day 23, first day of bora bora

view from up high of across the crater

the water colors are beautiful

our drivers - frank (w/uke) was ours, and brought the guitar

what a dreamy, magical, otherworldy landscape!  we have an overnight port here, and it’s truly the first place we have been so far that i would call an island paradise… makes you know why it has inspired books, songs, movies… unbelievable!  it made grand cayman look like a trailer park… anyway, the pictures won’t quite do it justice, but I hope you like them…  most of you all know that i am a gloom queen, preferring clouds, rain and moody weather full of negative ion smells, but i have to say, with enough spf 70 on, i enjoyed this place immensely – tho balmy, it’s not sticky, tho hot, there are beauiful island breezes, an occasional brief rains and then more sun… gorgeous tropical flowers everywhere… it really is like heaven… and all the high school french that i stayed up on continues to come in handy throughout french polynesia… they also speak tahiitian here…

everything on bora bora is quite expensive, and there are some beautiful resorts… it is one of the top 2 honeymoon destinations, and a hollywood actor haven, apparently.   many wild dogs roaming about, tho they all seem like they are on tranquilizers… they leave people alone and just lay around, mostly… to my surprise, i began to imagine coming here with bob for a month for vacationing, gigging, writing or something – and i had not previously considered i would dig the tropical island vacation, but bora bora is amazing…

did a really fun crew excursion with off-road vehicles driving through forests, up mountain tracks that were very bumpy and scary in places!   what awesome views!  our driver was named frank, had a sense of humor and a guitar, and the other driver a ukulele… we stopped at an artist’s studio on the hill with beautiful gardens and fresh fruit for us… they played song s and invited dan and i to play and sing – dan is our guitar player friend who stayed at our house for the holidays and is also on this voyage with the show band.  I will never again leave my melodica on the ship – you never know when music will happen… it’s like a tv show… bursting into song is certainly always acceptable… we ended at the famous bar, bloody mary’s, immortalized in michener and south pacific, and some of us, at least for a fraction of a second I’m sure imagined going awol… (certainly not me!)

since it is an overnighter, my bar was only busy from 7-8 and about half my usual crowd after that… that’s ok… still had my late nght regulars and a few newbies… most crew were headed to party at the beach after work, but i have a guest tour to meet at 8:45 in the morning, so, tho it sounds fun, i don’t think i’ll be joining them… more tomorrow with port song!  i will do pictures later since it is taking forever right now... a bientot!  -df