Another early morning. We're still in Bora Bora, having anchored here overnight. The tenders have been running all night, once every hour on the hour for those wishing to hang out on the island. There isn't much here in Viatape, the port town on Bora Bora, and unless your staying at one of the resorts on the island like Hilton or Intercontinental, the island goes to sleep after dark. We are booked on another water tour out in the lagoon including a Polynesian lunch. Remember, Mom loves boats!

It's a cloudy morning with the top of the extinct volcano hidden in the morning mist. We were told last night that no tender tickets were needed this morning since service was already underway but an announcement this morning contradicts that. So we go for out tickets and find no line and ticket numbers are optional. We take two anyway and have breakfast. Now they start calling numbers. Good thing we took those tickets. We get off on the next tender, arriving on the island around 8:30 am. We immediately find our group which is just about complete, pay our money and board Patrick's tour boat. There's 10 of us plus our guide/skipper and out we go into the lagoon again. The temperature is about 78F but there is a stiff breeze, chopping up the water some and with the overcast skies, it takes much of the color out of the lagoon water.

Our first stop was to be outside the reef to see coral but the seas are too rough for that so we anchor in the lagoon near some other boats to see more sting rays and sharks. Mom sits this out. In fact, her plan is to just ride along today. I'm in the water checking out fish but the sunlight, cut by the cloud clover, makes it harder to see underwater and less colorful too. After this session, we move to another area rich in fish but having seen most of these yesterday, I join Karen and several others and sit this one out. We continue circling the island, stopping in a shallow area, about 18" deep. It's sea floor is covered with a fine sand. Our guide says to rub it on our skin and use as exfoliate to clean and soften the skin. I try it and it's fun. Does it work? Who knows. I try it out on my scalp to see if it grows hair. 

We travel to a motu inside the lagoon for our lunch. It was a bit more of the same: mahi mahi, pork, breadfruit, tapioca, poi, spinach, plantain and fruit. Beer and wine were served too. It's all good. We watched them pull the pig and vegetables out of the ground. Our group hung out, visiting for over an hour.

We finished the day by completed our circumnavigation of the island, running into real rain toward the end. We return to the dock just in time to catch a tender back to the ship at 3pm. First order is to shower away the salt and sand, then for some salad, 1/2 burger and water. I work some on the blog, catching up today's post. We check out the Polynesian feast tonight on the aft deck. It's OK but not as good as the one before or the Octoberfest. We bail after very small plates, return to the room and Mom naps for a half hour. Then we're off to the Lou Gazzara show, the former American Idol contestant. Mom likes him.

Tomorrow it's Raiatea.