16:29.35S 151:45.16W Over the reef around Bora Bora.
The next day was Sunday and we walked the 2.2km along the shore road, puddle dodging, into the town Vaitape to find most people just leaving their church service amidst much bonhomie.
“Ia Orana” is the French Polynesian for “Hello” and we made ourselves use it in return to the friendly greetings we received everywhere.
In the neat front gardens of many of the small single storey homes family members would be lying in their final repose in roofed graves, some so big and containing up to four deceased folk they would take up a quarter of the garden.
For the benefit of us still living we located the bank, gendarmerie, supermarkets, chandlery and bike shop and then returned to the ‘yacht club’ for a restorative drink before lunching aboard and having a relaxing afternoon.
A quick telephone call to a lady whose family ran daily adventure trips with sharks and rays and we were booked for the next day with them. Me swim with sharks and rays, we’ll see!
At the allotted time, in fact nearly an hour before, we were ready in the cockpit armed with our waterproof bag of dry clothes, towels, camera, sun cream etc when a panga style canoe with outrigger came whizzing around into the bay. Already full with fellow adventurers, all young enough to be our children, Papa carefully manoeuvred the aluminium beasty alongside for us to jump aboard.
Saying general hi’s to everyone we moved to the stern where there was enough space for us and met young Tim, his uncle Crazy, (named as he was!) and his grandfather Papa. Tim briefed us as we sped towards deep water just outside the Passe where we had entered a couple of days before. He supplied me with flippers which I thought I would try for the first time. Crazy picked up a tiny plastic bottle which held their mooring line while Tim lowered the aluminium steps for those, like us, who didn’t want to leap over the side.
In no time there we were, with the sharks. Just imagine a shark with a black tip to its top fin and another at least three metres long and with a broader rounded head and you have our companions, black tipped reef sharks and lemon sharks and me a tender 60+ year old English grandmother. They were well mannered and so was I so our occasional inevitable head-on meetings were a little scary at first but proved to be benign close encounters.
Crazy started feeding them which brought a host of other fishes too. Rob was taking photos while I was watching, along with the rest of us as Tim and Crazy dived into the depths, their healthy brown bodies, clothed only with loin clothes, swam around the lemon sharks lower down and encouraged them to come up and see us.
We stayed for what seemed a long, long time, reluctant to leave this amazing other world of wild marine life, but eventually clambered back on board to find thick soft warm blue towels in our places, what luxury.
While Papa sped us along Tim on his hour glass drum and Crazy on his ukulele sang lots of songs in lovely harmony, some local and some we knew so could join in. Their joviality and sense of fun soon relaxed the group into a gang of friends out for a day’s fun.
Next stop was on top of the reef near the 43’ post we passed at the final corner of the reef on our approach. Since we were only waist deep in water we didn’t have to use snorkels, although it would have been useful for underwater shots.
The stingrays had had their stings removed (I was not too comfortable with the ethics of that) and did not appear to mind being handled. Unlike the more demure sharks, they came to us and would swim between us, their wings touching us around the waist which caused much screaming (not the two of us!) and laughter as they tickled like crazy (!).
Their skin was so soft in places but had rough areas too. We could let their tails run through our fingers and they were quite hard with small sharp barbs. They feed by sucking through their lipped mouth underneath and when Crazy started feeding them they became excited and would try to latch on to us and suck shoulders or arms. Their suck was really strong, like my brothers calves when I let them suck my fingers before feeding.
Terns and a young frigate bird came to chance their luck for some food and seeing them so close was an unexpected treat.
There was one female ray who would lie placidly in our arms, facing us, while we were photographed, her raised eyes watching us and seawater shooting out of the hollow beneath her eyes as she breathed. She was lovely, heavy and placid in our arms. I know they were attracted by the food but apart from that they were non aggressive and genuinely curious.
One of the things I love about snorkelling is how peaceful it is when one’s head is facing down and seeing so much marine life all around and living in such harmony in its groups. Spending so much time looking above water, this made a real change.
More singing as we sped over the reef, where it was too shallow to take Zoonie, and we arrived at the best snorkelling site on Bora Bora, the Coral Garden.
There was no greater variety of fish than we had seen at other sites but only here did we watch Tim and Crazy swimming to the bottom to see what they could find. Suddenly the camera was taken from me and next I watched as Crazy took it to the mouth of a small seabed cave to capture a shot of the moray eel in there.
Tim dislodged an octopus for us to watch and photograph wrapped around his hand while Papa fed the terns and fish from a bucket while sitting at the stern of the boat.
Back aboard the boys were busy in the stern with knives, coconuts, pamplemousse and coconut cake while Papa took us on around the southern end of the reef, slowly this time as the water was only inches deep and the boys were using very sharp knives.
Soon Tim emerged with a long wooden dish pilled with finger food. We all took chunks of fruit, coconut and cake washed down with iced drinks from the cooler I thought this was lunch and then Papa said to me, “Don’t eat too much there is lunch to come.”
Hotels out here are usually a main thatched building with thatched chalets built either along the beach or on stilts out over the reef or both. The chalets at one hotel each had their own swimming pool! You can pay $5000 per night at the Hilton if you wish and Tim reeled off the famous names who have done just that. But for us we came alongside at the more moderately priced Meridien to drop off the half day punters and go for a wee, walking past the infinity pool and through some pretty gardens, bodies everywhere stretched out on recliners.
In the middle of this island, Piti uru Uta, there is a lagoon where turtles peacefully live, but it wasn’t always so. People from the hotel used to go into the water to swim with them while unknowingly their suntan cream would be washed off and form a film on the water surface. When the turtles raised their heads aloft to breathe the film would coat their eyes and after a time make them blind. Not being able to see to feed they died. I wondered what extraordinarily thorough scientific analysis had discovered this problem and thus saved them.
Our next stop was on the same island and Papa raised the outboard and let the boat drift in towards the shore where his daughter, Tim’s mum and Crazy’s sister had prepared a typical Polynesian buffet of thin fried tuna and beef strips, poisson cru and salads, ably assisted by three of her seven bulldogs including the pup who had the cutest wrinkly face.
Papa wheeled a wheel barrow to a nearby patch of level ground and promptly went to sleep in it while Tim gave us a demonstration on how to process coconut.
He showed us the soft end and then promptly rammed it onto a wooden spike wedged in a tree trunk. With a quick twist a chunk of husk rasped off. Repeat the process a few times and all the husk lay on the ground ready for burning.
Next he showed us the face at one end of the nut, two slanty eyes and a round mouth. By whacking the line between the eyes at right angles the nut started to split around the middle in a clean line. Quickly turning it upright to preserve the juice in the lower half he could then open it up.
The guys were invited to have a go with the warning that too much pressure could result in not only the coconut nut being damaged!
Tim then used a sharp knife to cut from the centre of the half nut at an angle towards the cut edge. Strips could then be easily removed for eating.
To grate the flesh into soft pulp he sat on the table with a lethal looking round flat disc with a serrated edge that was screwed to the table, between his legs. Holding the cut edge towards him he ran the white flesh interior over the serrations and lovely fine white grated pulp fell into a wooden bowl.
This could then be eaten raw, used in cooking or squeezed from the palm of the hand down the thumb and into the mouth. Delicious fresh, sweet milk.
Naturally our efforts to get it into our mouths met with various degrees of success, which just added to the fun. I mopped Rob up and the local dogs were ready and waiting under the table for any left overs.
To wash the stickiness off we lay back in the few inches of seawater while the biggest bulldog, and he was big, was carried out to the little boat used by Tim’s mum for all her catering stuff. Tim’s brother told us he was just lazy, the puppy then bounced through the water as if showing off to his lazy dad.
The rest of the punters were then dropped back at the Meridien and we watched them walking tired and happy back to their chalets while Crazy and Tim shared the load of all the towels, over their shoulders to the hotel laundry.
“They won’t be long,” Papa said as the three of us chatted. Just for a change they were as curious about us as we were about them and as Papa took us on around the island to complete our mini circumnavigation we all chatted in English and French. Tim showed us some hotels that had been damaged by hurricanes, devoid of their thatch roofs. They don’t have enough money for repairs and insurance doesn’t appear to happen out here.
Crazy did a wonderful final act of hanging between the canoe and Zoonie and all too soon it was final waves and farewells to this warm family group. What a day!
Bora Bora on borrowed bikes.
The morning after our shark and ray adventure we moved Zoonie around to anchor off the main town of Vaitape in 23 metres. The motor sailing ship Wind Spirit was anchored off ferrying passengers ashore for excursions and we thought we’d keep her company!! Instead of the delightfully named Mount Poo Poo Ure Roa at 417ft we were overlooked by the second highest twin peaked Mount Pahia at 2170 feet.
We hoped to pick up a mooring off the Mai Kai Marina but they were all taken so we were happy to save the mooring charge and lie to our own tackle. We could still use the marina of course and it was after our excursion to the chandlery to buy me a pair of flippers, the supermarket for some tuna and a French stick and then the bike lady to put off the hire of the bikes to Thursday as it promised to rain hard the day before, that we were supping some draft beer and we heard a familiar voice.
You may remember I mentioned American Kim from Seattle and his South American crew Katerina, aboard Philiosophy whom we met in Bahia. They left for the Pacific crossing before we set off to the Amazon, well we’ve caught them up. So we had a brief chat and agreed to share a meal before they plan to move on around Friday to Palmerston Island. Kim was curious about the Englishman who lives there apparently with 3 wives. Hope it doesn’t give him any ideas.
The weather forecast had been right and after a first visit to the gendarmerie to start the clearing out process we returned to Zoonie just as the heavens opened and gave BB a good drenching all the afternoon.
The next morning we were greeted at the quay by no less than the President of tourism who said he would keep an eye on the dinghy throughout the day for us. The cruise liner Paul Gauguin and our old friend the four-masted Wind Spirit were both in so the harbour was very busy and we were a little concerned for the dinghies. “You are seeing our islands in the best way, slowly by boat,” he said “I will do the same one day.”
Across the road we waited 45 minutes outside the shop for our bikes and as no one seemed to be coming we decided to move on and rent two robust and colourful bikes from Alfred’s, a black pearl and car hire emporium. “There’s no brakes, but don’t worry just pedal backwards to slow down and there’s only one hill anyway.” The lady said as she held mine for me to mount.
The weather was perfect, quite cloudy to begin with so a nice cool start. A man was clearing leaves in the driveway of the first hotel to be built, and the first to be destroyed by a hurricane, so I’m not quite sure why he was bothering, habit maybe.
Today the visitor has a choice and can stay on terra firma at a resort or take the risk of sleeping on stilts over the lagoon in a thatched chalet, arguably the safer option.
We watched tiny shells waddling along ‘our’ beach, propelled by the crab inside as we had lunch. The Americans came here for the Second World War and built the airport, which is so vital today for the island’s only major industry, tourism, and the road that skirts the rim of the island and along which the residents live. I wondered what it would be like now if that hadn’t happened. Fishing and small scale copra production were in evidence and the brewery was located on the quieter side of the island, old practices prevailing.
Next door women were weaving and sorting the metre long strips of thatch used in roof building. With much of the damage from the last hurricane still evident I should think their jobs were among the most secure on the island.
Slowly we walked up the only hill where there are two American cannons left over from the war, but we just admired the views over the lagoon to the reefs and outer rim of trees, taking in the beautiful variety of blue hues as the water depths varied and the white coral sand shone through from the seabed.
Cycling down the steep hill with a little backward pressure on the pedals was interesting, especially as there was a tight bend at the bottom to avoid the unwary being jettisoned into the landfill of plastic bottles in the tip straight ahead. A lot of people appeared to work here, judging by the full car park, taking care of the islands waste.
Suddenly a young lad ran his motor bike along the road infront of us to jump start it, racing off in a cloud of blue smoke. A young mother walked quietly alongside the road, her tiny baby resting its head on her shoulder. The open mausoleums suggested a kind of permanence, heredity in the handing down of the homes to the younger generation, otherwise what would happen to the tombs if the people were to move house?
A small development to the east was being developed into a harbour area and building materials were landed from a red ship moored in the anchorage by way of a small landing craft. This seemed to be the industrial port, where Vaitape is the cruise ship and ferry terminal.
Being only 32 km around, the island can be circled by bike in a very short time but we lingered here and there and returned the bikes after four hours of fun and with one slightly sore bum returned to Zoonie before venturing to MaiKai Marina for supper with Kim and Katerina.
After our extreme refuelling experience in Nuku Hiva the task here was much easier. With a short distance in the tender and a dinghy and small yacht friendly well-fendered wall we filled our cans and then the main tank to find we had used much less than predicted. Concluding that using the engine to charge the batteries alone takes much less than the 2 litres per hour which it used when in gear.
“You swam with lemon sharks!” Exclaimed the attractive Austrian lady with long, black wavy hair, Sabine, now our dear friend. “When we were in San Blas [off the Colombian north coast in the Carib Sea] a friend of ours was cleaning his waterline when two lemon sharks swam along either side of him and head-butted his lower back. He was up into his cockpit pretty quick.”
Ten of us were sat in the bay window at Maikai Marina for a totally impromptu evening of happy hour chatting. “We were warned by the locals that the lemon sharks are aggressive and we should not swim, so we all stayed clear of the water.” They heeded the warning.
“Was there any sport fishing in the area?” I ventured and when she confirmed there was I suggested that animals know when they are being hunted and are under threat, maybe that’s what changed their attitude towards them.
In Bora Bora there is only small ‘scale’ (!) fishing for food and locals realise there is more to be made from playing with the sharks and rays non-aggressively than killing them. In fact their marine industry would be seriously affected if the sharks, that delight so many visitors annually in their social behaviour, were to become threatened by the greedy and wholly destructive sport fishing industry.
Bora Bora is a playground island. Much of its history destroyed by zealous Protestant Missionaries it cannot entertain the visitor with a culture from the past as the Marquesan islands do and so makes the most of the natural beauty of the island in its present form.
I remember from when I lived on the Isle of Wight and ran my B & B business how many of my visitors wanted to sail, walk and ride around it and it was the same on Bora Bora.
With their religious heritage gone I suppose their wholesale adherence to the Christian faith is understandable. For a modestly educated and island based population religion has its place and they have their need for it, proudly Protestant some are while others are Seventh day Adventist folk, but the loss of their historic Gods seems wrong to me.
The Sabbath is paramount and the only profit making businesses open are the supermarkets. The waters are quiet too, no buzzing pangas or friendly waves from motor boats on a Sunday!
