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We wakened at 6 am to watch the sail in to Bora Bora, its incredible lagoon, and nearby islands— sunrise photos to match the sunset photos from the night before.  (I may have mixed up some of the sunset and sunrise photos, but they’re still lovely skies.)

These islands are, of course, volcanic, resulting in impressive jagged peaks and valleys.  Bora Bora is surrounded by a coral reef creating a huge lagoon around the island, whose shallow waters are a beautiful, almost improbable, shade of aqua.  We anchored in what was the center of the crater and, thus, deeper than the rest of the lagoon (entering through the only break in the reef) and found we were the third ship there.

One ship was an MSC ship, a South American cruise line whose ships we have encountered in many ports; the other from the Oceania cruise line.  I was told by a fellow passenger the Oceania cruise was what is called an Atlantis cruise meaning its passengers are all gay men.  Our guide said he’d never seen three ships at a time.  So it was a busy place today, but Viking is very good about arranging shore excursions and we were fine.

Bora Bora has a population of about 10,000 and the largest settlement is the village of Vaitape to which we tendered.  Viking cruises offer one included tour each port plus several other tours available at an additional charge—though included in our world cruise is quite a bit of ‘shipboard credit’ allowing us to sign up for optional tours without actually paying additional money.  I think this is a very clever and helpful arrangement—you can take a lot of tours but only run into paying cash if you do a lot of the high end tours (helicopter rides, overnight safaris or flights to waterfalls). 

Anyway, the included tour is usually a walking tour or a ‘panoramic’ bus tour.  In Bora Bora it was a ride around the lagoon in outrigger boats.  Outriggers have ’attached lateral support floats’ on one side (see photo above). A traditional form, outriggers have been used in Polynesia for centuries including by the early explorers who migrated to Hawaii and New Zealand among other places.

We stopped (outriggers can moor in pairs next to each other with each boat’s outrigger away from the other boat) to look at tropical fish and made our way around the lagoon and an offshore island.  Fantastic! We all thought this was the best included tour of the trip. 

Canoes are also popular all around Polynesia.  There are 1, 2, and 6 man canoes, and the Polynesians are world champions in racing all of them.  In the lagoon some of the single canoes enjoyed racing the tenders or coming behind to surf the wake.  In the afternoon we saw some 6-man canoes moving incredibly fast as well.  We were told there is an upcoming race to prepare for.

After a trip back to the ship for lunch, I returned to the island for a little shopping and a snorkeling trip.  The big item for sale is Tahitian pearls, especially black pearls (as, of course was also the case in Tahiti), but I managed to resist them.  As in South America, at the crafts market I was amazed that prices are quoted in dollars as well as francs and they are happy to take dollars—even give change in dollars—but aren’t set up to do credit cards. We mainly brought dollars for tipping tour guides so using them for purchases rather depletes our stash.  I expect we’ll just get local money for tipping in the countries where we have several stops (New Zealand, Australia, South Africa) to make up.

Snorkeling among sting rays and blacktip sharks was quite an adventure!  Again a small outrigger with 10 passengers, we moored in a sandy area.  The sea creatures swarmed around us (especially when the guide threw food into the water) but unerringly avoiding touching us through there were probably 40 swimmers in the area (and standers because it was shallow enough to stand up).  Amazing creatures!  The rays are beautiful and so graceful.  The sharks, about 5 feet long, were uninterested in us, though Wikipedia calls them both timid and able to become aggressive around food.

For our second stop we went farther out, to the reef, where there was coral.  Rays and sharks were there too, but there were fish and other sea creatures as well.  I saw a big sea cucumber (looks like a giant turd), but my favorite sight was a multitude of giant clams mostly embedded into the coral.  They look like brilliant blue and purple giant rickrack, and you could actually see them open and close.  I’ve included a photo from the internet (I don’t have an underwater camera, and I’ve learned not to put my phone under water…)  An altogether satisfying day although at one point, the guide picked up a ray by its wings (I disapprove) and swung it around.  I was swimming nearby looking at the bottom and he swung it into my neck.  I was startled and unhappy, and I doubt the ray liked it any better than I did.  Another passenger told me that they catch the rays annually and cut off their stinging barb.