Wrapping up in French Polynesia

Friday July 18th, 2006
coordinates 18 00.807S,154 01.842W en route to Raratonga

We ended up spending a great 10 days in Bora Bora before moving on. Known as being very touristy, the island itself has little to offer above some trinket stores, pearl stores, a few restaurants and many, many over the water bungalows. In the recent past, hurricanes had done severe damage to the coral reefs but we can happily report that they are coming back well.

There are a few passes and coral patches that the dive shops take snorkelers out to on a regular basis. The plentitude of fish are trained now to come and eat food right out of your hand. It was hysterically fun to listen to the squeals of adults and children alike streaming up through their snorkels. New colors of parrot fish, every type of butterfly and angel fish we could imagine. Soldier fish, blue spotted groupers to name just a few. In the deeper passes you can watch the spotted eagle rays drift slowly around. Where we had anchored initially was so far removed from the hustle of the town we were able to relax and enjoy every moment of it.

We eventually made our way closer to the mainland and picked up a mooring ball out in front of the infamous bar/restaurant "Bloody Mary's. Though we were more blocked from southerly winds we at the mercy of the winds that decided to race down the front of the peaks of the remaining old volcanos. The wind continued to blow 15 - 25 knots through out the day and night with mighty size gusts while we tried to sleep. It was a whole new feeling again to be on a mooring and not on your own anchor. When you set your own anchor you have the confidence of knowing just how well it is set and that you won't go anywhere. The same is not so with mooring balls as they are tied on to something "heavy" at the bottom and hopefully the lines connecting you to it is substantial with no weak spots. This time the mooring ball held tight but with all the spinning we had done around the line, in just 24 hours time, we had chafed and cut right through our own brand new line. This was brought to our attention when we were all down below and heard a loud crunch. We had drifted right onto the coral reef. It is an amazingly sickening feeling when the reality strikes that potentially we could have been in serious trouble. Luckily the boat sustained absolutely no damage and we returned ourselves to the ball before most of our neighbors even noticed. And yes, you bet we had triple lines of protection running to the mooring ball this time. It is amazing just how fast it all took place as we were on the ball closest to shore with less than another boat length of room between us and this sheer wall of coral. All's well that ends well. If you eat Bloody Mary's restaurant you are allowed to stay on the mooring ball for free. So with all our buddy's together, White Swan, Capaz and Moorea, we enjoyed a wonderful night out before we all prepared to leave French Polynesia.

Bora Bora Yacht Club (it's not what you would picture-they don't even own a boat) coordinates 16 29.440S,151 45.716W
The next day we moved up closer to the pass of the island and picked up another mooring out in front of Bora Bora Yacht Club. A quaint little palapa style building with great food we hear, happy hour, laundry, shower and garbage facilities for a nice price. The kids all had a great time being towed around the anchorage on an inner tube by Chris and his daughter Clair from s/v Sensei We all shared a sunset or two there, provisioned and refueled everyone, and completed our paperwork to check out of the country. One more stamp for the passports. We were able to reunite with our pals Greg and Penny on Long Tall Sally. They made the crossing with us and we hadn't seen them for awhile. Wednesday night we enjoyed a great pot luck dinner on their boat with the usual gang and Thursday we were on our way. We are keeping a close eye on the weather as we hear there are some potential low pressure systems near Raratonga where we are heading and some other weather south of New Zealand that always has potential to cause us some trouble. Presently we are enjoying a wonderful sail with some slow long rolling swells. Very relaxing. It feels amazingly good to get some wind moving through the sails again. French Polynesia was fantastic and there was so much left to see and do. Still we are ready to move on and get back to English speaking countries, a bit more removed from the tourism and hopefully full of adventures.
until next time,
lisa and the boys