From Society islands

Gosh, Dos Boras as Nathan nicknamed it, has been a great experience for us. We did get ourselves over to Maikai Marina one morning and Richard was there to greet us holding up the mooring pennant like we were VIP's. The 3 English couples that we've been cruising with were all there. All 8 of us rented bikes that day for a tour of the island. It's only 32km around on the coastal road but it was nice to see all sides of it on land. The lagoon is especially colorful here and we find the people to be just as friendly as the other islands. The kids are really a hoot since they try to practice their limited English and are always calling out hellos. We finished the tour with a late lunch at the Bora Bora yacht club. I see that the more time I spend with them, the more my inner voice is in "British". I thought it was only me but then tonight Jon was commenting on something and he said he thought it was a "brilliant" idea. Well now! I suppose we'll start calling our Halloween costumes "fancy dress"!

We also did the hike up Mt Pahia. What a great climb! We were even accompanied by a rare energetic dog. We had to give him a couple of boosts for the steepest parts or else he'd whimper at the thought of being left behind. He didn't want to lead, but was literally on your heels the whole time. The first summit gave fantastic views on a grassy top. The trail was steep with a few ropes but not too bad and when we got to the first summit it was like a cruiser's gathering up there- lots of friendly faces. But the trail kept going to the official summit so Jon & I and Richard had to hike to that since it was higher! It was a beautiful, clear day to do this hike since most other days we were looking up at a cloud shrouded, invisible peak. We finished out the day on the decks of the marina & had a nice sunset social hour, watching our boats bounce in the mooring field. It is definitely a calmer anchorage at the yacht club!

Yesterday was a work day to get checked out (boo hoo) since our time is up in French Polynesia and to get the boat restocked for the upcoming passage. It always amazes us how much time this takes- like most of the day! When you check out they have you go buy a stamp and put your check out paper in the mail to Papeete. Then we motored around to the eastern side of the island in preparation for a scuba dive at the Manta Dance dive site.

From Society islands

We did the dive this morning with Bob & Sue off Mawari since they have their own gear too. The coral & fish scene was mediocre at best. It was a hard dive to do for the first time because it was 2 pinnacles with a channel in between where the mantas supposedly hang out. But the visibility wasn't good enough to see once pinnacle from the next and it was easy to get disoriented, unlike a wall or single slope dive. Plus, we hadn't seen any mantas for the first 40 minutes of the dive. I was just giving it a thumbs down to Jon when I saw Sue point out into the blue and there they were! I saw a total of 3 and two swam over as if they were giving us a paid performance. They are graceful, beautiful swimmers with unique markings on both sides and their underside spots remind me of a dalmation. The white on the horns they use to guide the plankton shined like a white pearl. The four of us just hovered there watching as they swooped around us coming so close we needed to duck our heads. One even curled his wing up to avoid brushing Jon's head. They were interested in being near us. It was a wonderful encounter and just what we were hoping for. We dove with smaller mantas in the Marquesas and that was a thrilling experience too. These were more social though and you got the feeling they stopped feeding to come over and just pose. Peering into their eyes made me wonder what they were thinking.

Jon & I moved the boat further down the lagoon today to do some more snorkeling but we had to pick our way through the coral more than we wanted to to get here and Mawari needed to turn back. So I couldn't make the chicken dinner for them tonight as I'd hoped to. And we couldn't turn back since the glare from the sun in that direction would have made it unsafe. So we did some more snorkeling and saw 2 stonefish which are new to us here. This end of the lagoon is quite clear and there is a lot of life on the reefs although the coral does still show damage.

Tomorrow we'll probably carefully make our way back over to the pass in preparation to leave the following day. The days are flying by and the weather looks good to go.