This was our view last night from the back of the boat during Happy Hour
This was our view, at the same time, from our bow...a full moon.
As expected from the blog last week, we did get blasted with almost four full days of high wind and lots of rain. For the first time since we left B.C. in 2007, we put the additional rain cover on (that connects the bimini with the dodger) so that helped to give us more outdoor space and also made sure the bimini wasn’t blown off the boat.
We anchored once again in a deep bay (100 feet) and our chain and anchor held us fast and secure, although we skated around and had to maintain anchor watch through the nights. We were anchored with a 200-foot sailboat, a 100-foot motor yacht and a 100- foot 1904 gaff-rigged sailboat named Merry Maid with the original rigging, as well as our friends on Jenny (58- feet). We felt a little dwarfed!
1904 sailboat - The Merry Maid
The first night when the winds exceeded 40 knots, the motor yacht broke its stern line at 2:00 a.m. in the morning and had to re-anchor. It was quite an adventure with the waves, rain and wind. The next day they had to dive for a few hours to recover their anchor.
The views are amazing from every anchorage
We spent Father’s Day tucked in on the boat. Jan and Elle invited us for dinner, but the wind came up too strong in the late afternoon to contemplate leaving QuickStar. Instead I made baked macaroni and cheese – with cheese that you don’t need to refrigerate (just don’t think about that for too long, especially my sister Denise, the cheese-maker), yellow pasta (not sure why it was yellow), powdered milk and of course breadcrumbs (after picking out the weevils). Yum, yum! We called Peter’s Dad from our computer and they shared the fact that they were going to have a lovely family barbeque with Oma’s fantastic cooking and a selection of her fabulous cakes!!! I tried to make a package of chocolate chip cookies for dessert, but alas, no eggs left.
An example of the many over the water bungalows - this is the Hilton
It is really odd being in Bora Bora. This must rate as one of the top ten most expensive destinations in the world. The prices of the over- the- water bungalows start at about $800 a night. Food prices are through the roof, and activities are expensive as well. It is about 50% more expensive than Moorea, which already has the regular high prices of French Polynesia.
One of the closed and decaying bars
What is really sad, is that Bora Bora is like a ghost town. There are 60% less tourists here than before the crash. Hotels and bars are closed and left to just rot. The famous Bora Bora hotel is deserted with the bungalows just falling down on the beach. Lots of shops and activities have closed down as well and those that have remained open scarcely have any customers. They don’t get the whole supply and demand concept here though, and haven’t lowered their prices. Instead they just close down. They also don’t get the concept of cleanliness in paradise, as the roads and public areas are completely litter-strewn. Dogs also roam at will and none of them have been fixed.
Bloody Mary's Restaurant - Jimmy Buffets favourite hang-out here
While here, we went to the famous Bloody Mary restaurant, which has a huge list out front of all the celebrities that have been there. We were the only two in the restaurant – until our friends from Jenny and the owner of Merry Maid came in for a beer.
Check your sandals/shoes at the door
Bora Bora is a fabulous place to sail around though. The scenery is amazing, the water is crystal clear, the diving is fantastic and the long walks on the beach are a treat.
Location of our dive shop - the hotel and restaurant are closed
What is also sad, though, is that the coral is pretty well all dead. What used to be vibrant coral gardens bursting with colour and live coral is now just brown and broken. This has been caused by the Crown of Thorns – photo courtesy of Scott Stoinitz.
The Crown of Thorns has been around for awhile, but was kept controlled by its two predators – the Napoleon Wrasse and also the Triton Trumpet. Since the reef isn’t protected here, the locals overfished both of these natural predators – the Napoleon because it is great to eat and the Triton for their shells, since they fetch upwards of $200 U.S. a piece.
The Crown of Thorns
The Crown of Thorns now ran rampant, and one of them alone can eat and destroy nine square feet of coral a day!!! The coral was almost dead already by February, so when the cyclone came through, it finished it off.
The next island we are going to tomorrow is Maupiti, and it is one of the last Society Islands to have live coral. This is due single-handedly to the dive master there who has killed in excess of 3,000 Crown of Thorns and thereby protected the reef. We are looking forward to diving there on Saturday. This is assuming we are able to shoot the entrance, as it has a very narrow and dangerous pass to maneuver to get in to the lagoon. If it isn’t navigable due to winds and/or swell, we will have to take a miss and carry on to Mopelia overnight.
I’m doing the blog a day early, because we are getting ready to leave “civilization” behind and start heading to the remoter areas…Maupiti (with 1,500 residents), then on to Mopelia (with 12 residents) and then about a four day crossing to the Cook Islands.
We got our final provisioning, fuel and completed all our formalities for check-out, and as I write this Peter is securing our dinghy on the deck for our dawn departure tomorrow morning.
Ouch! That darn Lion Fish
We went for our final dive here this morning and the visibility was amazing. We were lucky to see black tipped sharks, lemon sharks and grey sharks all on the same dive! Our dive master got stung by the very poisonous Lion Fish and his finger blew up to twice the normal size. Hopefully he will be okay and the pain and swelling should go away in a couple of days.
Getting medical attention for the Lion Fish sting
Now that we have finished our three dives in Bora Bora and are leaving, I’ll show you a picture of one of the dive guides, Patrick. (thanks again to Scott for the photo). Patrick got a chunk taken out of his leg by a lemon shark – he tells the public the injury was from a motorcycle accident, as the truth isn’t great for business. He freely admits that it was his error that caused the accident. He was feeding the sharks, by putting out fish heads under rocks and he didn’t realize that one had dropped down and he had it between his legs. The rest is history…the lemon shark just came for the fish head. Patrick no longer “feeds the sharks” and it really is quite safe to swim with the sharks, as no tourist has reportedly been “bitten” here.
Photo of Patrick's shark bite!
We expect to be out of internet range for about two weeks, so I’ll update the blog via the ham radio again next week if I’m able to, and then daily for the crossing to the Cook Islands. As always, if there are any emergencies at home, just send us an email to our Ham Radio, which we’ll check once a day.
QuickStar in the final Bora Bora anchorage
Until next week….Live like a crazy person!
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