Today, we broke away from the rest of the group for some adventure. The boat was moving to the other side of Bora-Bora, but Jennie and I wanted to see some of the island. So while the rest of the group spent the day seeing the island from the water, we took the dinghy to shore and rented a scooter to see it from land. Along the way, we did some shopping and had lunch. The whole island takes just about an hour to drive around (if you went nonstop). But we made plenty of stops along the way, checking out beaches, stores, and anything else that looked interesting.
After our day on the island, we had to meet up with the boat before heading to a beach BBQ on shore. We had the dinghy and a pretty good idea of where we would find the boat, so we set off for a 4-mile ride. It didn’t sound so bad in the morning when we were making the plan, but by the time we went the wind had kicked up and it turned out that there were a lot of shallow coral areas we had to pass through to get there. What I expected would be about 20 minutes of easy dinghy driving turned into an hour and a half of waves and getting soaked. But the water was warm, and the scenery was BEAUTIFUL, so it was all good.
The day ended with what turned out to be the highlight of the trip. We anchored in a protected bay just off the shore of a beautiful beach on Piti Aau where a family has some property farming coconuts. They have lived on this piece of land for 5 generations, and have recently started trying to build a bit of a tourism business on their farm. They hosted a BBQ on the beach for us, and let us walk around their property. On one side is this protected bay with a beautiful beach, and about a quarter mile on the other side is exposed to the open ocean with big waves and beautiful coral. Absolute paradise. The best part, though, was watching the dogs. The son (in his early 30’s) had recently adopted about 8 dogs, and they just roam free on the farm. He told us that one recently caught a crab, pulled it up on shore, and ate it. Ever since, all of the dogs have developed a taste for crab, and now fish for them every night. In the time we were there, several of the dogs spent a few hours totally motionless in the water hunting, waiting for a crab to come along before they snatched it!
