Bora Bora is one of fourteen Society Islands, the westernmost of the five island groups that make up French Polynesia.
Whilst our journey from Tahiti to Moorea yesterday took just a couple of hours, reaching Bora Bora would require us to sail at full speed all night. Usually, the arrival is scheduled for 11am, but because two very large cruise ships were due to arrive early on our second morning at Bora Bora (the only port of call where we would be docked for two days), our captain had promised us an earlier arrival so we could make the most of the island before it became flooded with loud Americans.
In theory, a good idea, but in practice, it won’t have made much difference to too many people’s experience of Bora Bora, because unless you had tours pre-booked, there wasn’t an awful lot available to fill those extra couple of hours, and no-one would have pre-booked anything that was due to start before 11am.
In fact… we didn’t have a plan for our first day in Bora Bora, so we headed across on the tender and spent a few minutes discussing options with a very friendly Tahitian gentleman who introduced himself as Ben. Ben resells tours for several of the island’s operators so they don’t all need to sit at the dock with a banner and a credit card machine. Surely an impossible job when hundreds of people come flooding off a large cruise ship, but we were just about the only ones ashore, so it made perfect sense for Ben to run us through our options and take a small commission for his time.
We didn’t much fancy jet skiing, and the underwater bike tour (!) wasn’t running. All of the snorkeling boats had already set sail, and though we could probably have found someone to take us on a cruise around the island, that did sound a bit… lame. Eventually, we chose one of the activities that we could actually have booked onboard our cruise ship, but, even accounting for Ben’s commission, we still paid 20% less than Wind Star would have charged us.
So our afternoon’s activity: Aqua Safari – the closest you can get to scuba diving without actually swimming!
Because we had not booked through Windstar, the Aqua Safari operator was required to go to absurd lengths to keep us separate from those who had paid the on-board premium! So while our fellow cruisers were whisked directly from Vaitape pier to the dive site, we were driven around to a private jetty a couple of miles down the coast and set sail from there.
By the time we’d made our circuitous arrival at the dive site, the other safariers were already below water. Wearing 30kg helmets that are attached to the boat via an air hose – thus providing a means of breathing underwater – you descend a 10-foot ladder to the ocean floor, and then have 30 minutes to walk around, observing and feeding the fish, and hopefully making friends with a stingray or two.
So one by one, we climbed down the ladder til our shoulders were submerged, then had a helmet placed onto our heads before we continued down to the ocean floor. We were accompanied by our “dive master” who was using conventional scuba gear, enabling her to swim around us, making sure everyone was happy, and taking photos.
Once Kit and I were safely down on the ocean floor, our first challenge was getting used to having terrible depth perception! Looking through an inch or two of open air, then a thick glass window, with an ocean of slightly murky water beyond, causes things to appear considerably closer than they actually are, and worse, because the helmet has three windows (left, right and front) – not one continuous one – looking to either side is very disorientating!
The other challenge was keeping balance. Though it is quite easy to stand upright and walk on a flat surface, if you try to jump, or walk up or down a slope, then the weight of the helmet will either squash your nose, or pull you forward. If you do lose balance, then it is difficult to correct yourself because the weight of the helmet introduces considerable inertia.
Added to that there was – of course – a degree of trepidation involved in being four metres underwater in a helmet that only provides a seal because it is heavy enough to be pushing down on your shoulders. If you do happen to move your head around too much, you can feel the seal breaking ever so slightly, and though I suppose it couldn’t happen, I spent most of our thirty minute experience waiting for the helmet to fill up with water!
At one point, Kit’s air supply failed, and he needed to use an emergency bell to attract the attention of the dive master. As we had been told before we began our dive, no-one can hear you scream underwater!! By the time she’d swum over though, the problem had corrected itself… just in time, as he was beginning to feel a little light-headed!
When we first reached the ocean floor, we were surrounded by hundreds of colourful fish – Wrasses, Angel Fish, Flounders, and Groupers to name but a few. This could have had something to do the fact that a small bread roll in a net had been attached to our helmets! For five minutes, we got some amazing views of the fish as they frantically nibbled at the disintegrating bread, but once it had run out, we were no longer quite such an attraction.
By the time the bread had run out, however, our dive master had finished helping the others out of the water, so we had her undivided attention. First she attracted a sting ray over to us by pretending that she had food for it (she didn’t!), and we had plenty of opportunity to give it a back rub! The fins are very soft, but the centre of its back, and particularly its tail, are very hard and spiny.
The only really disappointing thing about the “dive” was the fact that we were not allowed to go far from the boat. Of course, this was completely necessary, since we were attached to it by an air hose! But it did mean there wasn’t a huge amount to see beyond the fishes and ray that were swimming in the immediate vicinity of the boat… and a large chunk of coral that we were both able to take a close-up look at.
Soon our thirty minutes were up. The dive master signaled for us to return to the base of the ladder, and we had the rather challenging task of climbing up with a 30kg weight on our shoulders. This wasn’t so difficult underwater, but as soon as the helmet breached the surface of the water, it felt considerably heavier.
For our second day on Bora Bora, we had an all-day tour lined up. In the morning we would be snorkeling. After a barbecue lunch on a private motu (island), we’d return to Bora Bora for an afternoon exploring the island by 4×4.
The snorkeling segment of the tour visits number of different spots out on the lagoon, each with a different attraction. First though, we needed to pick up a Chinese family who had booked the same tour. Bora Bora has several 5* hotels, most of which are out on the coral rim that surrounds the main island, rather than being on the island itself, and of course, the only way to reach these hotels is by boat.
As we headed towards the Meridian Hotel, it began to rain, and the rain continued to fall for much of the day. Thankfully, it was rarely raining heavily, and of course it wasn’t cold, so it was more of an annoyance than a wash-out. It did mean that good photo opportunities were very few and far between, however.
After the hotel pickup, we headed over to the first dive site. Here, we would be swimming with Black Tip Sharks. This might sound more dangerous than it actually is – they’re just a couple of foot long, and so small fish are a much more realistic meal option for them! The water here was about four metres deep, so we really were swimming, although the high salt content of the water meant that it was really very easy to stay afloat. For some reason, our boat captain suggested we took a mask but no snorkel, so we could only put our faces in the water for a few seconds at a time.
This was certainly long enough to spot some sharks though: there were dozen of them, very graceful but slightly sinister in the way they move so slowly through the water. On several occasions, we saw a small fish swimming directly beneath a shark. Whether this was to avoid becoming its next meal, or to provide protection from other predators I don’t know, but it was obviously a good arrangement for at least one of the participants!
Next we had another sting ray experience. This was in a much shallower area of the lagoon – the water was waist-deep, so we could stand up whenever we got tired. For this second “dive”, we both took snorkels, and had lots of fun interacting with the sting rays and watching the other fish at close quarters.
This was a popular location and there were at least half a dozen other boats – each with 8 or 10 passengers doing exactly the same as we were. It might have been a challenge to avoid other swimmers, were it not for the fact that we had a very big area in which to explore.
Our boat captain joined us in the water and brought with him some food for the rays, and also for the sea birds who were keeping a close eye on proceedings. He tossed bread up into the sky and they tried to grab it, though the wind and heavy rain were not helping…
The third and final dive site was at Bora Bora’s famous Coral Garden. The water here is quite deep, so we had an opportunity to get out the fins and do some proper snorkelling. It was our first time with fins and a snorkel since Bali, but we had no trouble getting to grips with it.
This was by far the most interesting dive. With large corals on the sea bed, we saw fish of all different shapes and sizes, plus eels, anemones and all sorts of other wildlife. Again, we had tons of space to roam, and we were in the water for long enough to really explore.
With the rain pouring, we were definitely ready for some hot food by the time we took off our masks for the final time. Lunch was served on a small private island (motu), owned by the tour company. They obviously had more than one boat out on the water that day, because by the time we reached dry land, there were already several hungry and very wet people tucking into barbecued fish and chicken, rice, and lots of fresh fruit.
The motu had a large covered area allowing us to shelter from the rain while we ate. As a bit of a tease, we saw several tables out in the shallow water of the lagoon, where guests who had picked a day with better weather for their tour could eat lunch with their toes trailing in the ocean!
The afternoon’s 4×4 island tour provided an opportunity to learn more about Bora Bora as well as visiting lookouts on the volcano side for some great photo opportunities… well, they would have been great if it had not been raining quite so much, anyway!
There is really only one road on Bora Bora: a 30km loop that hugs the waterfront right around the island. The inner island is covered in steep volcanic rocks – there is vehicular access, but only short and very steep dead-end climbs to popular look-out points, and only if you are in a 4×4.
We drove up three such roads, each time holding on very tight, thankful that someone else was doing the driving!
The name of the tour company is Vavau and we learned during the afternoon that Vavau was the original name for Bora Bora. Vavau means “First” in the local language, a reminder that Bora Bora is the oldest of all of the Polynesian islands.
Many thousand years ago, the present-day lagoon would have been the crater of the volcano, and the land we were driving on would have been the volcano rim. However – as with all volcanoes – it has been sinking over time (1cm each year), and hence the crater is now below sea level.
Because this is the oldest of the Polynesian islands, the volcano has been sinking for the longest time. This means the mountains on Bora Bora are less tall than their neighbours, and that means there is less rainfall. Less rainfall means fewer rivers, and fewer rivers means less fresh water flowing into the lagoon. This has a perhaps surprising effect: there is only one inlet at Bora Bora where boats can enter the inner lagoon, and that is because inlets only occur where coral does not grow, and coral will only grow in salt water. So, fewer rivers means fewer inlets for boats.
During our circumnavigation of the island, our guide explained where the name Bora Bora come from. This goes back to the time when the islands were colonised by the French. When the French navy first landed on Vavau, they asked the locals for the name of their island, to which they responded Pora Pora (Polynesian for “First Born”). But the local people’s pronunciation sounded like Bora Bora, and that was the name that stuck.
Bora Bora has a population of 10,000 people, and 99% of its income comes from tourism. In 1942, when the population was just 1,500, the island was flooded by American GIs who considered it an ideal location for a WW2 naval base. 5,000 American naval officers were based at Bora Bora for three years, quadrupling the island’s population overnight. They installed ten huge guns on the side of the volcano: two to the east, two to the north, two to the south and four to the west. At the end of the war, Roosevelt called his navy home, and the guns were left behind to rust. Our driver took us up one of the hair-raising side roads to see one of these guns for ourselves.
That evening, all 150 of Wind Spirit’s passengers, plus most of the crew, were ferried across to a small privately-owned island called Motu Tapu, which means “Island of the Queen” in Polynesian. Here we were treated to traditional Polynesian barbecue dishes cooked for us by the ship’s catering team. Palm salad, udu (??) – a hot prawn and breadfruit “stew” – barbecued fish and vegetables, pineapple rice, suckling pig, and to finish: rice pudding, star fruit, passion fruit, mango and papaya.
After dinner we watched a traditional performance courtesy of local dancers and musicians. Starting with some Shakira-esque hip-swinging (audience participation included!), the performance became increasingly elaborate, with – at various times – the troupe climbing trees, opening coconuts with their hands and heads, and finally, treating us to a hugely impressive “fire dance” where three men juggled and twirled batons that were alight at one or both ends, often doing so with one performer standing on the shoulders of the other two, or in ways that looked alarmingly like they were barbequing themselves alive!
