Since this is French Polynesia, it's no wonder the fish go crazy for French bread.
Awwww... They're kissing. They must be on their honeymoon too.
It's a little hard to see, but these little guys have perfect blue circles around their eyes. Apparently they were talking trash and some bigger fish punched them in their eyes.
The best underwater shot I've ever taken. Much of the corral gardens looked just like this.
Come colorful wrasses mixed in with some "barbeque" fish.
Hungry fish swarming an unsuspecting hand. Cue the Jaws theme song. Dun-nun, dun-nun, dun, dun, dun....
Leo once again harassing the wildlife. We hopped in the boat and drove another 20 yards to the "sting ray" petting spot.
This girl was the first to jump into the water. Leo told us to only pet the sting rays on the tops of their heads because their mouths are on the bottom and they will bite. Just then, the girl squealed and proclaimed, "Yes! They do bite and it hurts." Shortly thereafter, she hopped back into the boat.
Janice getting freaked out by the weird-feeling sting rays.
Sting rays swarming us, moving in for the kill.
Kim even jumped into the water for a short time. One sting ray swam up her back and it was too much for her. She hopped back into the boat too.
Leo's dad belting out Sweet Home Bora Bora on the ukelele.
Yum, pineapple.
After petting sting rays and devouring pineapple, we went to Motu Tapu to walk along the beach. Here's the rare Motu Tapu reindeer.
Yet another shot of Mt. Otemanu in the background. This dang mountain keeps jumping into the backgrounds of our pics no matter where we go.
After getting back to the resort, we took a nap and prepared ourselves for our sailing lesson. This is our instructor, Guillaume, guiding the Hobie Cat into deeper water.
Kim with the tiller in command of the boat. Aye-Aye, cap'n.
Then it was my turn. Sailing is quite fun, but as a wise man told me, "You can learn to sail in a few hours, but it takes a lifetime to learn to sail well."
Day 8: Vaitape.
Since our trip was almost over and we hadn't left the resort, we decided to go shopping in the main town of Vaitape. When we booked our "excursion" at the desk in Club Med, I was a little surprised to find out we only had 2 hours to spend in town. I would later realize this was 1 hour and 30 minutes longer than we needed. The town is perhaps 100 yards long with a minimum of shops. We blasted through all the over-priced tourist traps with time to spare.
Kim riding in the "bus" on the way to Vaitape.
This is the only cruise ship in French Polynesia that sails the islands year-round. It's named the Paul Gauguin, after the French artist who came to Tahiti to visit and ended up staying until his death 12 years later. Incidentally, he died of syphilis and was quite the alcoholic. Sounds like quite the party animal to name a ship after.
From the dock looking towards Mt. Otemanu, you can see 3 flags flying. The first is the Tahitian flag that was prohibited by the French between 1970 and 1975. Don't ask me why. Next is the French flag with the more recognizable Tahitian flag behind it.
Come to find out, the Tahitians aren't real big on labeling things or creating signage to tell you where/what things are. I had to read in my Frommers guide that this guy sailed around the world by himself.
I believe this car/truck is called a Fiat Caca, which is Italian for SUPERAWESOME-O Truck!
Here's the school "bus." Yeah, it's a Mercedes, and boy is it loaded with features... Like... Uh... Well... It has inflated tires... And um.... A roof.
With so much excitement going on in town, we had to go back and rest up. While reading outside, I saw this little guy walking around. Which incidentally brings up a debate Kim and I had while on the island. I had mentioned this little guy looked like Sebastian from "The Little Mermaid." Kim maintained Sebastian was a lobster. I argued he was a crab. Thanks to Wikipedia, we finally solved the debate (nearly a month later). He is in fact a crab.
Day 9: Snorkeling.
Because of all the tide issues earlier in the week, we think something may have broken because we spent most of the day without running water in our room. All was not lost, however -- we still had fun snorkeling, but we had to wait around all salty and gross once we came back until the water came back on. Prior to the snorkeling trip, we placed 2nd in the egg toss. I think we could've won, but fate was not on our side that day. But, in a way, we did win...because of the tide, a lot of the dead coral was washed away and there were many more fish at the Club Med snorkeling spot. We even got to see 3 eels poking out of their caves.
A Moorish Idol pecking at some coral.
Another one of those blue lipstick surgeon fish swimming away from me.
This was quite possibly the biggest sea cucumber I have ever seen. Unfortunately there's nothing in the shot to give a sense of scale, but it was about 5 inches in diameter and about 18 inches long. Now, I'm not one to question God's creations, but really. What's up with this thing?
Oddly enough, this guy and his wife are from Oakland. Here he is prying a clam out of the coral reef.
And him trying to pry it open with his hands. I can only assume he was looking for a pearl. I guess he forgot that pearls come from oysters, not clams.
Here I am modeling the latest in fashionable flotation devices. Club Med made us wear those uncomfortable pieces of crap. I'm sure their only purpose is to appease the insurance bean counter, since there's no way in hell it could ever save you from drowning.
A small school of big-eye squirrel fish chilling out in a hole.
It's kind of a weird shot, but the eel was snapping at the fish just to the right of him."
A short vid of the eel hanging out, looking ominous.
Day 10: Bloody Mary's!
This was our last full day in Bora Bora, which we celebrated by doing absolutely nothing. It was sheer bliss. Two of my co-workers who had been to Bora Bora told me we HAD to go to Bloody Mary's restaurant. So we called up Bloody Mary's and arranged for the free shuttle to come pick us up (nice touch, by the way).
As you walk in, your first stop is the "menu." There's an entire lineup of the day's catch. The waiter goes over the list of what's what and takes your order right there. They then take your slab of fish and slap it straight on the grill. Kim had Wahoo (Ono in Hawaiian) marinated in teriyaki sauce. It was quite possibly the best fish I have ever had. I got the combo plate of Mako shark and Lobster. It, too, was quite tasty.
You'll notice two odd things about this resturaunt. Odd thing number one, the floor is all sand. They have a bunch of cubby holes by the door in case you want to check your shoes. Odd thing number two is they have a cat roaming around. She camped out on Kim's shoes for a few minutes. She obviously knew we were suckers for a cute kitty, but we didn't have any food yet, so she moved on to other tourist suckers.
Kim thanked me for forcing her to take a photo while the entire restaurant watched. No problemo, honey bunny.
Since this is the world-famous Bloody Mary's, they have a wall of fame outside. A few of the more famous people who have dined there.
It made my day knowing I had eaten at the same place as Famous Amos.
Yes, even Alf ate at Bloody Mary's.
Kim said she had a hard time figuring out which was me and which was the carved statue. I think it's obvious, I'm the one with the blank stare and my tongue hanging out.
Day 11: Our last few hours in Bora Bora.
While reading my book on Tahiti, I noticed there were 4 maraes on the island. A Marae is a Tahitian holy spot. I figured since we hadn't explored the island ourselves, we would rent a car and try to find the maraes. That proved a little harder than I had anticipated.
Kim practicing her chorus music while waitng for the rental car place to come pick us up.
Everything is obscenely expensive on the island. This Bugxter we rented was $130 for 4 hours. YIKES. It was pretty fun, though. It had two pedals, one marked "go" and the other marked "stop."
As we were driving, Kim's hat decided it had had enough and jumped ship. I pulled over so she could retrieve it. Since the Bugxter didn't have a reverse gear, Kim had to walk back to get her hat. Some locals were even nice enough to run it over before she could pick it up.
Me pointing out where Vaitape is on the map.
Is it me, or does it look like I have a bottom lip full of chewing tobacco?
DRIVE FASTER! There's a crazy lady with a camera chasing us!
The book I had was pretty vague as to where the maraes were located. I stopped at this snack shack to ask for directions. Naturally, she only spoke French, and my French is at about a 3-month-old level. She told us to go around the side of the building, walk past all the laundry and garbage and we would find the marae.
This is it? WTF? We drove around for 20 minutes for this? Sure enough, this is Marae Marotetini, which according to the book is "historically the most important temple on Bora Bora. It was restored in 1968..." Nearby are the two tombs built for the Bora Bora royal family during the 19th century.
And a shot of the tombs.
Kim and I debated on whether this was actually it. After all, how could the most historically important site on Bora Bora be surrounded by trash and not even have a sign denoting its location? We only debated for a few seconds until some dogs started barking at us, so we left. We tried to search for the other maraes, but it was impossible, so we gave up.
The church in the town of Faanui.
We couldn't figure out if these were condos or a hotel. Either way, they're pretty cool with a great view.
The crossing guard making sure the kids don't get run over by rush-hour traffic.
Another artsy-esque attempt at photography.
At one point in time, this was going to be the Hyatt. However, the developer went bankrupt and the project halted. It has looked like this since the early '90s.
One of the thousands of dogs that roam the island.
Sunset Boulevard? Oh crap, we made a wrong turn and ended up in So-Cal.
And a final shot of one of the locals' homes. Not really a typical home, but really, nothing out of the ordinary. It was rather odd to be staying at a world-class resort while just outside, the third world was kept at bay by a security guard.
