May 13-19, 2011

This week was great. We just played. After picking up Sara and Bob at the airport which is on the northern most motu (island), we motored to the southern most point of Bora Bora and anchored on the west side of Point Matira. Although the reef and lagoon totally encircle Bora Bora island, there is not enough depth to take a large boat around Point Matira and therefore circumnavigate the island. We piled into the dinghy to search out nearby restaurants and other sites of interest. When going ashore at our first stop, our guests got to experience going aground. Well, we just ran out of clearance between the lagoon floor/coral and our dinghy bottom which then required cocking the outboard motor out of the water and rowing/pushing until Steve could get out and pull us to shore. After doing the reverse procedure to get back on the water, we stopped at the famous Bloody Mary’s Restaurant which has a wonderful dock to land and tie up the dinghy. As it was happy hour time, we had a drink and then opted to have dinner which involved choosing one’s meal by looking at a display of fresh raw fish and meat. Our meals were delicious and substantial, and the service, excellent. Now that it was night, we had about ½ mile to dinghy in the dark back to Dream Caper; another great experience for our guests. Luckily, the moonlight with the help of our flashlight illuminated the coral hidden just below the water and we made it back safely without hitting anything.

During the week with Sara and Bob, we took a 3-hour full circle private boat tour with Tutuea, a young handsome local, whose grandfather - he claimed - was a US GI, on a comfortable small boat with a 225 hp engine which quickly zipped us to the coral gardens, shark feeding outside the reef, the numerous over-the-water hotels around the island, and petting sting rays. The sharks were medium sized black tip reef sharks and a few large bottom lemon sharks which looked like nurse sharks to us. Tutuea entertained us by feeding the sharks and even holding onto the top fin of a docile 8 foot long lemon shark for a short ride, 30 feet below us as we snorkeled with the 20-30 sharks. To feed the sting rays we stood in waist high water as they "climbed" up our chests looking for sardines which we learned can be fed to them through the gills under their cartoonish eyes that sit on top of their flat velvety bodies. Tutuea said that these sting rays have been domesticated over the past 20 years of tourists feeding them and are now harmless. Maybe so, but we were careful not to step on them and inadvertently cause an inborn reaction of stabbing us with the stinger in their tails. Our days were spent snorkeling around our boat as we were usually anchored near coral. We had drinks at the "Mako Bar" at the Sofitel Resort which was located on a separate island mostly because it bore Portia’s son’s name. We went to the Full Moon Soiree (Polynesian show and buffet dinner) at the beautiful Sofitel Resort which involved another night of dinghying back to Dream Caper after dark through minefields of coral which were luckily highlighted by the full moon. We tied Dream Caper to the dock at Vaitape, the main village; shopped and bought black pearl jewelry; ate lunch at St. James, a waterside restaurant; and replenished our supply of fresh baguettes. Sara and Bob prepared Chicken Cordon Bleu on board for a special dinner, and we enjoyed the camaraderie of being with good friends sitting on Dream Caper’s trampoline under the moon and stars. Sara and Portia have been close friends since their cheerleading high school years, and college break summer trips to Europe. Sara, a Ph.D history professor at Ventura College, retired last year and her husband Bob, a tax attorney, plans to fully retire within the year.

Sara and Bob carried some valuable items to us from the US: new netbook computer (ours died a month ago), a new electrical 110 inverter, some LED lights, and oatmeal. But most of all, they brought themselves! On our last night together they treated us to a scrumptious dinner at La Bounty Restaurant which involved waiting for a shuttle at the Vaitape dock while we were entertained by the 78-year "young" Polynesian man, named Simple, who filled us in on lots of interesting local information.