Approaching Bora Bora and Viatape (the main town)
It had been a full day following an early alarm. This is when we would usually try not to let the other one see us nodding off during dinner, but the drums were calling us.
Bora Bora has its own Heiva festival, timed so as not to conflict with the Tahitian one, and the very last event was still in swing. In this case, it was the musician's competition. The last group of maybe thirty drummers was going all-out with their big finale. Bora Bora's Heiva grounds are right on the opposite side of Viatape's small harbor, so Maryanne and I were able to get there for the big finish after a quick, thirty-second trot. Since we were so close to the end, the person at the ticket booth waved us through without asking for payment.
Bora Bora Heiva: drummers and prize giving evening
Despite Bora Bora's Heiva being a more minor affair than the big one in Tahiti, the setting is much more dramatic. Tahiti's Heiva is in an outdoor arena, which looks like an arena. Bora Bora has their Heiva in a big, sandy square, with the backdrop of Mt. Otomanu's impressive cliffs. The performers here are above average, given the size of the population, as the surrounding resorts employ them to entertain their guests. This makes the Heiva in Bora Bora seem more like a friendly competition between hospitality corporations than individual islands.
When the group finished, another set of drummers on the sidelines started up their own very energetic rhythm. It took us a while to realize their staccato was the Polynesian version of a drumroll as the awards were announced and handed out. We stayed for a few of the announcements and then Maryanne noticed the trophies were being handed out from amongst what looked like hundreds filling the pavilion behind the judge's table. After an hour of giving them out, it looked like they had hardly made a dent. We made an exit and then had an amble around the temporary restaurants and booths set up around the perimeter. It had very much the feel of a State Fair, only with palm fronds. We have no idea when the last awards were given out, because we were tucked in bed and out cold by then. When we emerged again at daylight, all was quiet except for a few men fishing off the corner of the wharf.
The Heiva comes with a carnival atmosphere, with pop-up restaurants and game "arcades" and lots of gambling opportunities
Despite our luck at finding the tail end of the Heiva, our main reason for coming to Bora Bora was to clear out of the country, as it is the most leeward island that can conduct the necessary formalities. We went to the Gendarmerie as soon as they opened in the morning and they told us it wouldn't be until the following morning that we would be able to retrieve our stamped passports. That gave us a day of killing time in Viatape.
Despite being the main town, Viatape is not what most people who aren't us come to Bora Bora to see. They come for the overwater bungalows, which are mostly on the motus at the edges of the lagoon. That way, they have views toward the impressive and endlessly photogenic Mount Otomanu in the middle. These bungalows belong to fancy resorts that have everything their guests could possibly desire. For those guests, Viatape is merely the transfer point where they will spend a few minutes between their resort's launch and the ferry to the airport. Within a few steps of the wharf, there are stores that sell triple-priced souvenirs and quadruple-priced pearls, but no restaurants or bars for whiling away larger chunks of time. A little further afield, however, there are three big, relatively reasonably-priced supermarkets. They seem to cater to locals, who mostly live on the big island and commute to their jobs on the motus via company launch. Maryanne was keen to pop into each of these to top up on our fresh provisions. I assented, on the condition that we do it on the long walk back from the nearest restaurant with seating on the water. That place was most of the way to the Bora Bora Yacht club and was probably not technically in Viatape.
Neither of us was really in the mood for a whole meal, but we were hoping we could tide ourselves over with a couple of appetizers until the kitchen opens at Begonia for dinner. That plan ended when we found the most suitable item to be a 5000XPF (~$50US) crudité plate which was basically baby carrots, celery sticks, and slices of cucumber.
The drinks had more normal pricing - mostly. Maryanne went for a big bottle of Hinano Beer for 750 francs. I splashed out and decided to get a Ti' Punch for something just under 2000 francs. My reasoning was that most Tahitian rums are high proof, like the Caribbean Rum Agricole with which the drink is properly made, so I thought they would thus have a better-than-average chance of concocting a reasonable facsimile. To the restaurant's credit, my Ti' Punch tasted pretty close to the original Caribbean version, although it would have been more properly called a Mo' Punch, since it was more Moyen (medium) than Petit (Small).
As we sat looking out over the water and enjoying our drinks in this amazingly beautiful place, a fancy racing catamaran sailed over from one of the motus and then docked right in front of us, filling our view. Aboard as guests were a youngish couple who haughtily disembarked and then were shown to their table at the far corner, which wasn't blocked by their conveyance.
For entertainment, we turned our attention to the Drink Menu. We noticed that they had one bottle of bubbly listed for 330,000 francs (knock the last two zeros off to get US Dollars). I thought I must have been doing the math wrong, but I was not. That wasn't the only one, either. They had two others above 300,000 francs, and another seven above 100,000 francs. This is when the best response to, "Hey, everyone! The drinks are on me!" is for a certain adorable spouse to push you into the water before you can get past the first word. That way, you may be able to pass it off later as some sort of completely unrelated domestic dispute.
Later on, back at Begonia, we were just getting ready to sit down for dinner when a launch came up and the guy on board knocked on the hull. Maryanne went out to meet him, thinking he may be about to ask us to move one way or another to make space for another boat.
Then he started off on the wrong foot.
"Where's the Captain?"
Uh...sexist! Maryanne bristled at they guy just assuming she wasn't the captain, and to serve him right said "the captain is busy". The guy could see me through the cabin windows and I was clearly not busy either. He interrogated Maryanne with questions, then told her, while looking straight at me, that there was a one-hour time limit at the wharf and that we had to leave immediately and proceed directly to one of the paid moorings at the Yacht Club, over a mile away. Maryanne noticed that he was wearing a polo shirt with the name of the company embroidered on it that manages the moorings in the lagoon.
"No, thank you." She said, "We're waiting for Customs clearance from the Gendarmerie. We'll leave when we get it."
He did not like this.
"When is your clearance coming?" he demanded.
"They said first thing tomorrow."
"No!" he bellowed, "You have to go to a mooring and come back in your dinghy tomorrow."
He hadn't taken a good look at our dinghy.
"We're not going to do that. We'll be gone tomorrow."
He then reiterated his one-hour limit and told us we weren't allowed to stay at the public wharf overnight.
That's funny, apart from launches doing drop-offs, we had not seen any other boat tie up at the wharf for less than six hours. There were three other boats, all charter catamarans with paid crew, that stayed the whole night last night. The rules aren't actually very clear, apart from that you can stay a "reasonable" period of time, and please don't block the water hose. Now you can be sure Maryanne researches carefully the rules and regulations for anyplace we go, and quite simply the rules are not made clear ANYWHERE for this location; normally in such conditions we'd be open to a helpful local clearing things up for us, but this guy had already annoyed Maryanne so she wasn't quite so open to advice. By the time of this visit we had local boats at the wharf that were then when we arrived (so definitely beyond the 1 hour rule he was attempting to enforce). There is no written notice online, nor on the boards by the wharf, and we felt if the local boats could stay beyond 1 hour and even overnight, then we could (plus the mooring field is faraway, expensive, and not easy to get ashore from to reach the Customs office that we needed). Maryanne had decided we were staying put unless someone could point to an official written ruling on the matter.
Because of the Heiva, there were plenty of police officers around last night. Neither of the two cops we walked by repeatedly, and also exchanged salutations with, bothered to tell us, "Hey, you can't leave your boat here at night."
When Maryanne dismissed the mooring guy's order to leave (so he could charge us for his suggested alternate location), he changed tactics and tried telling her her boat wouldn't be safe. In the morning, everything not nailed down would be gone. It was clear his preferred tactic was to use bluster to try to cow her into compliance. He then demanded to know where we had spent the previous night, with the implication clearly being that we must have used one of his moorings, and then left early for the public wharf, in order to deny him his rightful fee.
Nope, that didn't happen, so good luck proving it did.
With Maryanne not being helpful and me making no move towards getting the boat ready to leave, he next threatened to call the police on us.
"Oh, that would be great!" Maryanne said. "We would love to know what the actual rules are about the wharf and to hear their guidance first hand. If they tell us to leave, we'll leave."
He then told us he was going on his rounds to collect his fees for the night and that if we were still at the wharf when he got back, he's calling the police.
"Lovely," Maryanne said, "We'll see you then."
We then went to the Gendarmerie, and found they had our papers ready earlier than suggested. No mention was made about us not being allowed to be on the wharf since the last time we saw them.
Mooring Man never came back.
I must admit I was a little disappointed. The ideal time for us to leave, meteorologically, was early the next morning, before the Gendarmerie opened, but I was kind of looking forward to seeing if we could get Mooring Man's forehead veins throbbing.
I don't generally like conflict, but trying to bully me into paying money I don't owe really gets my hackles up. Even though we hadn't technically done anything wrong, I have no doubt that if Mooring Man had more time that day, he would have happily spent it making our lives unbearable at the wharf – a thinly-veiled protection racket.
It's a shame, but for boaters like us, Bora Bora has become Paradise Lost. While we were there, Maryanne found an article about a new marina development planned to replace most of the mooring space near the yacht club. It said it was going to cater to high-end yachts and local boats. What is really being said loudest there is what is not being said: If your boat didn't set you back at least in the high seven figures in Euros, British Pounds, or Dollars (or nine figures in French Polynesian Francs), please feel free to go elsewhere. 'Elsewhere' in this case being one of the distant mooring fields (actual moorings scheduled to be installed soon) far out of sight of the bungalows being rapidly built on every meter of shoreline, far from services, and far from anywhere cruise ship or resort launches might frequent.
Viatape is a very small town, and any short walk soon offers country views
Of all the Society Islands, Maryanne and I have spent the most time in Bora Bora. We love it. It is beautiful, and the people, apart from Mooring Man, have been lovely. We have many happy memories of days spent sailing the Pudgy around the lagoon, swimming with manta rays and trailing a stream of smiling Polynesians in their outriggers as they showed us how much easier it is for them to paddle their boats at six knots than it is for our two diesels to do the same with Begonia. We remember stunning sunsets and spending afternoons at Bloody Mary's, eating pub food and using their slow internet with our bare feet in the sand. It was in Bora Bora that our friend Dave Ormandy first swam over a mile from his boat just to introduce himself. We became fast friends and subsequently learned that a mile-long swim was a mere warmup for him.
Bloody Mary's is now closed and their moorings have been removed. The laid-back tiki bar that was once a center for the international cruising community is being replaced by the owners with another high-end bungalow resort which will be accessible only by paying the significant fee to get past the velvet rope.
All this means that, especially if the government continues to streamline the clearing-out process so that it can be done online without having to make a stop, our Bora Bora days may sadly be behind us. It will still be worth altering course, if just "to have a good look" when/if we pass this way again; the stunning Mount Otemanu will forever call out for closer inspection.
Town Dock location >> On google maps
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