Indian Tobies near the
reef
While we are out snorkeling and taking in the beauty of Bora
Bora, you have been hungering for some knowledge of the geology and geography
of these unbelievable South Pacific islands.
You have already guessed, accurately, that so far out in the ocean,
these islands must have been created by volcanic action rising from the ocean
floor. Each island is the tip of an
ancient volcano, and the many atolls in the chain are simply what is left of
the outer edges of volcanic craters, or coral that has accumulated on the tops
of submerged craters.
Regal angelfish
There are actually six distinct
groups of islands within French Polynesia, although the last two on this list
are sometimes considered part of the other four chains: the Marquesas Islands, Society Islands,
Tuamotu Archipelago, Austral Islands, Gambier Islands, and Bass Islands. The four islands we are visiting are part of
the Society Islands, which some geographer with nothing else to do has divided
into the Windward Islands (think Tahiti) and the Leeward Islands (think Bora
Bora and Maupiti). As to why anyone
would have thought to divide 125 or more islands into such groups scattered
about so widely, or why the French would
administratively divided them into five groups (two of which are Leeward and
Windward), you must wait a day or two for the political report.
Yellowmargin moray eel - huge!
Blue damsel
The area covered by French Polynesia
is nearly a million square miles, of which the actual land area is a bit over
1500 square miles. That’s about 1.5
miles of land for every 1,000 miles of ocean, leaving lots of room for whales
and giant manta rays to play. It also
leaves lots of room for testing hydrogen bombs, another matter we will take up
later in this fascinating discussion.
Triangular
butterflyfish
On this day we have had a change of
plans, necessitated by an email from the Poe Iti Hotel on Maupiti (you don’t
think for one minute that there is a real hotel on the out island of
Maupiti, do you?). The email—first one
we ever received from the owners, after taking months to secure a reservation
back in July—announced that the ferry to Maupiti from Bora Bora is not running,
and that we will have to take a plane.
Only our reservation begins tomorrow, and there is no plane to Maupiti
on Saturdays. The email suggested we
arrive a day early, since there is a plane on Friday. After determining that the plane also flies
on Sunday, we responded that we did not choose to forfeit one night in a
prepaid overwater bungalow in addition to paying for flights we did not
anticipate. We will be traveling to Maupiti
on Sunday and cutting our 6-night stay there to 5 nights. The Poe Iti folks could hardly argue, since
they own the ferry which has been cancelled.
Strange fish for you to
identify
After much discussion, we decided to
bid farewell to the Intercontinental Le Moana Bora Bora tomorrow and move next
door for our last night on Bora Bora.
You may wonder why we would choose not to spend another night in such luxury and instead
move to a garden view room in a much cheaper hotel across the road from the
beautiful lagoon. If you are a very,
very slow thinker you will have to continue to ponder this question until we
return home and I will explain it to you privately.
Colorful clams waiting
for lunch
By the way, if you are wondering
what we did to while away the day, we leave you with a few hints: mask, snorkel, and fins; underwater camera;
two-man kayak; incredible reef across the lagoon; Pacific fish identification
book. If you hear nothing further for a
few days, you will know that we have lost track of the Internet in our next
digs. Or maybe we have lost track of the
real world.
Violet soldierfish
Charlie and
Tricia
©2012
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