Bora Bora, French Polynesia

WOW!!! What can I say about Bora Bora?? Whatever I say or whichever photos I publish on this Blog will fail to even slightly illustrate the beauty of it. I have seen many places of natural beauty around the World – but how can they be compared to each other?  Bora Bora is just STUNNING – and was everything that I was expecting it to be. Sometimes, when you finally see a famous place that you have seen many photos of, it can be a little disappointing. But, for me, Bora Bora lived up to it’s reputation completely and I have never seen anything like it before.

We only had a short port stop here – last tender boat back to the ship was only 2PM. Nobody seems to know why – and it was a shame that such a fantastic port received such a short visit. I have heard that Bora Bora is all about it’s very large lagoon. I cannot confirm that because we saw almost nothing of the island itself and spent most of our time on and in the lagoon. This place definitely calls for us to return to it – even after such a short time since our departure.  EDIT – I have spoken to another passenger who did a 4WD tour to a high point on the Island. He reported that the 360 degree view of the famous lagoon was outstanding.
A group of us had arranged to take a “Swim with the Sharks/Rays” tour with PATRICK (website here). We thoroughly recommend his tour and other recommendations can be found elsewhere on the Net. Note that Bora Bora’s Patrick is not the same person as the Patrick who gave us a 4WD tour on Tahiti.

The tour was split into three parts. The first involved us leaving the lagoon through the opening in the reef, dropping anchor in about 20 metres of water and snorkelling to see the black-tipped reef sharks and larger Lemon sharks. The water was so clear that the sharks scavenging on the ocean floor could be seen very clearly. The second part was snorkelling above a coral garden inside the lagoon in about 5 metres of water and the third was conducted in waist deep water where we fed the Stingrays (and other fish who wanted a meal, including Reef sharks which came quite close to the group of us). I am not a strong or very confident swimmer – but, as the boat has an outrigger attached to it, I felt completely safe snorkelling within the area bounded by the boat and the outrigger – using the outrigger as something to hang onto when I tired a little.  Of course, this was only for the two deep water snorkel sites – the only danger in the shallow water area where we fed the Rays was that a Ray almost pushed me over in it’s enthusiasm to get a piece of fish from me.

One of Patrick’s boats	On our way to the sharks and stingrays	Safe snorkelling in very deep water
That shark is close to those legs!!	Waiting for the stingrays to arrive	Wife to Stingray - “Where do you think you are going??”
Feeding stingrays through their nostrils	Nice fishy, friendly fishy!!	Meanwhile, the sharks are circling, looking for leftovers

Look at that water!

I wonder what the working people are doing today??