Bora Bora

Capt. James Cook once declared Bora Bora to be the “pearl of the Pacific”. It is made up of jagged rock peaks surrounded by a beautiful blue lagoon surrounded by a coral reef. We spent 6 days in Bora Bora snorkeling, walking the beach and around town. We had an unprecedented 6 days in a row where nothing broke and there were no urgent repairs so it was wonderful to have lots of time to enjoy heaven.
Bora Bora has been somehow protected from huge monster hotels. There are many resorts on the island but they are only a single story so the skyline remains unscarred. Most of the better resorts have huts with thatched roofs on stilts above the water which start at $500 Canadian per night ($50,000 CFP) and go to over $1,000/night.
The restaurants around the island are crazy expensive with most decent restaurants serving entres between $25 - $60 Cdn. We found a cheep burger hut on the beach but it was still $14.50 Cdn for Steve’s burger, fries and a coke. The view however, was spectacular (same view we get from our boat, but beautiful none the less). I tried a local Polynesian dish called Poisson Cru which is raw Mahi Mahi served in coconut milk and lime juice. It was fabulous. Even the grocery stores were expensive in Bora Bora so we avoided buying anything other than fresh bread and fruits and vegetables.
The long beaches were unmarred by docks so the dive boats and fishing boats had “lifts” to haul their boats out of the water. Some of the dive shops decorated their boats with palm fronds. There were many dive sites where divers would see huge manta rays and sharks. We did some snorkeling and enjoyed the beautiful fish and gigantic clams with florescent blue, green and purple inside.
The anchorages were very deep so it was a new challenge for us. We carry 200 feet of chain which has been adequate up until now. We anchored in 80 feet of water so in order to get a minimum of 3 to 1 ratio (rode to depth), we had to add line onto the end of the chain. This was a challenge because we had to remove the chain from the windlass (box that hauls up the chain) in order to connect the line on the end. We strategized on how to do this without dropping the chain into the water never to be seen again. (This was particularly top of mind for us because when we were leaving Raiatea, we hooked an old anchor and chain that someone had lost on the bottom and we had some difficulty extricating ourselves from it.)
We are heading off to sea again tomorrow on our way to Niue (the world’s smallest independent nation). It is about a 9 day sail to the West. We will be passing close by a couple other islands on the way which we don’t intend to stop at but you never know. We reserve the right to make it up as we go.