More from Bora Bora
Nickanddenisesailing
Mon 28 Aug 2017 02:21
Yes here we are still in Bora Bora. The weather is not playing ball so looks like we may even have to stick it out here for another week. There is a large high pressure moving to the south of us which means big seas and strong trade winds, forecast is calling for 30-40knts and 5m seas. Bob McDavitt (our new favorite weather forecaster) says 'stay put for the week' so that is what we will do. We had hoped originally to leave yesterday or today so we will have to rough it out here for the week and hope for some more settled weather off the back of this system.
Buuuut its not bad news - we are having a great time here on this beautiful island and its by no means a bad place to be stuck waiting for weather.
We delayed our move around the island by a day so that Nick could get some surfing in with Lawernce (from the Dutch boat). I decided to head off and have a 'dinghy adventure' by myself and went in search of manta rays and wifi (sound like a strange combination haha). I didn't find any Mantas but had a lovely snorkel and followed that with a great catch up with Ewan in NZ. After treating myself to a steak baguette with fries I headed back to the boat to go wake surfing behind the dinghy with the Dutch girls. We then had to say our good byes to those guys and hope to catch up with them in NZ.
We moved around to the SE side of the island a few days ago as we had heard about a beautiful anchorage that wasn't to be missed. It was a bit tricky moving the boat around as there are a number of very shallow patches where we had only had 20/30cm under our keel.
We dropped the anchor nearly on top of where Mum and Dad would have been 7 years ago. It is so immensely beautiful here. The water is unlike any we have seen before, just glowing shades of turquoise for miles. The shallow white sandy lagoons here really make the water glow and glisten like nothing we have seen. The mountain is our backdrop and the island has a beautiful profile which fills our view from the cockpit. There isnt much in the way of life around - the occasional ray, the odd polychaete worm and some very sad looking bommies with a few fish, but otherwise these lagoons are kind of like desert moonscapes.
I think we were so happy to have made it to such a beautiful spot that Nick and I celebrated very hard the first night. Many drinks were had and we filled the night with jokes, laughter, dancing in the cockpit and some night swimming with glow sticks. Despite hitting the alkerselzer (Briggs hangover cure) hard we were not at our best the next morning. After a very lazy morning and a big breakfast we headed out to explore. We had another unsuccessful manta ray search followed by more snorkeling and then some much needed relaxing.
Today we have been much more proactive. We headed towards one of the peninsulas of the island where many of the nice hotels are and had a good wander around. Amazing to see some of these crazy hotels up close. We then walked for a while to find the famous 'bloody Marys' restaurant where, as well as nice cheese burgers we found a whole load of cruise shippers. Thankfully most seemed more interested in the gift shop and the bar than the restaurant so we were able to get a table and savour our cheeseburger treat. On our way back we checked out few more snorkeling spots and were welcomed by hundreds of fish at one of the sites. Evidence of where they are feeding the fish, we are sure.
So that brings us up to this afternoon where Nick has his head in the engine replacing a belt and I am fighting it out with him for some space in the galley to make a cake. We will probably stay here for a few more days until the wind picks up when we will move around to the more sheltered side of the island. Fingers crossed for a good weather window for us to leave......
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