Bora Bora - day 2
We slept in a bit, had breakfast at the Club, and then got the 10 am tender to the docks for our helicopter ride that had been cancelled from the previous day. When we and another couple got to the helipad located behind a school, we found out the other folks taking the ride were also from Michigan, and in fact lived just a mile or so from my house!! Talk about a small world!
I was sitting in the back right seat, and Sandy got front left with the video camera. She had the best view by far. We took off for our 15-minute air tour around the entire island and lagoon of Bora Bora. The view from the air is magnificent - you can't really describe it in words. I've never seen so many different shades of blue before. The French pilot took us all around the entire island, up alongside the mountain peak, and down the other side.
After we landed he asked if I could take a good picture of him and his helicopter with the entire tail rotor showing. I'm going to mail him a printout of that shot.
As Sandy and I walked around to do some shopping, we ran into Mike and Dom again. They were just about to rent a "fun car" for the afternoon. These wierd little cars are more like a cheap motorscooter. They seem to have 1 forward gear and 1 reverse.
Next to the car rental place was a souvenir shop with beautiful Paul Gauguin print pareas. They looked almost as good as one of his paintings.
We got back to the ship and had lunch, and decided to stay on board and catch up with this write-up and relax. I added two days worth of comments and then read for a while while Sandy went up to the pool deck and lounged in the sun.
The ship weighed anchor at about 5 pm and as we sailed out to return to Papeete for our final day there, we finally saw a beautiful sunset with magnificent back-lit clouds that slowly turned pink as the sun slid out of the lagoon into the blue Pacific. We had dinner at the club again since it was lobster night. I had a delicious salmon dish, as lobster is not my thing. Sandy had the lobster of course!
We then came back to the room and managed to get all our packing done except for a change of clothes at the Sheraton after we disembark.