Day Four: Bora Bora

As in the Caribbean, there seem to be two general types of islands in French Polynesia: long, flat coral atolls like Rangiroa, and mountainous volcanic islands like Moorea and Bora Bora. On Thursday we arrived in Bora Bora, which has a unique mountainous profile all its own. Since there was another cruise ship in port, shore excursions sold out early and we did not book anything through the ship for our first day in Bora Bora, Instead, we hired a motorboat with captain for a couple of hours. Our captain, a relocated Frenchman named Terry, is an old salt scuba diver who was very nice and took us wherever we wanted to go. I wanted too do some snorkeling so Terry took us outside of the reef where we spotted black tipped fin and lemon sharks. They we went inside the lagoon for some snorkeling with a variety of smaller fish. Dan wanted to go swimming at a beach so we finished up our time with Terry at a beautiful relatively secluded beach for a dip in the bathwater warm, crystal clear turquoise waters. Then it was back to the ship for cocktails and dinner.