It's the rainy season (duh). Swimming with the fishes (in a good way).

The passing rain shower last night turned into a torrential downpour shortly after I posted last night. Sheets and sheets of rain. Warm rain but still rain. It's the rainy season.

Daylight came around 5:30. Remember when it got light at 5:30 AM? It's coming to a city near us soon. Partly cloudy skies and a 8:10 pickup to do the reef discovery tour.

My captain, Hiro showed up right on time and we were off to pick up two other couples on the other side of the island.

Hiro is 32 and has a girlfriend with dual French and Argentinian citizenship. He's actually one of the few natives that I've met who's been anywhere other than these islands. He said that he spoke fluent Spanish, French, English and Tahitian so it was no problem getting a job in the tourist industry.

Our first stop was a the Conrad, formerly a Hilton on Motu Toopua, where we picked up a nice couple from LA. Then off to Vaitape harbor where we met another nice couple from Vancouver who were spending two weeks cruising the islands. They said that they'd originally had an itinerary that included 7 of the islands but for some reason (low attendance?) they would visit 4 islands twice.

My tour mates.

I waited till after we'd swam a couple times just to get them at their best.

First stop for us was a spot noted for it's large stingrays. Hiro said "look but don't dive down, they don't like that". We got in and one huge ray was cruising back and forth over a large coral reef.

I pulled out my new Chinese version of a GoPro and turned it on to take some shots for your entertainment and immediately got a "Card Error". I had forgotten to replace the card with the one that worked. The start of a cascade of not so happy events. I told Don, who had a Sony mini cam in a waterproof jacket that I'd just poach a pic off the internet and y'all never know the difference. But I'm fessing up here. No deceit on this log.

This one was taken with my other camera. Just to show you how big they can get.

Next we headed out to the "aquarium". It was just a 100 or so yards off the Conrad and had an amazing amount of reef fish. Obviously fed really well so they'd learned just to hang out and wait for a boat to show up. It was really amazing. Every where you swam brightly colored fish swam with you. I even had a "close" encounter with a "nice" barracuda (or so Hiro said). Nearly as long as me. Thankfully he'd just eaten and didn't want a snack of me.

Another boat and snorkelers at the aquarium.

Hiro said that like all Tahitian islands, Bora Bora was once a volcano that that has eroded over the centuries. It was losing 1 cm per year and in 50,000 years would be gone. We'll probably miss that by a couple weeks.

We worked our way around the island past the southern tip and ended at a spot near Motu Tape where the smaller stingrays hung out. Saw a couple but they were really fast. If you tried to get close, zoom they were gone.

From there we went by one of the private islands (motu) that ring the island and he showed up one that Hallee Berry would be staying at in August. The house was pretty hidden in a coconut grove, but it was immaculate.

That's it in the left center.

All the motu's around the island are either privately owned or leased by the big hotels. On the one that my resort is located, Tevairoa, you're pretty much limited to just the hotel grounds.

Last stop for us was the reef garden, which was terrific. Lots of different colored reefs and we actually got to see a black tip reef shark. He didn't venture to close to us since he was out numbered 6 to 1.

That did it for us. A great 3 hour tour of the lagoon and it's sights.

Got back to the dock at around 12:45 and wanted to go to town to get some cheap wine and snacks, but I'd missed the last boat out until 6:15 when all the stores would be closed.

Showered and went and had a beer and thought about getting a bite of lunch but figured I'd wait till later for dinner but forgot to read the fine print..

Monday is Polynesian Buffet and Show night and since I'd already had that 65 dollar experience (I won't complain about the Alpine again)  I thought I'd pass and have dinner at the bar. Hence the fine print. No food on Monday at the bar.

So I'm enjoying a petite bottle of Red Bordeaux for dinner (not the first time I've had wine for dinner). It was working out great till I tried to open my safe to get my phone out while Windows updated yet again before I could do this blog.

Error 1. Locked out. Sigh. Maintenance came and changed the batteries and all is right and I'm catching a nice buzz on an empty stomach. No pie for me as Val told me.

Taoto maita'i from Bora Bora.