March 9th, 2025

We had a great tour today. We basically did the same thing we did yesterday which was a boat ride with several snorkeling stops and then a barbecue on the beach. We booked the tour through Viator and they picked us up at the pier where the ship’s tenders dropped us off. We were the only people from the ship on the tour. We had a total of 8 on the boat and our guide. Our first stop is a very shallow sandy area in the middle of the lagoon and all the tour boats take everyone out there to snorkel with the black tip reef sharks and the stingrays.

The water was not very deep and at one point we counted over 10 sharks. It was weird to see them weaving in and out of the snorkelers.

From the boat you can also see the sharks since the water is so shallow and so clear.

The snorkeling area where all the sharks are. We got lucky and the rain did not hit us until the afternoon.

Our next stop was to another spot in much deeper water. Our guide said we were going to see the Eagle Rays and I kept wondering how that was going to work. Getting into the water he cautioned us to be quiet and not splash since the Eagle Rays might swim away. We were in about 80 feet of water and when I looked down I was shocked to see hundreds of Eagle Rays on the bottom.

We have never seen anything like it and we watched them for about 10 minutes and they all swam out of our sight. We don’t know how our guide found them but is was amazing.

The next stop was in about 30 feet of water and he said we were going to see the Manta. That was our second big surprise of the day.

It is hard to tell how big it was but it had a wing span of over 20 feet. We talked to some people that went out in the afternoon and they could not find the Manta so we got very lucky.

Our last snorkel spot was called coral garden and lots of healthy coral and fish. The only thing missing was clown fish.

The water color was amazing and so clear.

After our last snorkeling spot we went to a beach and had a nice barbeque of chicken, rice, and grilled fish.

These dogs were on the island and loved to get in the water. The French bulldog took a liking to Kathy and took a nap under our table for lunch.

The famous over-the-water bungalows that Bora Bora is famous for.

We were supposed to stay on the beach until 4 but we were a little worried since the last tender to the boat was 4:30 so we asked if we could go back a little early. Our guide came over to us about 2:30 and asked if we were ready to go. We could see the storm coming so we decided to leave and so did all the other people on our boat. We got rained on the whole way back to the dock. The boat had a top but the wind was blowing so hard that it was coming in the sides.

We made it back to our boat by 4 and we sailed at 5. We now have 2 days at sea which we are looking forward to.

Tomorrow I will post pictures of the room.