|
River Of Data.com |
|
|
Sunday, 21 December, Bora Bora, Tahiti We woke up to the delivery of room service breakfast. On the ship there's no extra charge or hassle for it, so we tend to do it on the mornings when we have an early day trip, as it avoids the lines and delays in the cafeteria. We were up at 600 am to watch the approach to Bora Bora through the reef, which was beautiful. We took the tender to shore for our day trip around the island, another stunning French Polynesian beauty. We rode on the main type of transportation on the island, "Le Truck", a wooden bus body built on the chassis of a Mercedes 2 ton truck. Windows that open, no air conditioning, but really pretty comfortable unless it is raining and you have to close the windows. Gail said nothing had changed much since she was there in 1981 except for the construction of a few more fancy hotels (now 14, all very expensive). The Club Med that Gail had stayed at there almost thirty years ago was destroyed by a hurricane in 1990. On the tour it poured for about thirty minutes, on one side of the island. As on most high islands, one side gets tons of rain, the other side is relatively dry. When it was pouring we really melted, as we had to close the windows on Le Bus, and it was extra hot and muggy. We returned to the ship by tender for a quick lunch and then went back to the island so I could spend the rest of my Polynesian Francs and so we could go on a "helmet dive". The dive was totally awesome, since I don't swim and don't snorkel, so I have always just watched the fish and other critters from a boat or from what I could see walking around in the shallow water in the lagoons. With the helmet dive you actually put on a diving helmet, but only the helmet, and then go down a ladder to walk around on the bottom of the lagoon, about 12 feet deep. Since you're hooked up to an air hose, and have a scuba diver in the water to make sure you're safe, you can see just what the scuba diver can see in the area. Even though Gail snorkels, she was able to see things she couldn't normally see since she was on the bottom, not the top. I was able to see many kinds of fish swimming right in my face, as well as the wall of coral reef with anemones and clams on it, and several manta rays that swam by right near my feet. There were only five of us on the boat for this trip, and two of them panicked in the first couple of minutes on the bottom, so the three of us remaining (Gail, me, and a lady from California) had the place to ourselves. It was one of the neatest things I've ever done. It was a wonderful ending to our time in French Polynesia. Back to itinerary (trip home page)
|
|