Snorkeling with Stingrays and Sharks in turquoise waters off Bora Bora.

Today is the day we will truly experience Bora Bora. We arrive at the dream island in the early afternoon. An incredible excitement fills all the guests, who have gathered on the bow deck an hour before landing to witness the island approaching up close. After four 'boring' days at sea, we are all hungry and ready for the island.

It’s simply amazing how the open crater, which collapsed thousands of years ago on the side facing us, reveals itself. There’s a unique feeling that washes over us when we see what we have longed for so many years, something we planned four years ago and thought we would never see again after the years post-Corona. But now the time has come, and we will soon step foot on this island.

The Norwegian Sun has docked, and two hours later, those of us who booked the Shark & Stingray Safari tour gather in the theater to be taken together to the tender boat.

We land on the island and board our boat, which takes us with a super friendly crew to the 'shark pool', where some stingrays are also present.

Even on the way to Bora Bora, we were captivated by the color of the water. Now, in close proximity to the island and en route to the surrounding reefs, the water shifts from almost white to turquoise and dark blue. We are totally blown away.

Our journey takes us around Motu Toopua, in the west of Bora Bora, and there to the southern point of Conrad. After a short ride, we reach our sandbank, where we will spend the next hour. We get out of the boat and find ourselves in the South Sea water, whose colors astonish us.

Not long after, the first rays arrive, and then also the sharks. We had first received behavioral rules from the crew. We were told not to touch and/or hunt the sharks.

The sharks are tame and swim around us. Sometimes one or two, sometimes up to five sharks. They are about 1.5 to 2 meters long. They have a black fin that sometimes breaks the surface of the water, sending a feeling of 'shark alert' coursing through us and quickly implanting the iconic music from the movie 'Jaws' in our ears. (By the way, the onboard program had often offered this movie in the past few days... was that meant for preparation???) It's simply beautiful to see it like this. Next to the rays and the sharks, small fish are swimming in the water. However, our focus is mainly on the sharks and rays.

We film with the GoPro and take a few mobile pictures from the boat. Therefore, we only have a limited selection of images for the blog.

After the sharks, we continue by boat to the Coral Garden, a little further out towards the reef. The water is calm and not very deep. We dive into the underwater world of the South Sea around Bora Bora. We get to see beautiful corals with many colorful small and larger fish. Corals in various colors. Blue and pink are the most common. Even more colorful are the fishes. We see all sorts of colors. It's impossible to list them all.

A whole bunch of tiny fish also dart through the water, while others quickly hide in a coral when we come closer. They have a great warning system. One might think that we have just arrived at the kindergarten of colorful fish. We have never seen such small fish, some only 1 cm long and high.

We enjoy this time in and on the water. We can hardly believe what we have experienced and especially seen on this day.

After just over three hours, the snorkeling tour comes to an end, and we head back to the port of Vaitape.

We still try to get a little public internet access at the tourist office so that we can at least check in briefly with those back home. Unfortunately, that doesn't work; strangely, we cannot connect, while others are using the internet. We don’t know why this doesn’t work with our mobile phones?

We take a quick look in the souvenir shop and receive a very nice Bora Bora magnet. Thorsten manages to get a nice t-shirt. There was nothing there that thrilled me, unfortunately. What a pity!

So we tender back to our ship and enjoy dinner, as besides breakfast, there hasn’t been anything else to eat today, and afterwards we watch the films we took underwater.