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Bora Bora

Bora Bora is one of the most beautiful islands in the world. It's in the Society Islands, 172 miles northwest of Tahiti. It's a small, irregularly shaped island that is only five miles long and three miles wide. Most of the island consists of two mountain peaks, Mt. Otemanu (2385 ft) and Mt. Pahia (2169 ft), which are the eroded remnants of the core of an ancient volcano. Both are very steep and covered in lush, green vegetation. About ten thousand people live along the coast at the base of the mountains. Around the main island is a barrier reef which creates a beautiful, shallow lagoon. About three fourths of the barrier reef actually rises above the sea as motus, a Tahitian word meaning small island. The economy is almost entirely based on tourism. There are a number of luxury resorts on Bora Bora, famous for overwater bungalows. Most of them are located on motus on the edge of the lagoon, rather than on the main island. Even the small airport, first built by the US during WWII, is located on a motu.

Sandy and I visited Bora Bora once before, in 2011. We thought it was incredible and have always wanted to go back. It took a while though, because Bora Bora is pretty expensive. Some of the resorts are very high end - the Four Seasons, Conrad and St. Regis. You can get an idea of what they are like by watching the movie Couples Retreat, which was filmed at the Four Seasons Resort on Bora Bora. Others are less expensive but still about at our price limit, like the two Intercontinentals, the Pearl, the Hilton or the Maitai. There really aren't any low end resorts on the island. Since many of the resorts are on motus, you have to add in the cost of all food and drinks, since there isn't any alternative to eating at the resort. They're like airports - priced for a captive audience. But we found a pretty good deal on a package trip, so after almost fifteen years we were going back. Of course, we had to go through Tahiti, and I covered our stopover there in a previous DogBlog post.

The flight to Bora Bora takes about 45 minutes. I knew to sit on the left hand side of the plane so we got good views of Moorea, Huahine, Raiatea and Tahaa' as we flew past them. When we landed, the only other planes at the airport were two fancy private jets. I suspect their passengers were staying at the Four Seasons or the St. Regis.

The terminal was tiny - not much bigger than our garage. Baggage claim was just an open wall. The baggage cart parked next to it and the handlers just set the bags down where people could grab them. No fancy conveyor system needed.

Once we had our bags, we stepped out the back of the terminal onto a boat dock and boarded the shuttle boat for our resort. It was about a twenty five minute ride to our hotel, the Intercontinental Le Moana Bora Bora Resort. While almost all of the resorts on Bora Bora are on motus, our resort was actually on the main island, near the southern tip.

After checking in, we were taken to our overwater bungalow. The lagoon was shallow here, so the bungalows were built in a line straight away from the shore. We were near the end of the row. I measured the distance with my GPS. Our unit was two tenths of a mile from land. All the way from shore the lagoon was only four or five feet deep with a white sandy bottom. It was actually possible to walk/wade all the way from the beach to our bungalow in water that was never more than shoulder deep.

We were pleased when we got to our bungalow. It had been newly remodeled and was very nice. Of course it had a patio overlooking the lagoon, with a pair of comfortable lounge chairs that got a lot of use during our stay. There were steps that led down to a swim platform which had a ladder for getting in and out of the water easily. Our patio faced south so although we didn't have a view of the island, we could see the islands of Tahaa' and Raiatea off to the west. More importantly, we had shade most of the day. We spent a lot of time sitting on our patio, reading a book or just enjoying the view of the lagoon. The shallow water and white sandy bottom gave the water the beautiful turquoise color that Bora Bora is famous for.

The next morning we went out to explore. There is only one main road. It's 18 miles long and goes all the way around the perimeter of the island. Everything is either on that road or on short spur roads off of it. The resort was on one of those spurs, about 200 yards from the main road. Directly across was public parking for Matira Beach, famous for its sunset views. Once on the main road, it was just a short walk to a small market. It was a convenient place for us to get snacks and drinks a lot cheaper than at the resort, although still not cheap compared to the US. I walked there every day to buy supplies.

Later I walked further up the road to the Bora Dive Shop. My main goal was to see what it was like to walk along the road. The bad news was, it sucked. The road was very narrow and in many spots was lined by fences or dense shrubs. There was no sidewalk and not even any shoulder. Even though cars didn't drive very fast, it still seemed dangerous to walk along the road. We like to take walks every day but this wouldn't work. We had to be content with doing the quarter mile walk along the dock from our bungalow to the resort restaurant multiple times a day.

Although there weren't any good restaurants nearby that provided an alternative to eating at our resort, we did ok with food. Breakfast at the resort was good, although Sandy deducted one point because they only had her favorite, fresh papaya, one morning during our stay. We ate at the fancy restaurant once and had a nice meal, but they didn't have a lot of selections that we liked. Eating there once was enough. Most dayw we went to the casual restaurant. That usually meant pizza for me. We supplemented one meal a day there with snacks from the nearby market. So we were fine.

We did go into town one day. There is no public transport on Bora Bora so we had to take a taxi. There is a small tourist district which has lots of pearl shops, since the South Pacific is famous for pearls. Sandy checked out several places and found a beautiful pendant with a gray pearl in a pretty S-shaped setting. She also got a pair of earrings to match. Very pretty. There were a couple of tshirt shops too, which kept me busy. I found a Bora Bora tshirt that I liked so I was happy.

Other than that one trip to town, the rest of the time we stayed at the resort. That was fine though. Staying in the overwater bungalow was awesome. Just walking to and from the shore was cool. We always looked in the water as we walked. Several times we saw stingrays moving along the sandy bottom. Twice we saw an eagle ray gliding through the shallows. They are so majestic that they look like they are flying rather than swimming.

The resort has worked with Tahiti Bioroche to create new reefs beside the walkway. They placed artificial rocks (they seemed to be made out of plaster) and then grew coral and transplanted it onto the rocks. Once the coral was established, lots of reef fish were attracted. The coral and the fish all seemed happy with the fake rocks so there was a series of mini-reefs all along the walkway. Going to and from our bungalow, we could look into the water and see all sorts of colorful reef fish: butterflyfish, triggerfish, sergeant majors, needlefish and lots more.

There was even a glass cocktail table in our unit so that we could look down into the water while we were inside. Two of the mini reefs had been placed right below it, so there were always fish to watch. There was a light mounted beneath the bungalow that we could turn on to watch the fish after dark. One fish in particular was always there whenever we looked. We figured that it was protecting some eggs becase anytime another fish came near its rock, it chased them away. That even included big fish like Sandy and me.

Of course, the best way to see the marine life was to snorkel. That was easy to do from our bungalow, which was equipped with a swim platform and a ladder for getting in and out of the water. We brought our masks, snorkels and fins along on the trip so we were ready to go. We could swim close to the bungalows and check out the artificial reefs. There were also some natural groups of rocks about a hundred yards away. I went out to them several times while snorkeling. The water all the way was shallow enough that I could swim or walk to them. There was less coral and fewer fish in those rocks, but I saw lots of other interesting stuff. There were a lot of giant clams, which I've never seen before anywhere else. They were easy to spot because of their black and bright blue lips. Interestingly I learned later that they can live to be hundreds of years old. I also saw two eels, one a spotted moray, which is pretty common. One was a type I had never seen before. I think it was a snowflake moray. It was light colored, almost white, with dark bands. And I even found an octopus. He was hiding it a hole in the rock, a good idea for an octopus during the day. I could see his brownish-red body and one tentacle with its suckers. It's always cool when you get to see an octopus.

We had some interesting human encoutners as well. One day I wore a tshrit from Idaho Pizza Company. At breakfast, three young women came up to me and one pointed at my tshirt and asked if I was from Idaho. I told her that yes, I was from Boise, and she said that they were from Pocatello. Since there were only about fifty units in the resort, and they were not close to being full, it was quite a coincidence that there were two groups from Idaho. And besides, who would have thought that an Idaho Pizza Company tshirt would be a chick magnet?

Later that day at lunch, one of the servers, a local Tahitian lady, asked me about my tshirt. She said that she had visited the US once to visit a friend and had been to Idaho. While she was there, she had gone to Idaho Pizza Company. Now that is something I definitely would not have expected. It is indeed a small world. I will have to tell my friends at IPC that people come from all over the world to eat their pizza.

We did see a sad thing while we were there. About a mile up the coast was a dead resort, overwater bungalows and all. Across the lagoon from us, on a motu, was another dead resort. Both had been Sofitels. The parent company Accor tried to sell both resorts but did not find a buyer. After years of financial difficulties, both resorts closed during Covid. It was too bad to see these decaying resorts in such a beautiful place. Maybe if tourism picks up some company will restore them, although it might be cheaper to build from scratch. Unfortunately, the abandoned resorts might be there forever.

The only other negative during our stay was that the weather was less than ideal. We usually go to the South Pacific right at the beginning of shoulder season, which is the start of the rainy season. Costs are quite a bit less then, but there is the risk of bad weather. On past trips we have had pretty good luck, but this time we had more cloudy weather than clear. A couple of times it rained for about half the day. Still, we had some fair weather, and we could still enjoy going in the water when it was cloudy or even raining.

Our resort was excellent. The units were newly refurbished and very nice. The food was good. The staff was friendly and helpful. Usually resorts like this operate on "island time", but here the service was very good.

With one exception. When we were leaving, we were nervous about the time the boat was scheduled to pick us up to go to the airport. It was an hour and a half before our flight time, but we didn't know how long it would take to check in at such a tiny airport. The airline said we should be there at least an hour ahead of time. The boat would get us there very close to that.

Then the boat was late. Really late, like almost half an hour. We were not happy. I was getting very nervous and Sandy was just about freaking out. But the guy on the boat hustled after picking us up and we got to the airport forty five minutes before our flight. That was later than recommended but check in only took five minutes. It turned out that we had plenty of time. We had worried for nothing. We got to Papeete with four hours before our flight back to the US, so that was a little more relaxed.

When we went to something to eat at the Papeete airport, I found something interesting. There was a robot pizza restaurant. It was a big box, about the size of a small food truck. It had a video interface where you could order the type of pizza you wanted. Then it cooked it up for you. Undoubtedly it had varieties of frozen pizza inside and just heated it up. Still, it was impressive that you could order a pizza anytime 24/7 and have it made in a few minutes. Since the UI was in French, I wasn't brave enough to try it though. We ate dinner at McDonalds instead. I know. Boring.

The rest of the trip home was uneventful. We had an overnight flight to San Francisco, then a long layover before our flight to Boise. We didn't get home until early evening the next day. We were definitely tired but it had been a very good trip. And of course, Abby was really excited to see us. The feeling was mutual.