Bora Bora, French Polynesia
4^th – 20th July, 2004

Bora Bora gave us everything one could ever want from French Polynesia – an extravaganza of singing and dancing, party nights with Tahitians, dives on stunning reefs with sharks galore, local legends of enormous sharks interacting with humans, and repeated meetings with a man who has spent the last ten years living here and studying the reefs. 

Our two main focal points for our weeks here were to study the coral reef just outside the only pass into the lagoon and to spend as much time as possible at night on the land, watching the month-long competition of the heiva.  We managed to achieve both, grabbing sleep in between diving and dancing and foregoing it when there was just too much to see and do! 

The coral reef studies were complemented by our time spent with Denis Schneider who is working on artificial reef systems at several of the resorts in the lagoon.  (Click here for our reef report).  Denis gave us a very complete recent history of the lagoon and made predictions for its future.  He has concerns for the protection and maintenance of the reefs, and Bora Bora is worth protecting.  

 views of the extremely healthy corals at our study site

Bora Bora is one of the highest-ranking tourist destinations in the world and rightly so with the clarity of the water in the lagoon, the perfect turquoise shallows and the spectacular sea life on the barrier reef.  We completed our studies, then shifted our focus to diving with sharks – first lemon sharks and black tips at one site just south of the pass, then another site studded with grey reef sharks that are being fed by some dive operations.  They provided the closest contact with sharks that the Heraclitus  has ever had and posed as models for our upcoming film on sharks and the worldwide trend for shark-finning. 

grey reef sharks and a blacktip reef shark gather

The heiva built to a cimax as each night we watched a group from one of the five districts of Bora Bora present their hour-long hymne (harmonized voices with drums and eukeleles) or their dance, otea, based on a legend from their district.   We picked our own favorites for the group competitions, the solo dancers, the ‘orchestras’ and the couple dancers.  

We were due to leave Bora Bora the night before the grand finale – the announcement of the winners and the prize-giving.  But the winds were either with us or against us, depending on how you look at it.  On our scheduled departure date, a cold front over us was creating 20 knot headwinds if we were to head back to Raiatea, so we remained at anchor and headed for our last night of festival, joining in celebrating with the winners at discos that carried on til 5 in the morning. 

We left Bora Bora early on a Tuesday morning, crossing paths with an enormous cruise ship that was on its way in.  But most of us have silently promised to return some day.  Every night at the heiva, the announcer would incorporate into her speech ‘Bora Bora, the pearl of the Pacific’.  We agree, but for how long?

Bora Bora Dive Log