We spent two weeks in Bora Bora with our new crew member Evan onboard, waiting for Eitan’s friends to arrive on their honeymoon and bring us more goodies from the US. In the meantime, we meandered from mooring field to mooring field to explore both above and below the water.
We spent a few nights near the Bora Bora Yacht Club which was about a 30 minute walk to town and the closest location to provision. Outside of the supermarket, I saw a bicycle stand and convinced the guys to rent some bikes with me to circumnavigate the island the next day, since it’s only about 10 miles around. There were three bikes available and we were able to load up our baskets with the groceries and headed back toward the Yacht Club. Despite appearing like brand new bikes, the build quality was quite cheap and they were horribly uncomfortable, not to mention the tires needed air and my pedal even fell off while we were riding.
I felt a bit stupid for having talked the guys into renting the bikes and hoped we would be able to fix them up the next day with a few tools and adjustments. We brought back a wrench to fix the pedal and raise the seats, then found a mechanic shop across the street to fill the tires. It was an improvement from the day before, but a cheap bike is a cheap bike and our butts were almost too sore to walk by the time we made it a couple of miles down the road to the first stop. After locking up the bikes, we did a short hike to see some old WWII cannons and bunkers. Once we returned back to the road, we decided to just return the bikes early and hope for a partial refund.
Next, we moved the boat over to Bloody Mary’s, a famous restaurant on the island. With so much downtime, Eitan and Evan decided to take some kiteboarding lessons at a nearby beach and I looked into getting a freediving certification, but unfortunately, the instructor was off the island for the next couple of weeks. Instead, I walked around and explored as much as I could on foot which led me to make an extraordinary discovery: a churro stand! Eitan and I are churro fanatics and I couldn’t wait to share my news with the guys. We came back to the churro stand later that day, only to find it closed earlier than the hours listed outside! We tried to visit the stand on three or four separate occasions and only managed to find it open once, but they were delicious and worth the hassle.
We stayed at all the different mooring fields that Bora Bora had to offered and did a fair amount of snorkeling around the island. Most days we would see eagle rays gliding about along with the other varieties of fish common to that area. One day when we were cleaning the bottom, I thought I saw a plastic bag floating along below the surface and realized it was an octopus! The octopus stopped on a coral head below us and watched as we scraped away the grass and barnacles off the bottom of the boat. I tried to swim down to it but it would quickly shy away into the recesses of the coral, then slowly perch itself back on top.
On another day, we snorkeled in an area known to have manta rays. Having not seen any since the Marquesas, I was excited to swim with these gentle giants again. Initially, it seemed they weren’t present so I preoccupied myself with filming a school of fish, glistening in the sunlight. Suddenly, out of the murky water, I was almost run over by a train of five mantas! They made a quick turn to avoid me and kept on their way. I yelled for the others to join me and we swam with them for some time. Pure magic!
Eventually, Eitan’s friend arrived for their honeymoon and we picked them up at their resort. Eitan took them out snorkeling in the morning then we went to Bloody Mary’s for lunch. We tried to take them to the churro stand which was closed again, so we ended the day with happy hour at the Yacht Club. I tried to share my advice on things to do and see around the island and was surprised to hear they planned to remain at their resort for their entire stay. Apparently, the resort charges $50 per person, one way, to go to the main island from the resort which is outrageous! I asked if the food at the resort was any good and they said the omelets they had for breakfast were pretty tasty. This was also outrageous because we had been trying to get eggs for weeks at the different grocery stores but there seemed to be some kind of shortage.
After a round of drinks at the Yacht Club, we said goodbye to Eitan’s friends and got ready to get underway to our next island destination: Maupiti!
