Bora Bora
On a side note .....we had made a comment to Thierry (on Manihi) that we had wished we had more time on Manihi as we were delighted with everything there, I’m sure in part to our relationship with the dive center….. such that we felt like we were part of their family. Thierry said to us that if we thought Manihi was nice and the water was beautiful ….. wait until we see the
lagoon of Bora Bora…..Once again he was right!!! I have never in my life seen colors this vibrant and brilliant. If I said it once I said it a thousand times on video “This is UNBELEIVABLE!!!!” While pictures do a decent job of capturing the beauty ….. nothing beats being right there. An absolutely mystical Island…..and it is one of the most recognized in the South Pacific. Tropical
flowers were everywhere ….even plain old bushes had beautiful flowers on them.
Bora Bora is part of the Society Islands….Raiatea, Moorea, Tahiti, Huahine and a few more……All mountainous islands covered in lush green growth. It’s about a 45 minute plane ride from Tahiti …and yes the airport has a tower!!!!! The airport however does reside on a Motu on the northern portion of the island and to the best of my knowledge no roads access the airport…..Transport to all resorts is via water taxis or the resort’s boat. It also seemed as thought the prop planes that flew into Bora Bora had higher capacity than what we had flown in Manihi. That being said ….. Lots more people!!!!! A word of advice that I failed to mention in the Manihi report…..WATCH YOUR LUGGAGE WEIGHT ….. because the inter-island air carrier will nail you if you don’t…..we are $250 lighter in the wallet !!!!!!
The island and the atoll surrounding the lagoon has many resorts and more being built (the Sheraton) ….The Island is something like 17 –18 miles around (only one road to travel so you cant get lost). The highest peak is
Mt. Otemanu (2,400’) and Mt Pahia (2,200’) From our location three separate resorts could be seen and we were on our own Motu about a mile from the main island. This was something we had in Manihi, unspoiled views but no mountainous terrain, …..which was kinda nice.
The Sofitel Motu
Another WOW and yet another WOW…
What a view….A boat picks us up at the airport and whisks us away to the Motu. Upon approach of the Motu’s dock a Native Polynesian is awaiting our arrival as he is singing and playing the ukulele…..pretty good I might add. Then one of the concierges greets us with cool, wet face clothes and a tropical drink for each of us…… and of course the customary flower Lei. We are escorted of to our bungalow where somehow our bags have already arrived (not quite sure how that happened so quick … but who’s complaining) The bungalow was quite impressive….. all done in palm leaves/thatched roof and exotic woods….Mahogany and Teak….The floor had the window in it to look through to the lagoon . Through the HUGE 10-12 foot sliding doors was a deck that had a thatch roof over it. Down two steps was another deck that had two lounge chairs in the sun, and then down five more stairs was a platform at lagoon level for swimming and
snorkeling. Snorkeling was pretty good , as the more you swam around the more you would
find. After being in and around this I finally understood the rating this place received!! Oh yes there was air conditioning also…
Dining
The options were much better here (even though we again had a private restaurant on the Motu)….as we could request a boat (the boat was on demand) to take us to the main land and we could go out to dinner at the local restaurants. You would make a reservation with the restaurant and they would come and pick you in a shuttle bus and drop you at the restaurant. Again as mentioned before the cost was pretty steep. The food was also very good at the restaurants which we patronized.
Diving
Well the center we went with was Blue Nui as we had a package (well we just prepaid the dives hence a lower rate)….I believe there to be 4 or 5 dive centers on Bora Bora…..naturally the one we are with is on the exact opposite side of the island (we are on the South east corner and the center is on the northeast corner)………Really not a problem but we had to shuttle across to the main land , get picked up by one of the Dive masters…..drive around the island about 35 minutes, get on another boat to the dive center…..Thankfully they had all our gear locked up also….Bottom line it sure wasn’t as convenient as on Manihi. Pearl Beach on Bora Bora, which we were taken on a tour of …about three times the size of our resort but very nice, is the resort to stay in if you want to dive with this center as it is right on the premises.
I had several discussions about this trip with Wendy, the owner’s wife…..and she was a tremendous asset in making this trip work. The owner, Gilles, ended up taking the two of us on two dives - private dives as we were the only customers.
Again the water clarity was fantastic , except in the lagoon, and the life was good ……but we still felt Manihi had many more colors flashing all about on the reef. Water temp was about the same …..but the wind was not a persistent as it was on the other atoll.
We did a Manta dive in the lagoon ….but it was pale in comparison to our dives on Manihi…..many more divers, must have crossed the path of about 12-14 other divers (I think we got back to the surface and 4 or 5 other boats were there with divers coming and going…….Also the vis was quite poor in contrast to the other dives) . The reef however was pretty nice and had a good variety of life on it….All sorts of reef fish, several shark species, Morays, Turtles and corals. The reef gradually sloped away into the depths instead of a wall plunging into a dark blue abyss.
There was a nice site outside the atoll on the northwest side of the island that I wished we had more time to play on. It was Called Muri Muri or the White Valley. Water clarity was very good as you swam down the mooring to around 65’. At this point there was a sand bottom with lots of coral heads……and quite a few
sharks….. Underwater we swam to the edge of this reef to a drop off that lead to a pure white sand bottom that reflected light up into the water column. There was lots to see but not enough time to do it in…..as we had fifteen minute swims to and from this area and the depth limited our air….If I recall we were down around 95-98 feet…Nice dive just wished we could have put more time into it. The site also seemed to be a hard dive site to get to as it was on the windward side of the Island …hence weather ruled when the boat could get there……we were lucky that on our last day of diving the ocean settled down and allowed us to make this dive. The dive center seemingly rearranged a dive or two to facilitate this dive as they seem to consider it an advanced dive……although I couldn’t figure out why……other than the depth you could reach….. personally I enjoyed this dive more than the others on Bora Bora. After that dive we did a modified drift……well more like swim dive along the reef at Tapu (Tapu is a small motu inside the reef on the west side of Bora Bora) right outside the pass in the atoll. This is where all the ships enter and leave Faanui Bay. This was where we did the majority of the dives.
Ok my fingers hurt and I'm sure your eyes hurt also ....Thanks for letting us share this with you!!!!!
thats was great
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