Saying bye to Tahiti

The previous post in this series is here..

We were still thinking and talking of the SCUBA diving experience. Turns out the family did not know that Scuba was an acronym. They were impressed when I explained it to them.

Was telling them about how my brother and me would be glued to the TV screen watching Jacques Costeau and the Underwater Adventure series on Doordarshan. Never thought I would actually be wearing an oxygen tank and fins and jump into the water from a boat.

We came back early to the dinner table, ordered and while our food was being prepared, came and took more photos at golden hour. The colors were different this time given the rain clouds.. a little more ominous looking skies.

Then we went back to bed knowing the next day was going to be an all travel day.

I simply could not sleep the entire night. The wall of fishes kept popping up in my head. Wanted to go back and try diving again. So we called the diving place as soon as they opened at 7 and asked if I could go back. Our ride from hotel to boat was only at 2 PM. The lady said “no diving if you are flying same day. Come back again and you can dive with us on your next trip!”. So I decided to just go spend another hour in the water. It was nice and there was a chilly breeze but the water was warm. Dunked the iPhone in water and tried taking a few pictures. Went back to the room and as soon as I came out of the shower, it rained heavily. We couldn’t even cross the hotel area to go to the lobby to check out. (You can see it in the video). After checking out at 11, we had to spend 3 hours in the restaurant area for our ride to the boat. So we just sat there eating lunch, then fries, then drinking hot chocolate.. and walked up and down and just chatted. It was nice.

Then we went by boat to the Bora Bora airport. There was more drama. The flight to Raiatea was 1 hour late. That meant we would not make it back to Tahiti that night. Our flight to SFO was at 7AM the next morning. We panicked. The guys at the counter said “you have only one option. Cancel your ticket to Raiatea. Instead book a new ticket from Bora Bora to Papette in Tahiti that leaves in an hour”. Poor San scrambled, we shelled out a lot of money for that last minute ticket and oddly, that flight stopped at Raiatea for 20 mintues before going to Papette anyways!! This whole thing with inter island flights is a borderline scam. In any case we had no choice so we went with it.

Once we reached Papette and got out of the airport, we could see the Tahiti Airport Motel directly in front of us on the hill facing the airport. There were no taxis. We waited for 10 minutes and decided to walk to the hotel. Maps said it was s 6 min walk with a 100 ft climb. We walked up to find the gate closed. Then the hotel guy says we needed to walk all around the side street up a hill and then come down to the hotel. We were tired after all that travel and had to walk a good 20 minutes dragging our luggage up a hill. The guy at the reception said “very sorry.. we close the gate because thieves come and steal from the store below the hotel”. That was not very comforting. He was nice though and booked us a taxi to go to the food trucks nearby.

There was no vegetarian option on the food trucks except plain rice. Luckily for us there was a chain called WSK right near the trucks. The lady there spoke some English and agreed to make a veggie burger and veggie noodles. I ate plain rice and drank water which was as good as it was going to get for me.

We waited for a return taxi. We asked for the taxi from the hotel at 7:40 and waited for a long time. When he finally came and dropped us at the hotel he asked for double fare citing it was 8:06 and after 8 the fare was double. We told him all we had was the money for the return taxi. Finally he agreed and took the money. The hotel reception person was puzzled by this and was shaking his head when we told him what happened.

Clearly Pullaiyaar was on vacation again. We woke up at 4:30 the next morning and caught the taxi that had been booked to take us literally across the street to the airport. It was good we had a taxi as it was raining heavily. We got breakfast at the airport and were told the flight would be delayed by an hour.

Finally when we took off, we were two hours late again. French Bee seems to have no idea of punctuality. Two flights and both 2 hours late! Eventually we made it back home after 8PM. There was power, the garage door opened and we were greeted by the smell of wet yoga clothes and towels that had been left in the laundry room for 5 days!

Home sweet home, we said and started unpacking!

At the end of the trip, we collectively thought it was still great. We had travel delays and flight issues everywhere. (we had taken 9 flights in 10 days on the south east Asia trip during Thanksgiving and every flight was on time!. so our expectation was different). Cancelations to booked adventures.. but we had all snorkeled as a family, San and me had a life changing experience with diving and we had great pictures. Also we got to laugh and kid around with just the four of us. We had also met some nice people from the bay area all the way in Tahiti.

A video highlight of us just doing nothing on the last day..

Would definitely recommend a visit, the snorkeling, the scuba diving, the Royal Hotel in Bora Bora .. just book tickets with enough layover time, direct to the location if possible and know the flight routes. If possible book Air Tahiti as they have a larger presence there for inter island flights. If you mix and match between Air Moana and Air Tahiti you will be in trouble with late flights and bad weather.

Here is a timelapse video of the entire flight from Bora Bora to Raiatea. Glad we did not have to get down again at Raiatea.. the kids had had enough of that airport on the way in. We need to start flights like this along the California coast so the little one can come on a 20 minute flight from Santa Barbara to San Jose. Decided to hold the camera at the window for the entire flight.. have held it longer to catch sunsets and sunrises .. so why not?!

Given I was in two minds about this trip and all the things that came our way, the fact that we were all together through this experience made it all the more interesting and memorable!

A life changing experience in Bora Bora - SCUBA diving for the first time

The previous post in this series is here..

When we booked the Snorkeling experience the family discussion was “okay, what activities are there in Bora Bora for us to do?” The answer was “Snorkeling, 4 spots avaiable..”, then Jet ski - 2 spots the day after, ATV tours only 2 spots on last day and Introductory Scuba diving - 2 spots.

I decided to try Scuba diving. Was thinking of my friend E back in college who would talk non stop about getting ready for her diving experience and how one need not be an expert swimmer to dive. The family rolled its collective eyes. Jr. said worse case, she will come with me. That is when San decided “I am going to try this. It says you don’t need to know swimming”. Wasn’t going to discourage her and said “great!” and 4 eyes rolled back almost completely. Meanwhile the kids wanted to Jet ski and they signed up for it. The times had an overlap. So it was the two of us for diving. San called them to confirm that it was okay that she was not a swimmer and they said “okay”!

When we were snorkeling earlier, the kids pulled me aside and gave me an earful for encouraging San to come diving. They said “we are not happy with you going but look at her. She is having difficulty snorkeling, how is she going to survive diving? please stop this madness appa!”. Told them that she is scared but wants to try. She will watch me and come along. Worse case we waste the money if she bails out last minute.

Day 3 morning was rained out. We had an early light lunch and waited. The Jet ski people showed up at the hotel and said the tour was cancelled due to bad weather. The kids were really disappointed. So they decided to just go to the pool in the hotel and then go to their room. We waited to see if the diving would be cancelled.

The dive tour folks showed up and said “We are good! it is not bad weather for diving!” So off we went. Once there the lady at the counter said “it is okay. if you follow instructions, you will do fine!” and introduced us to Mr. David, our instructor. There were two David’s on the boat who were instructors. one spoke French and the other both French and English. We went with a family of 6 from France who were all in their twenties. A guy with his girlfried, his two sisters and their husbands. They were really nice and only the guy spoke English. It was first dive for most of them as well but they were good swimmers. I did not know we could get our phone on the boat. Left it in the lockers! They were kind enough to take our picture and airdrop it!

While we were on the boat we got a lot of instructions. Most importantly the sign for okay was the “pramaadham” sign, thumbs up meant “take me back up”. Someone in our house watches movies causally and asks “who is this guy?” 5 minutes before the climax comes and the guy happens to be a key part of the plot. Guess that person listened to the instructions like they watched movies.

There is an instructor with two people max at one time. So first 30 minutes we sat on the boat with 2 folks from the other family. Instructors took the other 4 down and came back up. Then the French David took the French couple with him. Anglo-French David was waiting in the water for us. We got into all the gear with the oxygen cylinder on our back and the fins on our feet and he asked us to take a leap of faith and jump off the boat. We both did to our surprise. The fear was visible in San’s eyes when she came back up to the surface after jumping in but once she got used to the bubbles she was all smiles.

Mr. David told me to stay on the surface and snorkel while he took San down first. He made her go to the bottom, grab the sand with her hands, try to touch the fishes and they looked up at me. She was doing fine. Then something happened and she showed the thumbs up sign. Later I found that he was asking her if she was okay and she said yes with the wrong sign.. So he took her back up. Then it was my turn!

We went down and he saw I was doing fine and took me deeper. Still get a rush thinking about the view and the silence with the occasional sound of the bubbles coming from my breathing. Was totally calmed out just slowly breathing through my mouth and watching a wall of a few hundred fishes in front of me. Then we moved past corals and this time got to see them from ground level and the view and fishes were just mesmerizing. Looking up at the sunlight coming from the water surface and dancing around was just amazing!

It was a life changing experience! When I finally came back up, had no words to describe it. Just an adrenaline rush. Took me a few minutes to compose myself and talk to folks. San was thrilled that she went through this. It was about to rain again and we made our way back to the dive office.

Mr. David told me on the way back “your wife was doing great. Don’t know why she suddenly asked me to take her to the surface?!”. I asked San and she says “I gave him a thumbs up to say I was doing great!”.. Couldn’t stop laughing.

Should have bought at least an iPhone cover or rented the gopro at the center (it was 70 bucks and they hand you the SD card). Wasn’t confident of holding a gopro and the gear on a first dive, so skipped it. There are no photos from the bottom of the lagoon to share.. but there will be soon. A video highlights reel..

We were given certificates for our first dive and took pictures. After coming back to the hotel, both of us were silent. We decided to go back into the water for some time at our hotel and were still processing what we had done. The last time I remembered both of us being silent and looking at each other like this was after one line turned into two on a pregnancy test 23+ years ago. Maybe this was my way of thinking “now there is no going back.. might be hooked to this diving thing”.

We had taken a big chance with diving and it is by far the most outrageous thing we have tried and were happy at the end of the experience.

Was extremely proud of my wife for going with this and doing what she did. Told the kids to never underestimate their mom, ever!

It was time for a shower and come back to the restaurant for dinner!

A rainy morning and a stroll around the Royal hotel in Bora Bora

The previous post in this series is here..

On our third day morning, it rained pretty much the entire morning. Was craving bajjis and pakodas sitting in the room watching the roosters and hens trying to find shelter outside our sliding door. Even they shut up in the rain.

When there was a reprieve we went for breakfast and a walk to the store near our hotel and went beyond till the next hotel.

There were a lot of fruit trees in every house that we admired along the way. You know it must be a slow day when I have only 3 photos for a 6 hour period on vacation! The rains, a smiling San (just after seeing those mangoes on the tree) and the thatched roofs that pretty much covered every thing here but worked exceptionally well to keep water out!

Did take a few video clips though.. here is a video highlight reel of the morning..

The afternoon was going to be interesting..