Bora Bora
September 15, 2004 
Posted by Belle in : Bora Bora, French Polynesia
Getting to Bora Bora was a kind of milestone for me because i knew I was going to get to see my parents. It had always seemed so far away, and here it was!
We anchored as close to my parents hotel as the shallow waters would allow. They were right around the corner from us. I got Dio dressed up in his new Tahitian floral shirt and shorts and a shell necklace and tried to look some what islandish myself, although most of the time on the boat I really look like a ragamuffin, bikini top, shorts, sweats, whatever. It was so nice to see them.
The first night we had a drink at the Hotel Bora Bora and watched the sunset and then went to their Tahitian buffet. We all tried to stay up for the dancing afterwards, but I usually pass out around 9PM these days and my parents were jet lagged. Dio did manage to have a solo performance before the show started. He went out into the middle of all the tables with honey mooners and did a little jig to the music and then froze in a very dramatic position and stared out at his audience until someone made him laugh and then he ran into the cover of mommies legs.
Every morning we would go have breakfast at this cute little spot near my parents hotel that was run by a sixty something woman and her two daughters. They sort of adopted us while we were there. Somedays they would give us half off pineapple juice, other days they would give us free deserts. They were great. After breakfast we would go hang out near my parent cute bungalow and watch Dio as he wandered around, picking up rocks, fallen fruit, whatever he could find. Then we might take a swim in the beautiful, very shallow water. Mom and dad and dio got to all swim together and play in the water. Since one of Dio’s favorite things is to play in the water, it was fun for me to see them all doing that together, as Dio laughed and kicked his legs like a little doggie in the water. At around 10:00 we would take Dio back to the boat for his nap which would last anywhere from an hour and a half to sometimes three hours. Then in the afternoon we would meet up with my parents again for some kind of fun adventure. We drove around the island, went on a helicopter ride, where I thought I might get sick all over my wonderful family, and we also went on a submarine ride. The submarine was this orb with windows all around that slowly dropped us down to 120 feet. It was so fun, although slightly claustrophobic. They also feed the fish so we were constantly surrounded. We saw tuna, jacks, sharks, nemos, but our favorite fish was the Napoleon fish. He was HUGE, green, red, and some other colors I forget. His eye looked almost human and the way he looked at us seemed almost human too. Unlike a lot of fish that came and went, he stayed with us almost the whole time. The driver of the submarine was great. Obviously completely in love with his work, he blasted the sound trak to the movie the Big Blue and chatted about the fish in front of us, making sure we all got to see Nemo. Then he let us all drive! Pretty cool. Even Dio, who looked like he was in heaven. When he started going for one of the lit buttons, he looked at the driver who firmly shook his head and said in his extremely deep voice, NO and Dio’s finger immediately went into his mouth, as if he wasn’t really going to touch the button at all. We all laughed.
The night before my parents left they took us out to dinner at the Intercontinental Hotel, which was beautiful. We had a nice buffet and then, to our surprise, there was a show. Suddenly a group of scantily clad, heartily fed men started bouncing around to some drums. The largest, one ripped open a coconut with his teeth. Maybe that was why he had so few teeth left. Another one split one open with his hand, another with his foot. The big guy lifted a huge rock and then dropped it, and then the announcer started looking for volunteers from the audience. I put my hand up behind Wence and started pointing. They guy immediately picked wences out of the crowd! And wence had no idea it was my doing! Yipee! They chose four other men from the audience, all on the youngish, toughish side. Told them all to take off their shirts, now we all got to see how heartily these men were fed! They ordered Wence to pick up a huge rock. Oh god! Great! I{m going to be responsible for WEnce’s back going out. I watched as Wence picked up the rock without any difficulty and tossed it. What a macho man! I was so proud of my little Patagonian Indian. The other men all made it through that one, a few needed quite a bit of help, but they did it. Then the bigger rock, this time with a partner. Wence and his partner managed without much difficulty. Some of the other ones I think will probably discover they got a hernia while in Bora Bora.