Leaving French Polynesia

Bora Bora is the place of mystical beauty and may embody what many people imagine when they dream of the South Pacific.   I couldn’t stop thinking of the songs & lyrics from musical Bali Hai as I wandered down the streets. Compared to the other islands we'd been to in French Polynesia, Bora Bora has a more ‘American’ vibe.  More people spoke English and it just felt less ‘French’.  (Je ne sai quoi?) Tourists seemed to be more predominately from the US.   We supposed that with a WWII US base many Americans (Google said up to 16,000) passed through here in war times perhaps that is why it rolls off the tongue for many Americans and is their 'goto' vacation and honeymoon spot.

Lush Bora Bora as seen from the our anchorage in front of the Bora Bora Yacht Club

While no doubt touristy, we visited the local village of Vaitape on multiple occasions to do shop for food.  The grocery stores were well stocked with beautiful produce, there was an export shop that had Kirkland brand mixed nuts (probably I paid way too much for them) and lots of cute little shops with clothing and traditional Polynesian tourist items (Pearls, sarongs, woven goods, etc).  One Sunday morning we took the dingy into town and arrived just as the church congregations were heading in to worship.  All the women were dressed in beautiful floral print dresses and sported fashionable woven hats.  I saw one elderly couple wearing matching outfits as they walked up the church walkway.   It was fun to see everyone looking their best.   

When the rain stops, the flowers are vibrantly colored

The weather in Bora Bora was quite unsettled. We had long period of grey days and our solar panels struggled to generate the power that we depend on. One of the last days we were in town we got stuck at a restaurant for about 4 hours when it rained so hard that it filled our dingy with water, lightening was directly overhead and there was reduced visibility in the lagoon to about 50'.  After waiting out the rain until almost dark we finally braved the wet trip back to the Yacht club. We were drenched in seconds. It was a very wet ride -- we could have swam back with what I'm sure would have been the same result.

Watching the squall after lunch

Dan emptying out the water that is 8" deep in the dingy

The yacht club at Bora Bora is equipped with a restaurant, showers and laundry facilities.  For the next leg, only 12 boats (1/2 of the rally boats) would be leaving in the first wave and the remainder leaving 3 days later.   We enjoyed catching up with the crews of the other boats, sharing meals together and swapping stories of the last 6 weeks in Polynesia.  We picked up our paperwork, completed the checkout process and went through our final preparations.  

Runoff fills the lagoon

Skippers and mates checked the weather, began stowing the beach gear, dingys, engines and kayaks.  We dug out the life jackets, tethers, rain covers and prepped food.   We were anticipating some heavy weather on this passage. So with that in mind, I prepared a few extra meals that would be easy to heat up if needed along the way.  Since the last long leg was almost 6 weeks ago we all joked about getting our sea legs back.

Our new crew was getting settled, our tanks were full and the day came. We were off the 800 + miles to Niue…or so we thought!