Day 104 Sail to Bora Bora

The Yacht Club
Three boats left the marina by mid morning with Bora Bora as their destination. The first was the French boat Alibi with the catamaran Liahona just behind them. We left about half an hour later. We had challenged Liahona to an "all sails" race (use all of your sails) and we called them on the radio to tell them to use their head start.
The distance is about 30 miles and the wind was about 5 to 8 knots with only a small swell in the water - perfect sailing weather. To get to Passe Teavanui, the only entry through the reef, we had to go around the island to the West side. This meant sailing with the wind behind us until we passed the South end of the island and turning North putting the wind on our starboard side. This meant that once we made the turn we could take advantage of the mono-hull's ability to sail on a "beam reach" (the wind is "abeam" or directly to our side). While catamarans may sail downwind very well, they are not known to sail across the wind as well as a mono hull.
As expected, we slowly caught up with Liahona even though we veered off several time to sail through flocks of birds visible on the water. Birds feeding mean fish and we had the lines out although we did not get any strikes. We passed Liahona just as we reached the turn and as soon as we had the wind to our beam we accelerated forward and left them in our dust (or spray, or whatever is the ocean equivalent). At one point we were exceeding 9 knots - a fast pace for a boat our size.
Bora Bora is typical of the islands in the Society Group. Unlike the Marquises - volcanic spires that rise up abruptly from the sea with no coral reef - or the Tuomotus - atolls that are the remains of the coral reef after the center island has sunken into the sea - the Society Islands have a mountainous island surrounded by a protective coral reef. Wherever a river flows off the mountain, the reef is eroded leaving an opening or "reef break" that is deep enough for a keel boat to enter. Once inside the reef, the lagoon is often navigable most of the way around the island.
Bora Bora is the quintessential tropical island. The mountain in the middle rises steeply to over 200 feet making an imposing edifice above the lagoon. The only thing that spoils this view is the amount of development which exceeds that of the other islands. Many over-the-water luxury hotels have been built on the main island and on the motus or smaller islands that make up parts of the reef. This appears to be honeymoon central and the guide book says it is the most frequented destination for newly married couples of all the islands.
We headed for the Yacht Club on the North shore and found a convenient mooring ball. Once secured we headed ashore for a quiet and relaxing dinner at the Yacht Club before returning to the boat for a brief round of cards before heading off to bed.