Our last morning in Bora Bora and our first day in Moorea. Another piece of paradise lost in the pacific ocean. I started the post today with who needs roads in Paradise because in our way to the airport, with the boat, we crossed a truck! a truck in a boat and it reminded me the t-shirt my brother bought 15 years ago from "back to future" saying who needs roads, meaning the delorian traveling through time.

The next picture is nuria, blogging from the beach, in front of our bungalow in bora bora.

This morning we tried to fix our visa problem. Lately is refusing all payments… and we wanted to pay all the car rentals with the American visa gold because it has a great insurance. Finally we managed to talk to them. We called them with skype by buying some more wifi time. The connection dropped several times but they called us back fortunately. The fact is that we have reached the limit! how embarrassing!! and it won’t be reset until the 7th of March. The good news is that in 48 hours the UNFCU will transfer the funds to the visa account so we will have credit again. If I manage to have Internet before I will try to do it via e-banking. Something good about the US visa is that it is like an account. You can top it with money so you can spend more. Anyway, the fact is that this morning we took the "truck" or local "bus" to Vaitape, which is sort of the "capital" (more than two houses) where we took the boat to the airport. There I took the photo of the truck ;-)

Once in the airport we checked in and we had a mango drink. Bora Bora’s airport is without no doubt the most beautiful airport in the world. It is small, traditional, but having a drink in the little bar with the view over the lagoon and the mountains has no price. Look at nuria having her mango drink ;-)

After a while we took the plane, always these little planes with helixes, and went to Huahine and then Moorea. In Moorea we left the plane and surprise, in the Airport and looks like he was going in the same flight, starting in Huahine, Steve!! our Californian friend we met at Fetia’s. They lost his bags… incredible in a 20 minute flight…. We went outside but after 30 minutes waiting for the "truck" in the main road 5 minutes from the airport we were told that it might not come, so we went back to the airport and Gino took us in his taxi. The three of us. Gino will bring a rental car for us tomorrow here at Motu Iti, where we are staying now. We will have the car for 24 hours starting at 8.30. We will go an pick up Steve and go and visit the Island that has around 60 Km of circumference. They make us a good price. 7200 for the day.

Today when we arrived at Motu Iti guesthouse we were like… wooooow. Our bungalow is top of the class. Look at the picture on the right…. We are actually 2 meters from the sea with a fully equipped bungalow. Beautiful place this Motu Iti. The owner is a Japanese old guy with a lot of taste and attention to detail. He has a restaurant here also by the lagoon. We have free kayaks and just in front we have plenty of coral reef. We just had a shower after snorkeling a bit in front of the bungalow. Incredible. Nuria is having a shower while I am writing. In an hour or so we will go to the restaurant to have dinner.

Today after we arrived to Moorea we went walking looking for a supermarket to buy breakfast and something for lunch. 1 hour walking!!!! aarrghh. We did not mind as the views are astonishing and it is worth to walk around.

This morning sunny! wow!! We booked here at chez Nono a one day trip around the island to experience the most beautiful sites of this piece of paradise.

We woke up, walked to the supermarket to buy breakfast. We had breakfast in our table 3 meters from the sea and I went to the hotel besides (Matira) because I noticed that they had wifi, so I wanted to see if I could buy some time. I bought a 1 hour voucher so tonight I will connect and post everything from the last day in San Francisco until today.

Well 9.30 we go in a boat in a tour around the island. I did not mention this but often I take my Oregon 300 gps and I record everything we do, so if someone wants, I can send the paths or coordinate of specific points. The boat was sort of traditional. First we stopped in the Coral Garden to do some snorkeling. Beautiful. We saw a morena (I don’t know in English) and tons and tons of fish, nearly the 700 different tropical species that live in the islands.Really beautiful. Then second stop in the middle of the sand lagoon, and a unique experience… In Spanish they are called "rayas". Snorkeling with the guy of the boat "captain" who had some fish, and 10 to 20 1.5m rays came to us. Incredible experience. Water was at 1.2 m only so you could stand. They were coming to us, and even coming out of the water. At the beginning it was a bit scary but they are like dolphins. Very silky and soft. They were like dogs so cute. The feeling of swimming with 5 of this huge rayas beside you and other fishes was incredible. And more incredible was when the sharks came. The black dot sharks (I am translating from french "roquins de pointe noire"). These are not as big as the ones we saw yesterday when diving but in a 1.2 m depth of water with 10-20 rays and 5 sharks, feeding them was amazing.

We continued our boat outing and a group of 5 to 7 dolphins followed us and started playing, going to one side of the boat and jumping. Beautiful. This is really paradise. After that we headed towards a motu with white sand and an incredible view over Bora Bora mountain and they cooked for us one of the best meals we have had here. "Espadon" fish and raw fish with coco, and coco bread. All served in banana leaves and cooked traditionally with the coconut covers to feed the fire. Unforgettable experience.

After a while (with traditional songs, and showing the ladies how to use the pareo and dance the traditional sexy dances) we headed to another spot for snorkeling. The particularity of this is that I have never seen such an amount of fish together in my life. You could just snorkel within the coral and find hundreds of varieties of fish. The captain fed a morena.

After that we headed to our place where I had a shower and I started writing while Nuria is having a bath. Tonight we might go to "bloody Mary" for dinner we will see.

What is certain is that I have a boucher of 1 hour and that I will be able to post all the posts ;-) and check email.

Tomorrow morning we are leaving to Moorea. Motu Iti is the name of the guest house. Great way of traveling by the way. You get to know local people.

Sunday 22nd of February. Bora Bora.

After our great evening at the Intercontinental hotel with lobster a go-go and tipical Bora Bora dancing show, we went to bed, latter than usual, and the day after, Sunday, was going to be our first day in the pearl of the ocean.

At 7.30am we had the Bora Bora Blue Nui diving boat in our beach. The first night we slept in the house, with a little balcony in front of the sea, on the beach. From day two in a typical bungalow on the beach. Well, we took the boat. The day was not great. It rained a bit but we did not care,as it is not that important when you dive. Philippe, the instructor went to pick up another 2 people to another Intercontinental hotel and then to the school in one of the Motu.

We paid with our Swiss visa (29000 for 4 dives, 2 each with material and pick up service with boat). The US visa is giving us a lot of problems. It did not work when trying to pay the internal flights and it did not work for the diving. We are pretty pissed off with it as we still don’t have Internet and we don’t know which is the number to call in order to fix it.

After getting our material and paying, we went out of the island and we did our first dive. I had my new mare puck computer. Philippe told us that we were going to see two kind of sharks: black dot sharks and lemon sharks. Indeed, when we jumped into the water there it was, a 3 meter long shark…. my first “big fish” that Pep would say. We went down to 23 meter and there were like 3 sharks following us. I was damn scared…  The 200 bar lasted 50 minutes. It was amazing! Poor nuria did not see the sharks until she was just in front of one of them, and she said later on that the shark was coming towards her, 50 cm below her but in the same direction, and then she saw the mouth half open and was thinking that it could take her whole arm as an aperitif. This particular shark seemed to like her because it was wandering around very close a couple of times, it was quite something! There were tons and tons of different fish, including a big turtle. I cannot describe it with words. I think our next gadget will be a case for the digital camera (the casio) so we can take it down. So beautiful.

The second dive was not very far from there. We saw also a “morena” and sharks again. The current was very strong but the coral here was better preserved, we really enjoyed it. It is amazing being inside the lagoon with all those fishes that are static in groups like chatting, and they abandon themselves to the current, so we did.

After that Philippe took us back to our place “chez Nono”, where we had a shower, and we walked a bit to club med because Nuria read that they had a nice deal where you could stay in the hotel for a day, use the installations and have lunch there. Well, in the way there we realized that it was closed! and so are many other businesses! restaurants, the bora bora hotel… all closed. We don’t know if it is because it is low season. So we have to come back… but we stopped at a restaurant and we have lunch by the sea. Then back to our bungalow and siesta ;-)

In the evening we walked the other way up to “Bloody Mary”, a very famous restaurant where tons of famous people have gone: Cameron Diaz, Marlon Brandon, Rainiero, Julio Iglesias, Pamela Andersen, Bill&Melinda Gates, Prince Hussein, all those with no money, poor things. We tried to go but it was also closed, only on Sundays though. We might go tomorrow.

For dinner we went to “La bounty” also not very far from our place. I had pizza (yes… after so much fish I felt like having pizza) and Nuria had mahi mahi with vanilla sauce, we drunk nearly the whole bottle of white wine we ordered waiting for the food, but it was nice and we were still discussing the shark experience. We decided to finish it with the chocolate fudge cake with melted chocolate and cream, very healthy! So half drunk we went back to the hotel to be eaten alive by the lovely local mosquitos.

Diving in Bora-Bora with GPS Garmin Oregon 300. Mouse over to see the Diving spot.

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Rejane gave us a lift to the airport and there we waited with the Polynesian ladies who were in the same flight when we arrived wearing immaculate flower hats. As we wanted to go diving we thought it would be probably better to assure us a place for the following day. So we phoned and we managed to book with Blue nui dive. The plane arrived a little bit late, we were so excited to fly to the pearl of the ocean… The 15 minute flight took us to the best located airport I have ever landed in. It is in a motu (small island) surrounded by turquoise water.

The lagoon ( it is 3 times larger that its land mass) is one of the most beautiful in the world, shading from turquoise to deep blue and its string of white sanded islets. In the islands you see the Mounts Otemanu and Pahia all covered in lush greens. Bora bora is the oldest of the Society islands (7 million years old). It is almost an atoll, a stage half way between the Tumamotu atolls(10-40 million years old) and high islands such as Tahiti (2 millions years).Its huge lagoon, bordered by a very wide reef is open in only one place, or pass.

Before the Europeans arrival the island was called Mai Te Pora which means created by the gods, the name evolved to Pora Pora and then Bora Bora.The islands first inhabitants arrived around the 9th century after a long trip across the Pacific

Upon arrival to the airport a shuttle boat take you to Vaitape, which is the main city in the island, were all the shops, banks and other important things are. We picked up our back bags and the truck-taxi to the hotel was waiting for us. In 10 minutes we arrived and checked in. For the first night there was not beach bungalow available so we stayed in a room on the second floor of the main building just in front of Matira beach. Then we decided to go for dinner, as I was starving. I had read in the guide that Saturday was the marvelous night at the Intercontinental which happened to be across the street. This consisted of a seafood buffet and a Polynesian show. So we exploded our budget with the superior dinner, I had 2 lobsters, 6 oysters, raw fish,huge mussels in Provencal sauce and then dessert. When I only had eyes, fingers and all my concentration dedicated to the lobster, dani brought to my attention the young Polynesian guy standing by my side with a flower necklace asking if I wanted to go with him and dance. I doubted for a few seconds, as my lobster was going to get cold, but only once in a life time I was going to be given a beautiful necklace just for ridiculasing  myself in front of all the posh guest at the Intercontinental, so I say, of course yes. After watching some of the other terrible dancers, the tiny piece of shyness I could have disappear, and after 10 minutes of dancing and laughing I returned to my table to finish my sweety. Delicious! I could not resist, I had to go for the second whole one ( not halves!!). Unfortunately I spent so much time dancing and eating that I was too late for the mango, well I had cake and strawberries instead. And then the terrible moment arrived, dani proposed the famous Sinpa or going without paying, and surely we should have done so, or maybe charge it to room 123, but we have lived for too long in Switzerland and become responsible and soon-to-be-broke citizens… So whoever is reading this, please consider inviting us for dinner in April as I think we are going to live on water and bread for a couple of months…

2 walks in Bora-Bora with GPS Garmin Oregon 300. Mose over to see the guest house where we stayed.

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