We also woke up this morning with a plan - as long as the wind and rain weren’t howling we would book a round island guided bus trip so we can at least say we have seen Bora Bora.
I woke up first and cast a searching glance outside in the early moning light. No rain - check, wind has subsided a bit, check. In a two to zero unanimous decision we elected to go for it. The plan called for an early (6:30 ish) breakfast, a sprint to the travel concierge desk to book the trip, and then a chance to come back to the room and get ready. The pieces fell into place exactly as we had hoped and we got back to the room with two tickets in hand. We started to pack for the morning and then....... holy crap! Where de island go?
That’s right, the weather gods were still playing with us. What had looked like an ok, grey, warm morning now looked like one of those fake tropical movies where they keep sloshing buckets of water over the set!
Anyway, we wanted to do something so we set off in the tender to shore to meet ‘Le Truck’! This is basically a truck with rudimentary row seating and a roof, but at least ours had windows. At first the rain eased up and we set off with our knowledgeable guide explaining the highlights. The people on Bora Bora are friendly and appear to be pretty happy. It seems like everyone knows one another. That said, they live what seems like a subsistence lifestyle in falling down shacks, a world apart from the guests of the luxury hotels (or cruise ships!) that come to their island. Dogs run wild everywhere. At our first stop the rain came on again hard but it came and went through the morning. We circled the island which has definitely had some hard times in the last few decades. Perhaps the luxury hotels in the motus (small islands around the lagoon) have killed the main island resorts.
We did stop at Bloody Mary’s - a famous watering hole to such stars as Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, Rod Stewart and many others - and we saw Brando’s original over water thatched cottage. We were glad we went but overall a little sad for an island that doesn’t seem to share equally in the prosperity that tourism might bring.
Enough of that. This afternoon we are doing a wine tasting on board followed by a talk about Moorea and the our dinner. Our favourite shipboard weather phrases have become ‘we can only hope’, ‘let us pray’, and of course ‘we can’t control the weather’. So - all of that - it will be better tomorrow in Moorea!
A shame that the weather gods were not very cooperative, but it sounds like you had an interesting time just the same. Too bad about the failure of "tickle-down economy" theory.
ReplyDeleteOMG!!! I would have been seasick for sure!
ReplyDelete