Cyndi and Rich aboard Legacy
August 23, 2012
First there’s one dingy* out cruising around the anchorage. Then a second joins them. Then a third and a forth and a fifth. Now it’s a giant floating party/weather discussion group/destination planning meeting. These little impromptu gatherings are so much fun.
* Dingy – what the little boats that we use to get back and forth from shore are called. Also called tenders, dinks and many swear words when their engines wont start.
August 22 & 23, 2012
We ventured into the shallow water a couple of days ago in search of manta rays, and we found them! The shallow water and mantas are on the other side of Bora Bora. We motored over an hour through water that was as shallow as eight feet. That’s a problem because our keel sticks down seven feet. One little coral head or rock and we’d hit bottom. Nerve-wracking!
But it was worth the bad case of jitters. We found a great spot to anchor in about 12 feet of water and from there, the manta ray spot was only a short dingy ride away.
This was different than when we’d swam with mantas before. Here, they were cruising along the bottom over the coral looking to be cleaned. Little, colorful wrasses obliged them, swimming into their mouths to pick out little parasites.
The water wasn’t as clear as it could have been, the mantas were 30 or 40 feet below us and didn’t care much to interact with humans during their wrasse-bath, but it was still incredible. We saw two or three at a time and there was a mostly constant stream of them swimming below us. -Rich
August 22, 2012
The east side of Bora Bora has beautiful clear water and manta rays you can swim with. The problem lies in getting over there. About half-way around the north side of the island (there is no pass on the south side), the water gets very shallow. There is one area in particular, the dreaded “S Curve,” that is the most shallow, but all of it is a little scary.
If we were totally on our own, we never would have tried it. Our friends Alan and Marlies had urged us to go, but we put it off as we were waiting for our replacement radar to arrive (that’s another story). In the meantime, one by one, other people we knew started to head over. And one by one, they made it over unscathed. We kept hearing how nice it was there; so after we got our radar, we finally succumbed and headed over.
The trip around the north end of the island was a little hair raising. We saw a minimum depth of 8 ½ feet in the S curve, and we draw almost 7! From there on the depths averaged 15 to 20 feet, but there were a lot of areas with rocks and coral over the bottom—too many to avoid. I would just hold my breath as we went over them.
Finally, after about a 3-hour trip, we arrived at the anchorage. It was actually along the long sandy motu surrounding the main island. This is where they have built the newest resorts, and we were nestled in an area between the St. Regis and the Hotel Le Meridien. The depth was about 18 feet, and the bottom was sand. This was a nice anchorage and worth the stress we had to endure in getting here. Unfortunately, because of the weather forecast, we wouldn’t be able to stay long. -Cyndi
August 21, 2012
That’s the question we hear. Here’s the answer for yesterday:
6:05AM – Woke up late and missed the sunrise. Darn. Usually we see it. Drank coffee. Watched the sky, sea, island…
8:00AM – Go in to shore and walk to town. Breakfast at a place that was reputed to have incredible croissants and pan du chocolate (basically croissants with a little chocolate inside, yum). They did. Wonderful. Next, walk to Air Tahiti’s office to pick up our radar. (Our radar started acting up after we left Tahiti. Simrad sent us a new one.) Cab back to the boat. It’s about a 30 minute walk to town – too far to carry a very big box.
10:30AM – Install Radar. That went well. One trip up the mast to take the old one down. A short rest on deck to wait for my legs to stop shaking, and another trip up the mast to install the new radar.
11:23AM – Whales! Right off our boat. While I’m putting the finishing touches on the radar, Cyndi, who was diligently looking for boat wakes that could shake me off the mast, spotted whales just a short way from our boat. As soon as I got down, we jumped in the dingy to get a closer view. By the time we got there, there were probably 20 boats following the mother and baby. We got very close and had a wonderful view. Sorry. We spent our time just looking and very little taking pictures so we didn’t get any good ones.
12:47PM – Played with the new radar for a while and left it running to test.
12:53PM – Incredible steaks for lunch with short-grained brown rice and huge, fresh carrots. The steaks here are amazing. I’ve never had better, anywhere. And they are inexpensive here.
1:30PM or so – Read, loaf, think, dream, nap, relax…
3:36PM – Dean and Sabina from the boat Local Talent stopped by. They’re anchored in town and were out for a dingy ride. We opened beers, sat around and talked story. While we were sitting in the cockpit, I noticed a bunch of small boats congregating in the channel outside our boat. That could only mean one thing: Whales! We jumped in Dean’s dingy and off we went for our second whale-watching excursion of the day. This time we had mom and baby surface 15 feet from the dingy. What a show! Mom and baby seemed to like the attention and were playing on the surface amongst the small boats, paddle boards and kayaks. Again, sorry. No pictures.
5:55PM – Sat in the cockpit eating cheese and crackers with a nice bottle of wine and watched the sunset. Wine progressed into rum. After enough rum, we decided to watch the first episode of the original Star Trek (thanks Herb for the old TV shows on disk!) We haven’t been watching many videos or TV shows while out here but it’s nice once in a while.
About 8:00PM – I fell asleep. I’m sure I had a smile on my face after another nice day in Bora Bora. -Rich
August 21, 2012
One yacht club perk that we did not anticipate was the proximity to whales in the lagoon! In particular, we had a mother and calf who made several appearances not too far from our boat.
We soon realized we had a sort of warning system when they were about (at least in the afternoon). All we had to do was look outside and if there was an assortment of dinghies, canoes, paddle-boards, power boats, and perhaps a sailboat or two all grouped up, they were probably following whales.
The first time we saw this, we jumped in the dinghy and went check it out. We followed along, but of course we were worried: was all this harassing the whales? We followed and watched as mother an calf were amazingly close to one dinghy, and then another dinghy. Some of the local guys were very close in their canoe and got in the water with masks and snorkels.
We stayed with all this for about 15 minutes, and we noticed the whales did not seem bothered at all. The calf played and even breached at one point. Mom would surface, then they might both dive but would surface not far away. When she decided she was done with all of us, she and the calf simply headed out of range, and the band of boats dispersed. I had the camera for this, but unfortunately it didn’t focus properly so my footage is blurry. Plus, it’s very hard hold and camera and try to actually see the whales at the same time.
The second time we saw the congregation of boats, we had some friends over. Rich noticed a group of boats starting to gather and said, “I think we have whales.” We jumped into our friends’ dinghy and headed over.
I was dismayed to realize that in our haste to go I had forgotten our camera, but this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. On this day, we had great whale watching of a mom and calf, sometimes right next to the boat! It was incredible, and because I didn’t have a camera, I was fully in the moment. I realize you have to be careful with a camera, because you can end up recording events but not living them. So, we have no video footage or pictures from that day, but I think back on it and remember the whales, not my struggles with the camera.
After looking over the blurry, erratic, Blair-Witch-style video of our first outing, Rich has managed to extract this picture. (I won’t hold my breath waiting a call from National Geographic.) -Cyndi
