Tahitian Dreams

Bora Bora, Tahiti

Within the folds of white powder sand, surrounded by a variety of blue and green hues of salty waters. Full of colorful and unusually shaped fish. Even the tie-dyed version of a clown fish. Enveloped by green foliage and exotic noni berry and fragrant floral trees. The over water bungalows host glass coffee tables where the tops can be removed and the ocean crashes beneath, lending to tropical fish ready for a feeding frenzy of baguette.

Many excursions are available provided by the local natives. Shark feeding and swimming with stingrays are among the top activities to explore. One has not lived until you have been in the deep blue snorkeling with shark, clad in only a bikini without the protection of any cages. A real wave of mortality seems to crush the air out of your lungs as the sharks come within a foot of your face and smile at you with a mouth full of jagged teeth...then turn swiftly and push away from you with their large tails leaving a rippling wave of water that hurled me backwards. The presence of their greatness paralyzed and mesmerized me for 20 minutes until I recovered my senses enough to realize the true adrenaline I was feeling was from the possible danger of being SHARK bait. The stingrays were amazing. Much larger than I expected, their wing span was 4 to 6 feet long. Their eyes were gray snake like and as large as silver dollars. They sported a mouth rimmed with very sharp teeth on the underside of their flat heads. The skin was slimmy to the touch and their stingers were long rebar stake like, poisonous weapons of self protection. When I slid my hand down the body of one I forgot to lift my hand before it met that hard but flexable stinger.....it left my hand numb for at least an hour! You can hand feed them little fish and they are quite friendly...just remember to take off belly jewelry before entering their domain...anything dangling from your belly looks like a lure (or small silver fish) and can result in a hickey on your belly....pretty unnerving to say the least and not real sexy either.