It takes an awful lotta clams to get to Bora Bora
~ Warehouse 13, the Case of the Missing Elephant
Bora Bora…the name conjures paradise, and paradise it very nearly is. Mile upon mile of pure white sand that’s wonderfully soft between your toes, and water so clear that you can see the bottom even when it’s way deeper than you could ever hope to touch. Colours like that just don’t seem to exist anywhere else.
You don’t think these places exist anywhere except in postcards, storybooks and your imagination. But they do. Even when you’re there you sometimes don’t believe it, but they are real, they do exist.
I have been lucky enough to set foot here before, but as always is the case, I was a very different person in a very different circumstance then. It was very early on in my tenure on the flagship; I had perhaps one world cruise under my belt, and that really was not much. I lacked a certain level of confidence, and I was definitely still the new kid on the block; never invited to team dinners on the ship let alone for drinks off the ship. So rather than feeling the sand under my feet, I usually stayed in.
Today? Well, time changes everything. Today I finally went to Bloody Mary’s – possibly the most famous restaurant in Bora Bora, Mary’s has been frequented by a list of celebrities so long that they display it on two giant signs to either side of the main entrance: Carrie Underwood, Danny De Vito, the list seems almost endless.
It’s not a big place; inside the floors are sand and the tables polished logs. They advertise the greatest cocktails in the world, and this time the hype is true. One sip of my vanilla rum punch and my taste buds exploded in layers of flavour. Not strong, not enough to even get tipsy from, just blended to absolute perfection. And the food was just as perfect. This is one of those places you have to experience to believe.
Once we’d finished lunch we climbed into one of the open air buses to head to the beach. The shuttled buses are something of an experience in their own right, since there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of speed limits in Bora Bora, and shocks on the buses are non-existent despite the rough roads. You feel a little bit like a cartoon character, bouncing around in the back of a bus, watching palm trees and ocean zip by at top speed.
We were dropped off at the beach and – after walking nearly as far as we could before reaching rocks and turning back – picked a spot to set up for the day. Amras headed off to grab some bottled water, and I headed straight for the ocean.
Stress, tension, exhaustion, serious thoughts, Mamma Ocean, take them away from your weary world-worn child, carry them from her and on the wings of the giant stingrays that swirl so close to her feet. Ground them into the coral and let your salt cleanse the past from her skin.
For me, the ocean never fails to cure me.
We spent at least half the day in the water, seeing how far out we could go while still touching bottom (a very long ways at it turned out), chasing tiny fish, trying to catch the perfect picture of one of those huge string rays. Eventually though we realized we had to emerge sometime, so we waded back out and spent the rest of the afternoon sipping vanilla milkshakes on the warm sand.
I don’t wanna go back
Me neither
Maybe we could just not go back. I’m sorry sir, I’ve been injured, I’m in a very luxurious hospital. Taking my medicine – medicinal rum punch right?
Ha!
I don’t think he’d buy it though…
Finally we loaded ourselves back into the bus and bounced our way back to the ship, where both of us had to work. Even in paradise, one does have to – occasionally – work for a living.