Bora Bora, French Polynesia
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Today we are in Bora Bora, an island in the Leeward group of the Society Islands of French Polynesia. Our first glimpse is the tall mountain peak of Mount Otemanu, 2,739 feet tall and shaped like a tombstone! Cloud covered and quite spectacular. This is a destination that we wanted to visit and now we are here and its raining!. However the water looks great and its so pretty. We walked around all the tour operators with various packages for us to buy and decided on one that did a couple of interesting things and gave us lunch on their island. After paying we walked around to our boat for the day and were surprised as it looked brilliant! Lots of artwork and a cover even but the best thing was the two guys taking us out for our adventure. Friendly, fun and looks like a great day!
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After a brief explanation of our itinerary off we went out into the sea! our first adventure was to swim with the sharks and stingrays some distance out in the sea. The sharks were a sort of yellow/ brown in the clear water and it wasn't long before we all hopped in and joined in with them. Then along came the stingrays and we were amazed at how big they were..Very tame and of course loved to be fed. Our young guide was very good with them and explained how they survive in the sea. Picking the ray up in his arms was not a challenge and even giving it a kiss was awesome.
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More fun swimming with these delightful creatures who obviously love the attention that they get and are willing to make friends with everyone. The water is quite shallow and so one feels a little comfortable with feet on the ground as the sharks and stingrays swim past and brush up against you. They felt so smooth and satiny and had no problems swimming in and out of us all.
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After quite some time having fun with them, it was time to move on and so back in the boat and headed towards another beautiful, clear patch of shallow water that we were encouraged to hop out again and scoop up the sand from the bottom and wipe it all over us as it was so clean and just like a very soft cream. After many laughs, we flew past some of the famous hotel complexes above the water.
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Ahead of us was a small island that we could land on and even in the pouring rain looked fantastic. There were two guard dogs on this island and we were a little wary but soon discovered they were ok as we were with owners...our boat docked, we alighted and headed for the small hut to get out of the rain for a short while as we were having a local lunch on here. Fabulous. There were relaxing sun lounges but not quite the day to get a suntan. It was a real island delight and the light lunch was brilliant!
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A picture of the dog and me shows how friendly they were. The water was so clear the shells were very easy to see in their natural state. The wind started to come up and the rain persisted but it certainly did't spoil our fabulous day! Back on the water we were headed back home and had lovely views of the mountainous terrain as we passed it by. A great but wet day was had by all.
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