Bora Bora is one of the most secluded places on the planet: it gets fewer visitors in a year than Hawaii does in 10 days. The lagoon of Bora Bora is considered to be the most beautiful lagoon in the world. Don’t miss taking a lagoon tour if you visit Bora Bora.

Like many other atolls in French Polynesia, Bora Bora has a rocky island in the center of a lagoon that is surrounded by a coral reef and many smaller islands (motu). A Bora Bora lagoon tour is usually a full circle around the lagoon with stops in the most interesting places.

The first thing that strikes you is the color of the water: perfect and pure shades of blue and turquoise. Water of such a magnificent color forced us to take dozens of images of the ocean surface alone, and for the rest of the tour we were repeating, “Wow, how beautiful it is!” Thinking back to our other adventures, we only had similar emotions in the Seychelles island of La Digue.

Our first stop was the place where you can swim with sharks, stingrays, and various tropical fish. The captain had a bucket of fish slices and allowed us to feed the ocean critters.

When we arrived there were plenty of hungry fish already waiting for a tasty bite. The water is shallow and the ocean bed is made of sand, so it is easy to stand and feed the rays. The currents are quite strong, however, so safety ropes are put in place to hold on to.

Bora Bora is home to a ton of tropical fish. Our next stop was the coral gardens – very, very beautiful gardens, in fact. Plenty of colorful corals, bivalve clams, coral fish, sharks, rays, moray eels and an octopus. All the photos below were taken without a strobe and don’t do justice to the beauty of the reef.

At the coral garden, we met the sons of our captain. They guided a group tour. A little bit later, at the island where we had a picnic, we met the grandson of our captain :) Here are the contact info of the family business:

RAANUI TOURS

e-mail: raanuitours@live.fr

web: http://www.boraborasafarilagoon.com/

tel: 689 79 43 14

After a few hours of riding in a boat, we arrived at Motu Tapu, the most photographed island in the South Pacific. We had a picnic there with a table right in the water amid flocks of small fish, tasty food and chilled wine! Just perfect! :)

Another couple also had a picnic in the far distance.

Before heading back to the hotel, we went to the outer side of the lagoon to see the big fish – lemon sharks!!! These sharks were not a joke, they were huge, more than two meters in length! Alex with the captain and his son dove in for a swim, and it was very scary when sharks swam around in circles, gradually squeezing the ring! In the hotel, we read that this shark species is potentially dangerous to humans.

That’s our captain Tapeva Natua performing a famous Bora Bora song for his “grateful” listener :)

Good to know:

• Bora Bora can be reached with a 50 min flight from Tahiti, the main island of French Polynesia. There are flights from many other islands as well. All the inter-island flights are operated by Air Tahiti. If you are planning to visit several islands, consider buying an inter-island pass.
• Usually the planes follow the same path when landing, and the LEFT side is most often the one with the great views. You will see Huahine, Tahaa, Raiatea and Bora Bora on the way from Tahiti/Moorea to Bora Bora.

Visited July 2012