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| First up close sight of Bora Bora |
Dales Birthday! Up early as usual and had the new batch of bread dough mixed before we headed off at 7.20am. We went out through Rautoanui Pass which is pretty easy – usual port and starboard, along with lead lights. Seas pretty calm & the breeze was light but as we progressed the breeze steadily rose between 15-20kn and gusting to 25kn. We had a downwind sail to Bora Bora which took 4 hours to reach the entrance. We had a few slices of fresh baked bread just before entering the only pass in Bora Bora being Teavanui. Again reasonably easy to enter but the leads were very hard to pick out – the land based one was OK but the sea based one was very difficult. The GPS waypoint in the centre of the pass is S16°29’.498 W151°47’.063
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| Awesome sight |
Upon entering the pass to this picturesque island that I had wanted to visit for over 20 years (although on my own yacht was the vision), I felt very happy that I had finally made it. We decided to anchor somewhere near the town centre of Vaitepe and have a quick visit and look around and decide where to eat for the night. I had been trying to phone Bloody Marys for 12 hours but the phone just kept ringing out. As we were approaching the anchorage (just to the right of the leads) we changed our mind and headed to the Bora Bora Yacht Club instead and picked up a mooring. You are meant to call ahead to book but as it was low season and few yachts around it did not seem necessary and we would go in and announce ourselves instead.
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| Bora Bora Yacht Club |
We took the dinghy in, dropped of our rubbish and met the girl who was caretaking the place (she lives on site with her 2 kids) and were told that the Yacht Club was closed and had been since the February cyclone. However, at a glance it looked as though it was ready to go and serve drinks, food etc.. so we couldn’t really work out what the go was. Anyway we still had to pay 2000XPF to stay the night on the mooring, which we did begrudgingly.
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| Our snorkel grounds |
Took the dinghy a few miles around to the town centre and parked the dinghy up in the ferry transit area on the left hand side of the jetty away from all the inter island ferries. Vaitape was very disappointing. Being a Sunday nothing except a few pearl shops were open – I only saw one restaurant – closed and never saw a supermarket of any sorts (we needed to get a few dinner things by this stage). The streets were dusty and it really lacked appeal. I was pretty shocked and a bit disappointed (although I had been prewarned that there was nothing to see in this town). I guess I expected more from a place that attracted many tourists that were paying a lot of money to be here (albeit staying at the many resorts dotted along the motus).
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| View at anchor - Yacht club |
So we left knowing that Dales celebration dinner would be onboard with whatever food I could throw together. We grabbed a few beers and decided to take the dinghy to the Motus on the north western side of Bora Bora and do a bit of snorkeling. We went past Motu Tevairoa where they have over water bungalows owned by Bora Bora Blue Nui. This motu is private unless you are visiting the resort – which we didn’t.
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| Town of Vaitape |
The easterly breeze was really ripping through and we continued on our wet way to motu Haapiti-iti which is the next one up from Tevairoa. There is a beautiful house here with a lovely sandy beach and clear gorgeous water surrounded it. Being private we didn’t stop here but we dropped our anchor off the motu and snorkelled from the dinghy in about a metre of water. The colours are breathtaking and there were a few nice little fish & lumps of coral. 
At this stage I think the Whitsundays still offer the best in coral & fish that I have seen although it lacks the clarity of the water. We had a very wet ride back in the dinghy, we didn’t bother us as we were already wet! I mixed up some pizza dough and made a couple of pizzas with ham, pineapple, chorizo, capsicum, onion & cheese. They worked quite well, washed down with cold beer & wine and Dale thoroughly enjoyed his birthday dinner anchored up in Bora Bora.
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| Motu Tevairoa |
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