Cyndi and Rich aboard Legacy
August 24, 2012
We’re back at the Bora Bora Yacht Club waiting for weather for our next passage. This one is a long one, about 1300 miles, to Tonga. We’re using a weather router named Bob McDavitt to help us make our decisions about when to go and which way to go. So far, it’s looking like it’ll be good to leave next Thursday, six days from now. We’ll see how it plays out.
In the mean time, we’re really enjoying Bora Bora. What a great place to be “stuck” while waiting for weather.
August 23, 2012
Across from our anchorage, just off a site called Anau on Bora Bora, is a place where large manta rays swim. These particular mantas stay about 15 to 20 feet below the surface and will dart away if you get too close to them, but they will contentedly swim under you if you stay near the surface.
We enjoyed a beautiful night at this east-side anchorage. The moon was mostly obscured by clouds, but it was bright enough to give them a bright silvery lining and bathe the mountain below in moonlight. Yet it was dark enough that scatterings of bright stars were still visible and almost seemed to twinkle behind the mountain. It looked like a 1940’s painting of “Polynesia.”
At dawn, the morning light made the water glow a bright teal. I wasn’t quite able to capture this with a camera but will put the picture here anyway. That morning we went for a dinghy ride to explore the area, then took one last swim with the mantas.
It would have been nice to head a lovely anchorage further south, and we would have done so if it hadn’t been for those pesky winds. It was due to blow about 20 knots from the east; so we wanted to be on the west side, tucked in behind the mountain. We pulled up our anchor by noon and made our way carefully back to the other side. Luckily, there were moorings available at the yacht club.
By evening, everyone who had been on the other side had returned, and we had a final gathering on the dock of the yacht club. From here on, life for all of us would be about provisioning and waiting for a weather window for the next passage. Some of us were going north to Suwarrow, some south to the Cook Islands and Niue , and some straight to Tonga or Samoa. The one thing we all had in common was a big passage ahead. For us, it turned out to be over 1200 miles to Apia in Western Samoa.
And click the link below for a quick manta ray video…
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
