Blog

This morning I tried sleeping in just like everyone else in the family. Zakary however who was up at 6am as usual kept us alert and awake even as we lay there trying to get back to sleep. As I got up around 7am I looked out the window and noticed that the Bloody Mary dock was directly beside our boat, not the same location I had noticed last night. I darted up to the helm to see Jaeden and Dailin frantically trying to get the engine’s going. Our mooring buoy had broken free and we had drifted directly into the coral reef only 200 feet from the dock. We had picked the mooring buoy closest to the dock which had worked well for us in the South facing winds but with the switch to North winds we had broken free and were now gently being pushed by the light winds into the reef.

Jaeden kicked the engines into gear to pull us off of the reef and in no time we were back in the bay heading out a little further to an alternate mooring buoy. I was a bit nervous about any possible damage to the bottom of our hull and so no sooner had we locked onto a new buoy, I jumped into the water with my video camera goggles the see what had happened. Fortunately there were only minor scrapes to the bottom of the two hulls while the rudder that we have planned on pulling out of the water and having repaired in Raiatea next week, had a few more scrapes on it.

We spent the afternoon playing around in the lagoon of Bora Bora. We motored around the narrow channel to the South of Motu Toopua which was only wide enough for small boats. I got a bit nervous however as the 20 knot winds started to gust and push us over toward the coral reef to either side of us. Eventually however we rounded the back side of the pale blue water to where the Hilton Bora Bora Nui resort is located, perched on the hillside of this private little Motu. This sprawling resort with dozens of overwater bungalows perched over the water has an incredible view of the gorgeous shades of blue water that Bora Bora is so well known for. I had wanted to anchor here so that we could explore the locations with sharks and stingrays along the reef but the winds were much too strong and so we continued around the side of the island passing through a 100 foot wide pass that was marked with Red and Green beakons. We continued until we saw a few other boats just to the side of Motu Toopua not far from Motu Tapu. Here the water was breathtakingly blue as the sun reflected off of the white sand ocean floor only 10 to 12 feet under our boat. It was so shallow that the dark black shadows in the water made me nervous thinking that they were high enough for my boat to graze on these coral rocks. While some rocks came close to the surface it was not too bad in this area and we were able to anchor in the shallowest of water that we have ever anhored in.

It was incredible to snorkel around in the beautiful white sand beach that we had anchored in behind Motu Toopua. As I hopped into the water with my mask on I could see the colourful fish swimming around the rocks that were scattered on the sandy ocean floor.

I took my mom and Alyssa for a dingy ride to the outer reef. We knew that there were some sharks and stingrays somewhere nearby but did not know exactly where. I followed a boat to the outer reef but they were just snorkeling and I had to navigate around some shallow rocks in the 6 foot deep water. It was about a mile from our boat and the waves and wind started to pick up while we were out there. Unfortunately I did not bring an anchor for the dingy so Alyssa hopped into the water but she did not have any snorkel or fins to go with the mask. With the current she had a hard time staying in one spot and I had to just circle around. On one occasion I drifted into a patch of coral and actually ground the blade of the engine on some shallow rocks. I think Alyssa lasted only 4 minutes in the water before jumping back into the boat. We then had a hair-raising ride back to the boat as we dodged black coral boulders that were scattered in the turquoise blue water. This was all done as we bounced around in one foot tall waves. We all got splashed and completely drenched. About halfway back to the boat I finally gave my Mom my snorkeling mask so that she could keep the splash of the salt water out of her eyes. It was a crazy trip back to the boat.