  Norm has on the hat that we were given as around the world guests.

Alex entertained us by singing and playing his ukelele.  What a great day.

When we returned to shore, Alex showed off his butt – and said “don’t put it on facebook”, with a big grin!  So here it is in the blog.

This boat is the airport shuttle – the airport is on a separate island. And here are some local musicians entertaining us at the port.

We had time to do a bit of shopping and we went back to a shop where we purchases a gorgeous necklace last time we were here.  If you go, it is called Bora Home Galerie. I bought a wonderfully designed pearl necklace and a hand painted dress. The shop keeper remembered us from our last visit.  And we will visit again, next time.

The weather forecast called for wind and rain but the day was really lovely.  At the swimming spot we got about 4 minutes of light “liquid sunshine” but that was it for the day.