We had a cracking sail to Bora Bora, the best we've had for months. Wind was 18 knots and we were doing between 7-8 knots the whole way. Took about 5 hours. We anchored off the town of Vaitape and ventured in to have a look. Very disappointing. We have come here for Bastille Day but it is also the Heiva festival, a month long festival celebrating music and dance all over Tahiti. All the villages and towns have their own dance troupe and band and they compete against each other. We had been to one of the heats in Huahine but the books all said Bora Bora was the place to be on Bastille Day. For this festival, an arena had been built and lots of temporary shacks which housed video games and table football and were selling popcorn and candy floss. The other shops were all tourist places selling very expensive pearls and arts and crafts. Not quite the quaint Polynesian paradise we had expected. We did go to one of the dance evenings though which was fantastic. The first group were OK but the second absolutely fantastic. There must have been about 80 dancers and a big band playing drums, guitars and ukuleles. Both men and women wore colourful grass skirts and garlands of flowers in their hair. The men did a sort of a fighting dance whilst the women shook their fantastically ample hips and stomachs in a way that would have me visiting a chiropractor! And their faces were all beaming with laughter. Just a delight to watch.

Away from the town though, it was pretty stunning. Lots of little uninhabited motu with fringing reefs and that green water that you expect from seeing the holiday programmes. Three or four of us anchored off one, Motu Tapu which was owned by one of the holiday resorts and was used by their guests for occasional barbecues and parties. As no-one was using it, we took it over and snorkelled and had our own barbecue one night. Another night, we anchored off the famous (?) Bloody Mary's, a bar named after the one in South Pacific. Bit of a tourist trap but worth a visit and the mahi mahi sandwich was excellent!


I had been looking forward to this part of the trip ever since we left Australia and have been disappointed to find that it certainly isn't the tropical paradise I had imagined. Firstly, it's very expensive. Where every where else, all the cruisers have eaten in the restaurants and bars and bought local arts and crafts, here it's just been too much money. Even shopping in the supermarkets has been a bit of a shock. France heavily subsidises the islands which is how the locals can afford it but for all of us on a budget, it's too much. Secondly, although the locals are friendly enough, the French that we met here have mostly been incredibly rude. And not just to us English which you could understand! They barely speak to you in the shops and never smile. A Frenchman in the dive shop in Huahine (Pacific Blue Adventures in case you find yourself unlucky enough to be there) practically threw my BCD jacket at me when I asked him for O rings and he didn't think I needed any! "Well. If you knew best, why did you bother asking me?"

So much for French Polynesia. Luckily we are now on our way to Tonga, land of feasts, humpback whales, waist mats and very large rugby players!