Bora Bora, the most popular island in the French Polynesia, is known for its abundant overwater bungalows, white sand beaches, and crystal clear water. Not to mention its magnificent underwater life including manta rays, sharks, and plentiful fishes! To get the most out of your time here, we recommend doing a full day private excursion!
Bora Bora H2O
Just like with our tours in Moorea, we also booked a private tour for Bora Bora. After some research, Brea found this family owned company that offers half day tours, full day tours, as well as custom tours.
If you decide to do the half day tour, it will last about 3.5 hours and will cover 3 to 4 stops depending on the weather conditions. The full day tour is like you thought … the whole day (about 7 hours) and you will visit 6 to 7 stops. The full day tour also includes a 1 hour stop for lunch. The itinerary is not fixed because it does depend on the conditions of the day. Our tour guide did his best to meet our expectations though.
Because of COVID, they require you to bring your own snorkel gear but will provide water and towels.
You can pick from 2 boats:
–Quicksilver 620: 45,000 xpf ($450 USD) for the half day / 80,000 xpf ($815 USD) for the full day
–Four Winns 220: 60,000 xpf ($600 USD) for the half day / 120,000 xpf ($1,200) for the full day
We decided to do the full day tour on the Four Winns. It was very spacious and had an area in the front for you to lay out and relax.
On the day of our tour, they picked us up from our hotel dock at 8:30AM and then we were off!
Within 10 minutes, we were swimming with manta rays! They don’t swim fast but they are pretty deep so it was hard for me to get a good look at them.
Our tour guide also went with us and took some photos on his camera – the Olympus Tough TG 4. We saw about 5 manta rays.
It was our lucky day because we also saw a few schools of eagle rays. They looked like birds in the ocean. There were so many of them!
We also made a few stops at some really beautiful coral gardens.
One of the coral gardens had art at the bottom. If you can, dive down to get a better look at them and a really cool photo too.
Our tour guide also stopped at one area so that Brea can fly her drone. The pictures and videos turned out amazing! Since the boat was not docked, I had to catch the drone with my hand (be extra careful if you try this!)
Our guide took us to a cute restaurant for lunch.
Our full day water excursion ended around 3:30PM and we were exhausted! We did like our experience in Moorea a little more (humpback whales) but this experience was great in its own way. Not only did we see multiple manta rays but we also saw ample eagle rays and fishes!
[…] bungalow offered! That included getting the canoe breakfast one of the mornings. After one of our tours, we still went on our sundeck to enjoy the […]