Bora Bora 2

11.06.09 - Day 5 of our vacation

We woke up, went to the gym, checked out the spa, had breakfast with an incredible view of the beautiful day and then visited the concierge to plan our day. She quickly informed us that a huge kayak race (the Hawaiki Nui Va 'a) was taking place that afternoon and it would be a shame to miss (she was super-bummed that she couldn't be there). She said it was Tahiti's equivalent of our World Series... most definitely the biggest event on the Polynesian sports calendar. We barely had a moment to go back to our room, change and run to the boat.

We arrived on the main island and took a taxi with a couple from Germany to the race.

There were SO many people there. Our entire trip we felt as though we were the only people on the island... not today.

We had about an hour before the teams would be approaching the finish line, so we found a hammock by the beach and took an amazing nap. I'm surprised we didn't completely sleep through the race! We woke up just in time to cross the street and find an open spot on a lifeguard tower to watch the race finish. Competing in the race were 80, 6-crew outrigger canoes who covered 78 miles!!! There were teams from all over the world... it was really cool. Most

definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
We saw the first 10 teams cross the finish line (the winners smoked the others), and then decided to forgo the last 70 teams and grab some lunch. We ate on a table right in the beautiful white sand of the beach. We grabbed our taxi and boat back to the hotel and decided to get a pair of bikes from the resort to travel around (the resort was quite large).

We walked through the hotel shops, fed some of the beautiful tropical fish in the ponds, went for a swim in the pool, and took a pair of kayaks over to another location the movie "Couples Retreat" was filmed,

We also continued what became a daily tradition on our trip which was to take photos of us jumping off of our dock in different ways (it was really a competition... Peter definitely won).

It was a great day to explore and enjoy both the main island and our hotel. At midnight, we decided to jump in the water from our dock and swim in the dark... it was seriously freaky, but we had to do it. Another great day.