Update 04.16.2018 Bora Bora

We arrived in Bora Bora, French Polynesia on Sunday morning.  This is a tender port which means they don’t have a dock, so we have to use the ship’s life boats to get ashore.  There was quite the line to get to shore.  As the lifeboat cruised towards shore, several outrigger canoes with locals pulled along us.  The guys were paddling like crazy in our wake beside the boat and kept up until we got to the shore.  We went straight to the Catholic Church, where Mass was just getting over.  The priest did give Communion to a dozen or so of us cruisers which was very nice.

Pago Pago is pronounced Pango Pango.  Bora Bora is prounced Pora Pora, the letter B is nonexistent in the Tahitian language.  Pago Pago is in the Samoan Islands, while the rest of our stops are in French Polynesia, the Society Islands.  The monetary unit is the French Franc, not the Euro.  Prices are higher here than either Hawaii or Samoa.  The reason: tariffs.  Everything goes through France and the tariffs raise costs. 

 John went into an upstairs art gallery, and greeted the shop owner with an “Aloha” which we had been told was appropriate.  She said “this is not Hawaii, this is French Polynesia”.  Since then we have used our basic French of Bonjour, Merci, S’il vous plait and Oui.

It is a small town and we walked its entirety.  Since it was Sunday, many of the shops were closed.  The entertainment on Sunday was another Folkloric Show: A Bora Bora Dance Troup.  They were good, much different than the Hula Show in Honolulu.  While hula is graceful, the Bora Bora dancers were much more energetic.  We overnighted in Bora Bora and we had a ships excursion on Monday morning.

Day two, Bora Bora:  We took the ship’s excursion around the whole island, about 20 miles.  We had a great narrator this time.  The bus is on a Mercedes chassis here, big and beefy.  But the bodies are plywood.  Floor is plywood.  Ceiling looks like linoleum.  Nailed together plywood.  They make great creaking sounds when hitting a rut. 

Again, they bury family members in the yard.  To be cremated involves an expensive trip to New Zealand to have it done.  It is very rare because of the cost.

During WWII, the US built bunkers and gun placements on the island.  We saw one bunker, no guns.  The guns were too heavy to move easily so were left on the island’s higher points.  No battles happened here.  The US paved the roads around the island and build the airport where the approach is over a lagoon and then out over the ocean.  We had a short stop at a bar/restaurant called Bloody Mary’s that has been used in some big screen movies.  Cold beer on a hot day in a cool cave-like place.  Very nice end to the tour.

Small boats are often raised above the water’s surface on racks.  This is possible because the difference between high and low tides is one foot.

John & Colleen