Bora Bora day 3

When we were leaving the airport in Tahiti to fly to Bora Bora we were approached by a guy who said he worked for the Bora Bora tourism office or something like that. He showed us some guide books and talked real fast about going to restaurants on the main island and booking tours without going through the concierge at the hotel and so on. Before I knew it we had agreed to an all day lagoon tour and given him a deposit of $120. Then we flew off with a few pieces of paper with his phone number on it, some instructions to show up at the resort pier at 8:20 on Sunday with snorkel gear and towels, and hand written receipt. After I thought about it a bit I figured our $120 was gone but sure enough at 8:30 or so this morning a big outrigger boat showed up to pick us up. We went over to the main island to pick up a bunch of other tourists and with a boat load of about 30 tourists we set off.

First stop was coral garden. This is an area with big coral heads in 2-20 feet of some of the clearest water in which I have ever snorkeled. It was also just stuffed with fish. We also saw an eagle ray as soon as we hit the water. We spent about 45 minutes snorkeling around there and then hopped back in the boat. Next stop was an area with much deeper water. Probably more like 30-40 feet but you could still see easily to the bottom. Cruising along the bottom were several giant manta rays. I've never seen mantas in the ocean before so this was really cool. We spent another 30 or 40 minutes following the mantas around. They didn't seem to mind us at all. Next we went to an area with about 3 or 4 feet of water where all the boats go to feed sharks and rays. Here you could just stand on the bottom while dozens of stingrays and black tipped reef sharks circled around being fed. You could even hold the sting rays in your arms. Not sure how smart that was given how Steve Irwin died but no one got hurt.

After that it was off to a small barrier island called the lagoonarium. This island is privately owned by a single family and it seems a few tour boats use it as both a tour stop and a place to have lunch. Lunch was a buffet of local specialties including barbecued fish and chicken along with raw tuna salad, rice, taro, and fruit. It was really good and Margaret said the barbecue chicken was some of the best she had tried on our trip.  After lunch we all spent a few hours swimming in the pens off the island's shore. Essentially these are like huge fish pens but instead of aquaculture its local reef fish. So one pen had several lemon sharks and a school of eagle rays.  Another pen had two nurse sharks.  One other had a bunch of fish you could feed and a giant puffer fish. The final pen had three green sea turtles. All the animals seemed healthy although the turtles seemed a little restricted by the size of their pen. Overall it was cool to see the animals and it certainly didn't seem any worse and probably a good bit better than an aquarium (except for the turtles)

Over all it was  a really great experience. The people on the boat were great. One of them collected and opened coconuts for us on the beach. We learned the greenest ones have sweet coconut water and the flesh is thin, slippery, and very soft. Slightly older ones have a coconut water that is a bit fermented and bubbly like champagne. Kids loved this one. The flesh on these is harder like you think of with grated coconut. The most interesting is the sprouted coconut. If you open one that has already sprouted the water has turned to a spongy doughy sweet material like partially cooked bread dough which is really tasty and the flesh is not edible. Never seen that before. Very glad we did this tour.