A Day on the Lagoon: Une Comedie en un Acte.

Bora Bora was formed by volcanic eruptions roughly 4 million years ago. It was first inhabited by Polynesian colonists from Tonga around 400 AD. It eventually became known as the home to a tribe of fierce Polynesian warriors.

The name Bora Bora means "first born" in Tahitian. According to local lore, the island was named either for the first king who was the first son of a Tongan ruler, or it was named Bora Bora because it was the first of the Tahitian islands to rise from the sea.

The island was first sighted by Europeans in the 1700's, but the first white men to set foot on it were members of the exploration party of Captain James Cook in 1769. In the 1820's, the London Missionary Society established a mission on Bora Bora and converted most of the natives to Christianity.

Queen Teriimaevarua III was the last queen and last monarch of the royal family of Bora Bora. She ruled from 1832 until 1888 when Tahiti was annexed by the French government. Annexation was carried out without the consent of the native government, and Teriimaevarua was forced to abdicate. She remained the head of the royal family until her death.

Bora Bora is such a beautiful place that we thought we would rent a boat and spend a day on the lagoon exploring around the island. We had done this some years ago in Abaco in the Bahamas with a rented Boston Whaler, and had great fun skipping from island to island and beach to beach in the tropical sun, so we wanted to have that experience again.

This is a photo from the website of La Plage Boat rentals in Viatape on the main island of Bora Bora, pretty much the only available boat to rent that you can skipper yourself. I hadn't seen a pontoon boat since the days when my children were little and we had a lake condo in Arkansas. But we decided to take what we could get.

We sailed out across the lagoon in a boat like this on a cloudy day in February. Or rather I should say we putt-putted out onto the lagoon with the 20 hp outboard motor at full throttle, bobbing and dipping in the waves as we went.

On our way across the lagoon, the day started sunny enough, and we passed some lovely resorts nestled in islands in the lagoon.

The day soon became overcast, but pleasant enough and comfortably cool. Here I am pausing from my skipper duties for a photo shoot with the twin peaks of Bora Bora in the background. Note the beautiful color of the turquoise water.

Visible in the distance the twin peaks of Bora Bora's extinct volcanoes. Mount Otemanu on the right is the higher of the two peaks at 2,385 feet above the sea. It is largely unscalable due to sheer faces on all sides. The smaller peak, Mount Pahia, is on the left. It is open for hiking and rock climbing.

As the morning wore on, clouds appeared, and soon the peaks of Bora Bora were shrouded in clouds. Little did we know that the rains were not far behind.

Before the rains hit, we decided to anchor and swim in the shallow clear water near the reef. Tim threw out the anchor, and I jumped into waist deep water. Immediately, the boat was leaving me, so I started swimming and slogging to catch it. By this time, the wind had picked up, so we thought the anchor was dragging. I got back on board while Tim pulled the anchor up--except there was no anchor, just the empty end of a chain!

Fortunately, La Plage had given us a cell phone, so we called Mariano, and soon he motored up with a new anchor and we were underway again. 

About the time we dropped anchor for the second time, the rains hit. We decided to get into the warm water to wait it out. Soon Tim was shivering, so we got back into the boat and wrapped ourselves in beach towels. Ever the optimist, Tim thought we should putt-putt around a while to see if the rains stopped. They didn't. So finally, defeated, we turned our little pontoon boat toward the home dock. 

As we headed back, the waves had picked up considerably, so we were carouseling across the white caps at breakneck speed of, oh maybe 1-2 knots, huddled in beach towels and squinting into the pelting rain. At one point, water swamped the bow but quickly drained out the sides and back. By the time we neared the dock, we were squarely in the middle of what our sailor friend Richard would call "a local squall." It was only noon.

Having given it our best, we turned in our little pontoon boat and headed into Viatape for lunch.

 The entire island of Bora Bora has a population of less than 8,000, so the town of Viatape is understandably small and a little primitive.

Check out the potholes in the street--are we in Manuel Antonio?

Commercial center in beautiful downtown Viatape.

Pretty little church in Viatape--the only one we saw in town.

Mount Pahia as a backdrop to a local strip mall where Tim got a pedicure for only $62. Some kind of record for the most expensive pedicure of all time. He should have gotten a price quote first!

This is the breadfruit tree--the one that started all the trouble years ago.

In 1787, the British Royal Navy purchased a small merchant ship named Bounty and refitted it for a botanical expedition to Tahiti to retrieve breadfruit saplings and take them to the British West Indies. Breadfruit had by this time supplanted rice production as a nutritious source of protein and carbohydrates for Polynesians.

When the British discovered this cheap and highly productive source of food, they wanted it to feed the legions of slaves working in their colonies. This was the reason Captain Bligh and the crew of HMS Bounty were dispatched to retrieve breadfruit plants for transplantation to the West Indies.

It so happened that there was this fellow on the crew of HMS Bounty named Fletcher Christian, and the rest is history.....

Oh, except for the part where Marlon Brando came to Tahiti to film a re-make of Mutiny on the Bounty, and a whole new version of trouble started--one that involved beautiful Tahitian maidens instead of breadfruit.....

After some frustrating souvenir shopping in Viatape (a grass skirt sells for $120), we headed back to the resort for some on-the-beach relaxation.

And the sun came out at the end of the day! Where was the sun when we were on the pontoon boat?!?

Sunset and a clearing sky.

Dinner tonight is on the beach at Tamure Grill on the resort grounds. Casual beach dining with a real sand floor!

Our hostess for the evening, a lovely and graceful person who told me her name twice, and I was embarrassed to ask a third time. She did say that the English translation of her name is "Young Tree."

As an aside, Polynesian culture has a long history (possibly thousands of years) dating back to early Samoa of "third gender" people. Some families actively raised a male child as female, particularly if the child had a convivial personality and an aptitude for domesticity and service.

The ma-hu as they were called in Tahitian society (today "rae-rae") were not shunned or bullied. To the contrary, they are traditionally revered and respected for their civility, charm, and talent for service--particularly in the hospitality industry. They are part of the normal Tahitian society, and are thought to possess the best characteristics of both men and women.

There is even an annual ma-hu beauty pageant on Bora Bora--the Miss Poehine competition. This is another example of how travel and learning about other cultures normal customs can broaden our experience of life on this planet. If we all traveled more, I believe we would have a more peaceful and tolerant planet.