Detailed Photo Review of Paul Gauguin 10-Night Cruise 9/6/17 Plus Moorea Pre-Cruise

[deladane]

Again, great pictures (review too) deladane. A personal question if I may and please tell me to mind my own business if you don't want to answer. In a previous post you mentioned being in school for your doctorate. Doctor of what?

 

No worries at all! I have my Doctorate in Physical Therapy :)

[deladane]

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Friday, September 8, 2017 ~ First Day in Bora Bora

 

Located just 143 miles northwest of Tahiti, the beautiful island of Bora Bora is surrounded by a lagoon and a barrier reef. The main island is created from an extinct volcano and features two peaks, Mount Pahia and Mount Otemanu, reaching a maximum height of 2,385 feet. Bora Bora is quite possibly the best known island in FP, maybe with the exception of Tahiti. They have evolved into a famous international tourist destination, best known for their luxury resorts with over water bungalows. The biggest town, Vaitape, is located on the western side of the main island, opposite the main channel into the lagoon, and the island has a population of around 9000 residents.

 

Our itinerary gave us the wonderful opportunity to spend 2 full days in Bora Bora, as the PG would remain anchored in the lagoon overnight. All of my research told me that Bora Bora is best known for their lagoon, and we should spend as much time as possible doing water-based activities and save the land-based excursions for other islands. Paul Gauguin has a private beach on one of the motus around the lagoon, so we wanted to spend some time relaxing there and checking out the views. We also wanted to take an excursion on a small boat where we could do some snorkeling during the day, and hopefully do a sunset cruise on Friday night.

 

There are several companies who offer similar itineraries for a day of snorkeling at the coral garden, swimming with reef sharks and sting rays, and doing a circle tour of the lagoon. Some include lunch on a motu, but we did not want to do a full day tour as then we might not get back in time for a sunset cruise on the same day (Plus the fact that we already have lunch pre-paid for waiting for us on the ship so why spend more money to eat lunch on the beach? We did intend to do that on one island, but not today if we had any chance at 2 tours in 1 day!) When I discovered the 4-hour Lagoon Safari tour offered by Raanui, it was just the right combination of snorkeling stops, beach time, boat time, and all for the price of 8000xpf ($80 USD). Booking was easy with a few emails back and forth to the owner, Arieta, and she told us to meet her on the tender pier at 8:30am on the morning of our tour.

 

I originally looked into booking a sunset catamaran sail through a private vendor, but I found that to be cost prohibitive. Once we knew we would have a substantial on-board credit, and I saw that PG offers a sunset tour for $120, it was a no-brainer that we would book through the cruise line! The bigger debate was what type of boat should we go on? They offered the tour with both a catamaran and an outrigger canoe, and I spent a lot of time debating back and forth about which we should pick because there really wasn’t much information on how the tours differed. Had I seen a photo of the boat they use for the outrigger tour, I probably would have opted for that one because I think that is more of a Polynesian experience (we can go on catamarans anywhere in the world, but outrigger canoes just seem more Polynesian to me). The reason I did not pick the canoe was that I assumed the boat they used had 2 long benches along either side of the boat and I did not envision that to be romantic at all. As it turned out, we walked passed the outrigger on our way to the catamaran tour that night and the boat is set up with several rows of love seats on alternating sides of the boat, all facing forwards, so it probably did feel private when you were sitting side by side with your partner on your own love seat, and not looking straight ahead at a stranger on the opposite side of the boat. Oh well, maybe if there is a “next time” that we are on the PG, we will pick the outrigger canoe sunset tour!

 

Here is today’s daily schedule:

 

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Oh! Here’s when I took a photo of the room service menu!! I knew I had it somewhere but I wasn’t sure which day I took the photo haha

 

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[deladane]

When I woke up this morning (as always, before the alarm clock went off!), I was so excited to be in Bora Bora! This was on my bucket list, for sure!!

 

Good morning, Bora Bora!

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We had a busy day planned for today, so we got dressed and went upstairs to La Veranda for a quick but filling breakfast. That long and thin pastry with powdered sugar has an apple filling and it was delicious! I wish they served that every day, but this was the only day we saw it.

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We took the first tender of the day at 8:30am for the quick 5-minute ride to Vaitape. Tenders to shore run every 30 minutes in each direction to Vaitape, and every 60 minutes to the private motu. Pay attention to which tender you are boarding so you don’t end up in the wrong place! This was a great day to sit up on the top oft he tender… we avoided it many of the days because we wanted to stay in the shade on the lower level, but this ride was so short and it was still so early in the morning that we took advantage of the opportunity to sit outside.

 

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Immediately after we stepped off the tender, I heard someone calling my name and he had my name printed on the sign he was holding. I am still not sure exactly who he was, but he told us to follow him over to the side where he introduced us to Arieta and her husband who were sitting on a bench. They told us to take a seat because our ride would be here soon. There was a lot of activity in the port area, with small tour boats, tour buses, and tenders all coming and going.

 

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20 minutes later, a boat pulled up with 4 passengers plus a driver and another guide. The driver turned out to be Arieta’s son, named Raanui (hence the company’s name!), and the other guide was Arieta’s niece (I don’t remember her name). She was really just there to stay back on the boat while Raanui was in the water with us at each stop, in case anyone came back to the boat early and needed assistance. We boarded the boat and took our seats as Raanui took us back into the lagoon to pick up the last 2 people from the Conrad hotel.

 

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As we sailed, Raanui explained how the day would go. We would be making several stops to snorkel with reef sharks and sting rays, then the coral garden, then eagle rays, then lemon sharks, and we would end our day with a 20 minute stop on their private motu before returning back to our hotels/cruise ship tender. He had beach towels and snorkels/masks thatwe could use during the tour, and there was a cooler on the boat with waters, sodas, and beers.

[deladane]

Approaching the Conrad resort to pick up the last 2 people on our tour (there were 8 of us in total, although Arieta had told me there would be a maximum of 12 guests)

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We waited at the Conrad for a few minutes for someone to bring us ice for the drinks cooler, then we continued on our way to the first stop on the tour.

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This is Raanui driving the boat, and his cousin in the bright green outfit (she spent most of the day playing on her iPhone lol)

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All of a sudden, Raanui stopped the boat in what seemed like a completely random spot in the middle of the lagoon. He threw some fish in the water and, like magic, at least a dozen black tip reef sharks surrounded the boat!

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We had already gone swimming with reef sharks when we were in Moorea, so we knew they wouldn’t hurt us, but it’s still a bit intimidating to see that many sharks in the water!

 

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Hey, Honey, do you want to be the guinea pig and jump in the water first?? Hehe

 

 

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[deladane]

Once I saw that the sharks were more interested in eating fish than humans, I climbed in the water to join him. After I was in the water, I noticed that Raanui had a friend he wanted to introduce to us!

 

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Hi Mr. Sting Ray! These sting rays were extremely playful, just like puppies, and they kept jumping up on us! There was one girl on our tour who was terrified of the sting rays, so just a warning that you need to be comfortable with the rays touching you if you take this tour because as long as you are in their water with them, they will jump on you! It’s their lagoon, you’re just a visitor! hehe

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The water here was only about 3 feet deep, so it was nice to be able to stand on the sandy bottom and feel grounded as we played with the sharks and rays. It pays to arrive early because we were the only boat out here, and we had 30 minutes to enjoy the experience. This was by far the best interaction we had with sharks and rays over the entire 2+ weeks we were in FP!

 

I can’t believe I am in the water with this many sharks!!

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Oh yea, and sting rays too!

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Despite all the activity in the water, it was still so clear!

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[deladane]

Note that I was not using a zoom lens for these photos… the sharks were really this close to us!

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Taking a selfie with the sharks

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Just me, a sting ray, and a few reef sharks… no biggie!

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[deladane]

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After letting us snorkel for about 15 minutes, Raanui brought over some fish so we could feed the sting rays. I was a little hesitant given my experience on the jet ski tour, but Raanui assured me that it would be okay… and it was!

 

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And then Raanui scooped up the sting ray for a fun photo op!

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We spent a few more minutes snorkeling until we were too tired to swim anymore.

 

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[deladane]

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After an unforgettable 30 minutes in the water, we were exhausted and ready for a break. Raanui offered everyone a drink from the cooler… either water, soda, or Hinano. It was now 10:15am… that’s an acceptable time for a beer, right???

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Once we were all settled on the boat, we continued on our journey around the lagoon. The tour takes you on a giant loop around the whole lagoon, so we passed the different hotels with their classic over water bungalows, and Raanui was great about pointing out which hotels and sites we were passing on the way.

 

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The water was the most incredible color… it wasn’t even blue, it was closer to an aqua green! I felt like we were taking a boat ride inside a giant swimming pool!

 

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[deladane]

 

 

After 40 minutes in the boat, we arrived at our next stop: the coral garden. There were approximately 50 other people snorkeling here when we arrived, but the coral garden is so big and spread out that it didn’t matter and there was plenty of space for everyone. My favorite part of this snorkeling experience was that I got to see my first clam… but not just one clam… there were tons of clams imbedded in the coral! It was so exciting to see a clam for the first time!!

 

 

Raanui swam around the coral garden with us to help find the best parts. Every so often, he dove down into the nooks and crannies of the coral formations to get the fish to come out for us.

 

 

My camera has a mode where it can take macro photos while under water. Usually, I feel a little rushed at snorkeling stops on tours like this, and I don’t have the opportunity to play with all the settings on my camera. This tour was such a relaxed pace and I felt as if we had more than enough time at each stop, so I could really take my time to explore and see every little detail of this underwater world.

 

This is another one of my favorite photo from our vacation:

 

[deladane]

I am a bit obsessed with all these clams!

 

 

Such a pretty parrot fish with fluorescent colors! It actually matches perfectly with a parachute material track suit I used to wear when I was a child (Hotdogger brand for those who are familiar haha)

 

 

 

 

[deladane]

When we were there, I thought these rocks spelled out “I < 3 Bora Bora”… that’s actually not what it says…

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Hmmm… “I < 3 Love Bora” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it!

 

So many fish!

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Interesting pieces of coral…

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Pink coral!

 

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[deladane]

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I have tons more photos from the coral garden, but I’ll save you from looking at all of them haha

 

After 30 minutes of snorkeling (I love that I can look up the time stamp in the file info of my photos to know what happened at what time), I swam back to the boat. This was the outrigger canoe we used today:

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Just as I was about to climb back on board, Raanui popped up behind me with a surprise… an octopus!!

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Before he would let me touch it, he did some magic trick to squeeze the ink out of all the tentacles.

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He then told me to hold onto the side of the boat, and he proceeded to do this…

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OMG there is an octopus on my head!

[deladane]

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That was probably the weirdest and craziest thing I have ever done in my life! When he tried to remove it, the tentacles had suctioned onto my face so it didn’t come off as easily as I thought it would. I felt like I had a hundred suction cups leaching onto my head.

 

***Do not try this at home!

 

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Eventually I just had to dunk under water to get the octopus peeled off of me. This was certainly a day I will never forget!

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Then I had a chance to hold it and play with it.

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[Wendy The Wanderer]

BTW, I got the impression that locals call the Hilton hotel the "Conrad".

[deladane]

BTW, I got the impression that locals call the Hilton hotel the "Conrad".

 

Do you mean the one in Bora Bora? There was a huge sign on the pier we tied up at which said "Conrad" and it looked like a permanent sign. Did it used to be a Hilton and change owners?

[minabruuke]

Do you mean the one in Bora Bora? There was a huge sign on the pier we tied up at which said "Conrad" and it looked like a permanent sign. Did it used to be a Hilton and change owners?

 

Conrad is one of Hilton's luxury brands.

[broberts]

Conrad is one of Hilton's luxury brands.

 

Presumably after the founder, Conrad Hilton.

[deladane]

I took this photo after I got back on the boat… the dark area that you can see under water is where the coral is, so even though you can also see lots of snorkelers, we were all spread out with plenty of space to explore.

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Once everyone had their turn playing with the octopus (or at least everyone who wanted a turn!), we piled back on the boat and cruised around the lagoon for 20 minutes until we reached our next stop. Raanui said we would see eagle rays here, but that it may be hard to find them. It took a lot of work swimming against the current, but it was worth the reward because we did eventually find one eagle ray!

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Once we found him, we could drift with the current because that was how he was drifting. It was so peaceful just to float there and watch him from above (he never came up to the surface and he had no interest in interacting with us).

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By the time we got back on the boat, we were completely exhausted, but we still had 2 more stops on the tour! It was now 12 noon. Our tour was scheduled to end by 1pm, and we knew there was a 20 minute beach stop at the end, so when we set off for the next stop, we assumed it was close by.

 

We were wrong.

 

We were on the boat for 55 minutes from when we left the spot with the eagle rays until we reached our next stop! The one thing that I did not like about the tour was that Raanui never gave us an idea of how long we’d be on the boat between stops. Had we known we had nearly an hour journey ahead of us, we probably would have taken off our wet swim shirts to let them dry (plus it was quite cold to wear the wet shirt while the boat was speeding along). I suppose had I asked him, he would have told me how long it would take to get to each stop… it’s not like this was his first time doing this route! It just didn’t occur to me to ask.

 

Anyway, here are a few photos from along the ride…

 

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[deladane]

Sorry for the fingerprints on the lens that blurred these photos!

 

This was one of the big resorts (I don’t remember which one, but I know it’s not the Conrad because we were already there first thing this morning!)

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These bungalows were HUGE and even have their own pool on the balcony! I don’t think I’d ever leave my room if I was lucky enough to stay here haha

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If you look very closely up on the side of this hill, you will see a canon that was left behind after WWII. I know a lot of the land-based island tours will take people to see this canon, but we only did water-based tours in Bora Bora so this was as close as we got.

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A verrrrry zoomed in photo (from our boat, I could not see the canon with my naked eyes)

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[Lrorogers]

Awesome photos Dana once again! Love the underwater life you captured and LOVE the photos with the octopus and the eagle ray! We are actually taking this same tour on our trip...we will be spending 4 days on Bora Bora after the cruise and have this excursion booked. Thank you for your reflections and tips!

:) Lisa

[deladane]

Awesome photos Dana once again! Love the underwater life you captured and LOVE the photos with the octopus and the eagle ray! We are actually taking this same tour on our trip...we will be spending 4 days on Bora Bora after the cruise and have this excursion booked. Thank you for your reflections and tips!

:) Lisa

 

You will have an amazing day with Raanui!! Especially if you do the excursion on a day when you are staying on the island as opposed to during the cruise because then you probably won't have time constraints to worry about haha

[deladane]

We continued through the lagoon until we reached the reef,and then we continued even further until we were out in the open ocean water. Finally, Raanui stopped the boat in yet another completely random spot (although he always seemed to be aiming for a specific location so there must have been markers in the water to guide him). The seas were a bit rough as it was getting windy and started to rain, but amazingly, the water was still clear!

 

We came all the way out here for a chance to see lemon sharks, but by the time we arrived, everyone was freezing cold and beyond tired, and none of us wanted to swim again. Raanui got in the water and tried to find the sharks. A few minutes later, a 10 foot long shark appeared just below the surface of the water!

 

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There were some black tip reef sharks here too!

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I was happy to stay on the boat and just observe from above, since the water was clear enough that I could see as the shark swam by, but the longer we sat there, the heavier the rain fell. It got to the point where we were getting wet sitting on the boat anyway, so one by one, everyone grabbed their snorkels and got back in the water.

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It was incredible that despite the cloudy, rainy skies above, and the rough, choppy seas, the water was still clear enough that we could see straight to the bottom 35 feet below us. Much like the reef shark, the lemon sharks swam around us but had no interest in eating us for lunch!

 

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[deladane]

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As if just being in the water with the sharks wasn’t enough entertainment, Raanui wanted to put on a show for us. He swam down under the water, grabbed the shark’s dorsal fin, and let it pull him through the water, swinging his free arm overhead like a cowboy! This man was fearless!

 

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By the time we got back on the boat, it was after 1pm. We were supposed to be back at the tender pier by now, but we were still out in the middle of the ocean and had yet to make the 20 minute stop at the motu beach. DH and I feared that we might miss the tender because the ship stops serving lunch at 2pm, and we had to be showered and dressed for the sunset catamaran tour by 3:45pm so we didn’t have a huge time window to work with. We were still quite cold (by now, I had used the one towel I brought off the ship with me, plus 3 of the towels Raanui had for us to borrow, and there were no more dry towels left) and it was still raining, so what’s the point of spending 20 minutes at a beach?? We knew we would have a few hours at PG’s private beach tomorrow, when hopefully the weather would be a little better, and we valued eating lunch more than huddling beneath a palm tree seeking shelter from the rain haha Given how late we were running, we weren’t surprised that one of the other couples on our tour also wanted to skip the beach. We asked Raanui if we could just go straight back to the tender pier (and if that couple could go back to their hotel), and he agreed to drop off the other 4 people at the beach because they still wanted to go (I have no idea why!), and then he would shuttle us back to where we needed to go, and then return to the beach to pick up the 4 people he left there. We were very grateful that he was willing to accommodate us, although had the tour not been running so late, it wouldn’t have been an issue in the first place!

 

We got back to the tender pier and said our goodbyes just as the 1:45pm tender pulled up. Overall, we thought this tour was an excellent value and was one of the best tours of our trip. I would not hesitate to book with Raanui Tours again if I ever return to Bora Bora, but I might not book multiple tours on that day because things definitely run on island time.

 

We got back to the ship at exactly 1:55pm and ran up 3 flights of stairs (not wanting to waste time waiting for the elevator). We raced down the hall and stepped into La Veranda for lunch literally seconds before they were going to clear the food! How come our excursions all seem to run on island time, but PG’s dining room staff keep time with military precision?! They told us to take whatever we wanted now (including our desserts) because then they would clear all the platters. Today’s buffet theme was “Pacific Buffet” and included lots of prepared Chinese dishes, sushi, and the made-to-order station was chow mein stir fry.

 

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By the time we finished eating, it was 2:30pm, so we had just over an hour to get showered and ready for our sunset catamaran tour. We had to meet in the lobby by 3:45pm, which I thought seemed a bit early considering sunset isn’t until 6pm. I actually thought the tour wasn’t supposed to start until 4:30, which would have given us a little more time to get ready, but oh well.

 

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PG ran a special tender just to transport people taking the 2 sunset tours. As we were walking down the steps from the ship to the tender, the skies opened up and it started to rain. The weather really was not cooperating with us today, and I couldn’t believe that rain would ruin ANOTHER sunset tour for us!! The rain continued for 30 minutes, as we sailed across to the tender pier, unloaded, assembled in groups based on which boat we were on, and walked over to our respective boats. Luckily, the rain stopped as we boarded the catamaran and did not return!

[deladane]

Prior to boarding the catamaran, they ask you to remove your shoes. I mention this because some of the men were dressed for the evening and already had on socks and closed toed shoes. You might consider wearing flip flops or shoes that are easily removed. The catamaran is very large, with plenty of seating under cover. Had it not just rained, this would have worked out a bit better, but unfortunately most of the padded seats were now wet, leaving fewer options where we could sit and stay dry. There are also 2 large nets out in the front of the boat, but of course they were wet from the rain too. There were about 25 people on this tour, so it was definitely not romantic, but about half the people on our Roll Call were on the tour with us so it was fun getting to chat with them.

 

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Once everyone found a seat, the 2 guides introduced themselves and did a quick safety briefing. They explained that we would sail out to a spot where we had a view of the cruise ship and Mt. Otemanu for about an hour, and then we would move to another location with a view of the sunset over an island in the distance, Vai’ea. They also came around and served us some snacks of fresh slices of papaya and grapefruit, bowls of Doritos (I haven’t had those in ages!!), as well as soda and Tahiti Drink.

 

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[deladane]

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I will admit that there were times when it felt a bit boring as we waited for the sun to set, but it was worth the wait in the end.

 

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As the nets dried off, people eventually spread out to sit outside and watch the sun go down.

 

 

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