We also went to, believe it or not, another cultural show, on our last night in Bora Bora. It was on the beach, with a small audience so we were up close and personal which made it very enjoyable. There was fire juggling, dancing, fire walking and singing. What a nice end to part one of “Our Big Adventure”.

What a great time we have had on Bora Bora. We went scuba diving and the highlight was diving with the lemon sharks, at least a dozen of them! Cindy was at the bottom with the guide and eye to eye with these robot type fish. After lunch, we met the architect of the Hotel Bora Bora who was visiting it 40 years after designing it. He and his wife were traveling on a cruise ship and will both be 90 in 2006. We went to Bloody Mary’s restaurant and had dinner at tables in the sand (inside). There was a “shoe-check” versus a coat-check. For another 2 days, we just lounged on the fairly deserted beach, near our bungalow, soaking in the sun and reading books.

Final destination for our first 5 months away- Bora Bora, the origin of the name is ancient. Before Europeans arrived, the island was called Vanau(risen from darkness) and also Mai Te Pora(created by the Gods). Per ancient legends, this was the first land to rise from the water. Located 170 miles from Tahiti, it is one of the oldest of the society Islands, about 7 million years. Bora Bora’s lagoon is 3 times the size of its land mass, and has a marine fauna with nearly 700 species of tropical fish. Manta rays have made a home near Matira Point. This island is considered the most beautiful paradise in the world and only has 5800 islanders. Their primary occupation is tourism.
Bungalos on the stilts over the water were everywhere, but we stuck to the land.

Dec 10- Another day of liquid sunshine. That’s OK. This place has tons of beautiful flowers and trees. Lots of Hibiscus plants and also a lot of Myna birds like we saw on Fiji. Our room also has a resident Geko. He introduced himself to Cindy in the middle of the night on a bathroom wall. Lucky he doesn’t eat much.

Dec 11- No rain. Yay! The weather is warm and trying to get sunny. We are just going to relax in the nice weather before we get back to the cold of Chicago later this week.

Off to Tahiti today. We spent the whole day to make a small trip to the east. Traveled to Aukland, waited 6 hours for a red eye flight to Papeete, Tahiti and then spent the morning and afternoon at the Radisson Plaza Hotel on a beautiful black sand beach. The waves were huge and there were many surfers nearby but it rained most of the day. We flew to Huahini that evening. We took a 10 minute boat to Te Tiare Beach Resort, as there is no road access. As we took off from Papeetee, we noticed that the runway was full of walking crabs lost from the ocean. Not much to eat on an airport runway. They must have bad eyesight. Because we crossed the dateline, we got to relive this day again. Groundhog Day, which for us was travel, travel, and more travel.

Tahiti and specifically Huahini was first visited by Magellan and the first European contact was from the Spanish in the 1500’s. Captain Cook also visited in the 1700’s. It was even visited by Captain Bligh and the Bounty. The Polynesians were most likely descendants of the East Asian explorers of around 1000 A. D. The Polynesian people came to be very good sailors and eventually sailed and settled New Zealand long before the white man came.

Dec 4- We slept in and only dove the 11am dive. Very nice relaxing dive. We also went to a lesson on how to speak Fijian. One is Dua, two is Rua, with other names thrown in. It was fun and we learned that the teacher is an avid diver so we also spoke a lot about diving.

Dec 5- Spent the morning diving. In the afternoon, we went on a guided bush walk. The guide was very nice but really only guided us to stay on the trail. We have been seeing beautiful sunsets every night. We tried to use the internet today but found out that the computer here has issues. It showed us the “blue screen of death” twice and we had to crash their computer. Needless to say, not much email got sent. We eventually gave up and walked back to the room. We watched as they replaced a thatched roof on a cabin. Very fun for us, but not too much fun for the workers in the hot sun.

Dec 6- No diving today, the boat is out of the water for inspection. We lounged on the beach and read books. Another day in paradise.

Dec 7- This marks the beginning of Cindy’s underwater photography career. She took really good shots for her first attempt, a variety of puffer, pipe, false clownfish, and others along with the lovely corals. As the coral was spawning, the photos were a bit murky, not indicative of the lovely colors in the area. It was another great day with the exception of the 30 minutes of rain this afternoon. The weather is overall fine and this place is definitely one of the most beautiful places we have been to. Flowering trees everywhere, Myna birds flying everywhere and trying to eat the food (ok, maybe Myna birds are not the greatest). The rain has stopped for the meet the staff cocktail party tonight. We each have finished another Clive Cussler novel this week. We need to start a Cussler library just for all of the books we have read on this trip. Off to cocktails and dinner.

Dec 3- Diving today we actually saw an underwater memorial for Charlie at “Charlie’s Patch”. Charlie is not described in detail, just that he is gone but not forgotten. It looks like an underwater gravestone on the side of a coral Bommie. He has a very beautiful place. After our afternoon of relaxation we were off to the Sundowner Bar for what else but tropical drinks, then to dinner in the open air and to listen to our nightly band. The large bowl of Kava was tried by all during the week.

We did 2 scuba dives today. We are now at 60 total dives since starting out five years ago. We saw a shark, blue starfish and sea turtle. We are staying in beach bure(bungalow) very similar to Wakatobi, slightly larger with a total of 61 bures at the resort. The wind on our side of the island is very strong today making it difficult to open the door to the room. We spent the afternoon reading and laying by the pool until the mosquito fogger came by and we got the heck out of Dodge!

Bula, Bula , Bula! Hello and welcome to Fiji and to Fiji time (whatever, whenever). We began the day by flying to Nadi Fiji. Pronounced Nandi (the d has the nd sound in Fijian). We took a helicopter from Nadi to Castaway Island. This is actually very near Monuriki Island where the movie “Castaway” was filmed. We went scuba diving near that island. An amazing red and blue sunset today, different than others we have seen.