Despite a night of drinking, I still got up at ten to seven this morning before every else and sat out the back of the boat writing yesterday's journals.
I could tell everyone was tired as we dragged ourselves getting ready to do anything. The inertia to get going was incredible.
I think the swimming pool colors and mystical volcanic background has now become more mundane. I try to just find a place on the boat to sit and watch the scenery without reading or other distractions just so that I remind myself of the present. Here, I try not to find things to distract myself from the beauty of the lagoon and islands. Instead of my usual hustle and bustle, I am trying to do more of nothing.
While it's fun being skipper and sailing, there are times when I think it would be really nice not to have much responsibility and just enjoy the ride. Like having someone else be in charge of navigation and finding places of interest, or someone to care about provisioning and meals. I'd like to lie back during some of the more shallow and difficult passages with Shannon and watch the scenery go by.
We motored back to where we were just the day before. It turned out the lagoonarium was right there! It's not marked at all and there were no responses to our hails on VHF neither on the general channel 16 nor channel 72 that was indicated on the map TYC provided to us.
We anchored close to where the blue water became white and had a lunch of chicken wraps making sure that the anchor didn't drag.
We donned snorkeling equipment and swam / walked to shore avoiding patches of sea urchins. The only indication of a lagoonarium is the black fencing in the water that penned up the fish. A sign said "Private island, open from 10-3."
They charged 2500 CFP per person and only took cash. We tried negotiating to no avail because we only had 5000 CFP between the three of us. After a phone call, she told us that she could take credit card and telephone the authorization in.
In the end, the others weren't interested enough to pay the $30 per person to check it out leaving Shannon and I to go alone. I thought it was a worthwhile experience and something I was looking forward to and read good things about. The excursion to this place from a hotel cost 6000 CFP, but we swam up so it wasn't as expensive. That's one of the benefits of sailing around here, that you don't have to rely on excursions to get you around from your over the water bungalow, not that you'd really want to leave it anyways.
The lagoonarium was not all that big, but they managed to stick turtles, sharks, eagle rays and a whole bunch of fish in there.
The first fenced off pool had lots of fish that were happy swimming just out of reach from you. We stood in waist deep water and watched curious yellow fish come right up and check out my rippling swim trunks.
Shannon was really nervous about the main section where rays flew around the sandy bottom and sharks that didn't look that much unlike mini Jaws sharks swam just in the distance.
I checked it out first while Shannon waited at the beach shore watching to see if I would get eaten. A ray would swim close and Shannon would already have turned around and be two steps from being completely out of the water.
After a lot of coaxing and promises to hold on to her tightly while swimming, Shannon finally got her fins and mask on and we swam among these scary looking fish.
Afterwards, one of the staff came out and we joined a feeding tour around the lagoonarium that was a lot of fun. The animateur got Shannon to get up and personal with one of the rays kissing on the mouth.
We were there for about two hours before rejoining the crew enjoying the beach starting to get bored kayaking around and tossing the Frisbee. Hermit crabs scuttled around and stand offs between island dogs took place.
We took the reefs out on the cat and sailed with full sails right around Bora Bora towards Blood Mary's. The sailing was great actually. We practiced a couple of gybes, did wing on wing. Near Bloody Mary, a squall came in making the sailing really exciting. You could see the rain come in, where it ended and began sharply demarcated on the water.
We got up to 9.1 knots at one point with Ben at the helm before it started getting a little too crazy and we headed up taking the sails down. Then the squall passed and it was over. Oh well. Better safe.
We moored right up by Bloody Mary, took a dinghy out and made a reservation for seven.
We took an hour to get dressed up nicely and went in for a honestly delicious meal of fresh fish.
The place was really cool, with a sandy floor, funky bathrooms and their famous visual menu, which was just the meals set out on ice, and you could choose from it. I read some reviews on the Internet saying it wasn't all that great, but I thought ever was delicious the fish perfectly cooked at medium.
We had ahi tuna sashimi and a salad to start, followed by mariner (the special of the day), mahi mahi, tuna and more ahi. Mike had a craving and got a side of ribs too.
The bill came out to about $60-70 a person including wine. We were all stuffed and happy, and it was a great evening out for everyone.
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