Ours was the party boat. Anchored in the
shallow lagoon off Matira Beach, the speakers were lifted onto the roof and the
music was shared – no need to turn up the volume, since it had been cranked up
to the max from the very beginning of our cruise down the lagoon from Le Méridien to where the finish line was for today’s big boat race.
Pirogues, or outrigger canoes – about 100 of them, including some international teams (Japan and China as well as more predictable places like Hawaii, and also with a New Zealand entrant) – were taking part in Hawaiki Nui Va'a 2016 and completing the third and final stage of a 129km race between islands that started in Huahine. Today's section was 58.2km long and the teams of 6 rowers took between 4¼ and 5½ hours to complete it, dipping and pulling, dipping and pulling in the hot sun. When they finished, some were too tired even to tip out into the lagoon to cool off.
Pirogues, or outrigger canoes – about 100 of them, including some international teams (Japan and China as well as more predictable places like Hawaii, and also with a New Zealand entrant) – were taking part in Hawaiki Nui Va'a 2016 and completing the third and final stage of a 129km race between islands that started in Huahine. Today's section was 58.2km long and the teams of 6 rowers took between 4¼ and 5½ hours to complete it, dipping and pulling, dipping and pulling in the hot sun. When they finished, some were too tired even to tip out into the lagoon to cool off.
Me? I would have had a better time had our
DJ turned the volume down a bit – that cranked-up beat box music can get a bit
overwhelming after 3 or 4 hours. But the people on the surrounding boats and in
the water were all enjoying the show, and it was a colourful, crowded and cheerful
affair, with so many boats in the water, the blue and the turquoise, the kite
surfer catching air, the enviably cool-looking motorised surfboards skimming
past, and above it all, Otemanu looming impressively.
Transferred by jetski to the beach, we joined
a 4WD tour around the island, travelling every one of the single loop road’s 20
miles, some of them several times. We went up three hills on incredibly steep
and crumbling concrete tracks, and the two Americans on the tour smugly sucked
up all the GI gratitude liberally dished out by the guide, local man Frank.
During the war, they built the runway, the wharf, the road, installed some
cannons, one of which we visited, and left behind plenty of DNA – so their
influence is still strong on Bora Bora.
For the rest, the island was the usual
Pacific mix of coconut and banana palms, mango and papaya trees, frangipani
bushes, feathery casuarinas, some litter, many dogs, flimsy-looking
turquoise-painted houses with louvre windows and gravestones in the front yard,
fancy hotels, cheerful people sitting and walking and wallowing, workaday boats
hauled out of the water on simple wind-up racks, Protestant churches,
Gendarmerie, busy port.
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