Day 26 - Sunday Jan 22 Bora Bora, French Polynesia

Bora Bora photos

position at 8:00 am: S17:29:37 latitude W149:42:23 longitude
(Bora Bora, Tahiti)
temperature: 80F and 95% humidity
distance since FLL: 9081 miles

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Tour Description from Radisson
Circle Island by Waverunner (2 persons-approx 1 hr ride)

Duration: 2½ Hours .
Adventure, Water.


This excursion offers a fun and exciting way of discovering the lagoon of Bora Bora and completely circumnavigating the island (weather and water conditions permitting). Following a short transfer by Le Truck, your escort will introduce you to the safety regulations for waverunner operation, then guide you to the most remote and lovely spots located in the lagoon. During the trip, your escort will select the best location for a stop to explore a motu or take a swim. Stops may vary due to the wind and water conditions.
Please note: Price is per waverunner, which will accommodate 2 average-sized adults. When requesting online or via fax, please request only 1 ticket. In order to participate in this excursion, you must wear the life-jacket provided, remain in line and follow thirty yards behind the waverunner in front of you. A minimum of 15 years of age is required to ride as a passenger or drive. This excursion is not suited for pregnant women or people suffering from back or neck problems. Wear shoes you do not mind getting wet. There is a small storage compartment on the waverunner.

Program Pricing
Adult: $255.00 per jet ski
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This has turned out a day that Clay wishes could be a do-over day. He got up around 5am and did his 4-mile walk on deck as usual. But then when he left deck 12, instead of taking the inside (and safe) route, he walked down the outside stairs in front of the pool grill to check if they had orange juice out yet. When he saw they did not, he turned to go inside and slipped on the wet deck. (This is the spot that is always wet and always slippery. Right at the corner from the Pool Grill where the flooring surface changes from wood to tile. Everyone knows this spot.) The result is a very sore, bruised and swollen ankle. So, he rushed back to the room and Debbie got ice from room service so he could ice it down for 2 hours before we were off for our waverunner ride around Bora Bora. Debbie gave him 800mg of ibuprofen and wrapped it in an Acebandage that his reef shoe would still go over. (Debbie advised an x-ray to be sure about the ankle, but Clay said if he could put weight on it, and he had walked back here from deck 11, then it was not broken. Could be dislocated, not just an impact injury? Clay said he would not go to the infirmary.)

There is a beautiful sail out of Raiatea to Bora Bora. We exited the lagoon at Raiatea by going out the opposite direction from which we had entered. So we sailed by Tahaa which shares the same lagoon with Raiatea. So, it is very slow and smooth and lots to see. Capt. Dag gave us a special sightseeing at a little church just before leaving the lagoon. Jamie announced that there are usually big turtles there and a photogenic little church on the starboard side. Since it was on the starboard side, Debbie took the camera out to deck 6, hoping for some good pictures of the photogenic church on the point and some turtles. Didn't see any turtles. After Voyager passed the point, Debbie came back through the ship and found that Dag had rotated the ship and was going by again from the other way, then turned again and went back out by the starboard side. She laughed because the first time by, there were some men sitting under the porch of the "magasin" across the street from the little church and they waved, yelled, got up and crossed the street to wave and shout. They must have thought we were coming back for them! Clay refused any breakfast so he could be left alone to fume over his fall and Debbie went up to LaVeranda alone where she did not find any chocolate croissants. She had a quick bowl of oatmeal with a tiny, citrusy-tasting Tahatian banana. (It turns out that our weekend breakfasting schedule is not working out. We had two busy port days this weekend and next weekend we will be in New Zealand!)

We were late to arrive in Bora Bora. We were not anchored by the time we were to be on the excursion. We were in the Constellation Theatre though at the earlier designated meeting time and were with lots of other people waiting. We were visiting with Tina & Lou when Debbie saw Donna & Alan and asked Tina if she had met SouthernLady from LCT. She hadn't and wanted to so off they went. Donna had the same reaction Debbie did when Tina recognized her from the internet. It turned out that they were only about 4 cabins apart and opposite sides and had already met once during a block party, but Tina did not realize who Donna was then. They called for the first 2 excursions about 10 of 9am and apparently lots of people did not show up for their helicopter flightseeing and sail & swim by catamaran, so they came and called again. Then they gave up and sent that tender off and called for the second set which included ours. The tender ride was pretty rough and Debbie was very worried about riding the waverunners now.

We weren't wearing watches because of the watery nature of the excursion we booked, but got on shore a little after 9am. From the tender pier, we were boated (instead of Le Trucked, to make up time) to a beach where we picked up the waverunners. There were only 2 other couples on the morning tour so it turned out to be quite pleasant from that point of view. Clay's ankle did cause a few problems including dunking Debbie in the drink at the first stop. She took it rather well. There were some words between another couple when one was trying to wet the other person, but Debbie took getting dunked well. The other couple had a good laugh at this. The woman said she nearly wet her pants and the man said it was the funniest thing he ever saw. Debbie questioned them because she could not figure out what happened. She got on first since she was driving instead of injured Clay. Also he thought it added some stability to the jetski for him to climb on last. She straddled the thing, put the deadman's switch on her wrist and turned and offered Clay a hand-hoist up. He told her no, he did not want any help, so she turned back forward and gripped both handles. Next thing she knew, there was no waverunner between her legs and she was lying on the bottom of the Pacific thinking "What the heck?". The couple who saw it said that Clay just reached up on the thing and pulled, that they saw Debbie lean the opposite way to try to compensate and then the waverunner just flipped over back in Clay's direction. When it flipped back up on the other side, Debbie was gone. They said, Debbie came up sputtering about 2 feet away from where the jetski was and said, "What the heck?" They were already laughing when she came up! Including Clay! She sputtered again, "You know I hate getting my face wet!" (And she really does! Just ask her Mom.) She caught the deadman's switch up before it drifted away on the current and shook it at Clay. The guide appeared at that moment and wondered what was going on. Debbie did too. The last time he looked Debbie was dry and astride the waverunner, now she was standing in water up to her waist, not touching the waverunner at all, except for the deadman's switch in her hand, and she was dripping and sputtering! He missed the whole thing. He was helping another woman get up on the back of her jetski. He just shook his head when the other couple explained it to him. It must have looked really funny. Their description made the other 3 people who missed it crack up, too. This was especially ironic to us, because earlier this morning when Tina heard we were doing the Waverunners, she was telling us that they had watched "Hitch" the night before on DVD and the jetski scene made them laugh so hard and she hoped we would not have any experiences like that. We found a new way to mess up on a jetski!

The waverunner ride itself was really fun and a beautiful way to see the entire island and lagoon. Debbie was the driver and Clay along for the ride. (Debbie was the only woman driver and the only first-timer. This gave the guide lots of opportunities for little jokes during the safety/training orientation session! Again, Debbie was a very good sport about it, but then again it is so easy to push her buttons that people can't help themselves.) The water was rough in some places (eg - going over a tender's wake) and this made for some thrills. In other places, it was calm and shallow and allowed you to look around without holding on for dear life. The guide stopped in very calm water in front of Bloody Mary's for a photo opportunity and he took each couple's camera and took a picture of them in front of the sign at the end of the dock. The water changed colors from absolutely clear to all shades of blue and green. You looped around the island so you could see it from all sides. We made two stops. The first one was on a little island where our guide climbed a coconut tree by just scampering up it. He picked some green coconuts for us to have at our second stop. We looped past a big brown stingray swimming, but Clay did not see it. He was too busy holding on for dear life! At the second stop, we visited the guide's private family motu. He cut some leaves and wove some "Tahitian paper plates." Then he showed us how to husk coconut (young, mature and old), some were easy and some were not so easy. He also had some of the little Tahitian bananas that he sliced, and something he joked was a lemon which was a big green thing. Turned out it was a grapefruit, but it was big and green, and sweeter than the ones we see in the States. When we got back to the starting point, we loaded the same boat to be taken back to the tender pier. On the way, one of the passengers asked if they knew where the ship was doing the BBQ lunch. They did not. The couple asked the rest of us and Debbie told them it was Motu Tapu; the guys knew it. So, the couple asked, could they take us there instead of the tender dock. Some money changed hands and everyone onboard said that was OK, so they took us to Motu Tapu. There we tried to have lunch. We got hamburgers tartar unfortunately, and Clay ate his, but Debbie did not. So, after about 20-30 minutes there, we took an outrigger canoe back to the ship. We had originally planned to see some of Vaitape's dock area with our small plastic bag of personal possessions, that we had taken to fit in the waverunner's compartment, then tender back to the ship and pick up bug repellent, our regular camera, etc. before heading out for the rest of the afternoon on the motu. Debbie got bitten right away since we had not applied anything other than sunscreen for the morning and the bugs were pretty bad on the motu. Anyway, by then it just seemed like too much trouble to outrigger canoe back to the ship, tender back to the shore, tender back to the ship, outrigger back to the motu, and back to the ship again... So we just got serenaded back to the ship by a big Tahaitian with a tiny guitar with 8 strings and the hole in the back. Back onboard Voyager, Clay rested his ankle and Debbie fought the laundry crowd for the 2 hours until we were sailed away. Then we sat on our balcony enjoying the last of our LA-apology-champagne and eating pretzels that Debbie got from room service (her lunch).

We took many pictures with a 'waterproof' camera, including shots of Bob on the waverunner. BUT (and this is Clay's second do-over moment for the day), the camera ended up with no pictures on it for some reason. The most likely one is Clay's operator failure, but the 'waterproof to 10 feet' camera did get wet from a simple dunking. So, we have no wave runner pictures to upload. %#@!%$$%. So, you will just have to take our word about how beautiful and scenic and fun it was and that we were ever there. Speaking of "waterproof" failures, Debbie has some words for ExOfficio. Bob was riding in a tethered, clip-on, waterproof wallet that Debbie had gotten with a pair of ExOfficio shorts. NOT WATERPROOF!! ExOfficio had puched a hole in the plastic past the zipperlock closure for their logoed ribbon to attach to the clip, which of course, we should have noticed would keep the thing from being waterproof! Bob accompanied Debbie for her little unintended repose on the floor of the Pacific Ocean and got saturated with sea water. Debbie had to WRING HIM OUT! Then, at the snack stop a kitten named Wilson knocked Bob off his bench and into the dirt adding insult to injury. Later, Debbie had to wash him in the sink and WRING HIM OUT again and then hang him up to dry. (Mom you knew that door-hanging electric clothes dryer would come in handy, you just could never have imagined how it would be handy! Bob thanks you Margie!) Debbie has been a pretty good sport about all this, but Bob is holding a serious grudge.

It was Informal night. Clay wore one wingtip shoe with sock and one sock and Birkenstock sandal. We ate in the Compass Rose mainly because this was the night that they were serving Moon fish, something that Clay has never eaten before. They served the white flaky meat from the moon fish (evidently this huge fish also has dark meat on it). Clay liked it very much. Debbie ordered her usual fall-back option of filet mignon, well-done. It arrived medium. She did not eat the rarer parts. Clay ate some of the rarer parts. But, Debbie earned herself a double grilling from Horst and a lecture on returning dishes not done to your liking. She gets it, but is still not in the habit of returning a dish and is unlikely to start now. No desserts sounded good, so Clay got pistachio ice cream and Debbie got cinnamon. Debbie intended to go to the 9:15pm popcorn movie in the conference room, but when it was time, she said she was too exhausted and we went to bed early. We will treat the next two days as our weekend and if that works, we'll get to do it again next week too.

Since we did not go shopping in Vaitape, we had 4,500 paper Polynesian Francs left over. On the way to dinner, we stopped at the Reception Desk and asked if they were converting. They were, paper only. The rate was 98.582000 with no commission and Clay got $45.65USD back.

Bora Bora photos