Bora Bora

 9/26/24 

We started out with an overnight flight from LAX to Tahiti. Fun fact: I did not realize that Tahiti is in the dead middle of the Pacific Ocean. It’s actually not that far from Hawaii. So the distance from LA to Tahiti is about the same as Salt Lake to London, the main difference is that when you fly east to west instead of west to east, you leave after midnight instead of at like, 5 or 6 o’clock. So going to Europe, you have to convince your body to go to sleep 5 hours early, whereas for this flight, we were plenty ready to zonk out, and that made it easier to sleep through the flight. Air France’s economy chairs also recline waaaayyyy far back, which also made it easier. And then the flight goes by really quickly as well, since you’re asleep for it. 

We got into Papeete at 5:15 a.m. They had a group of local Polynesian singers out to greet us at customs, and for us it felt like 9:15, but I have to imagine that’s not the most fun time to be on the job for them, haha. But they were smiling and gave us a great little show. It took a while to get through customs, and somehow we ended up at the verrrry back of the entire line, even though I swear that’s not where we started. I think our lane was moving the slowest. :/ The travel group people gave us leis after we got through. We actually accidentally got swept up with the wrong group and had to give those leis back lol, but we got the right ones eventually.

From Papeete we boarded a “puddle jumper” to take us to Bora Bora. We got a tip to sit on the left side, which was where you could see all the islands we passed, which was neat. It flies lower than a commercial jet, so we were above some clouds, but not the main layer where you can’t see the ground (or ocean, in this case) at all. It was windy, and a lot of the clouds just below looked like giant dragons flying either past us or with us. 

When we got to Bora Bora, it was… raining! I was like, well this is not how I pictured it… lol. It actually rained for most of the day. It made the whole place feel a little like Disney World… which I’m not sure if that says something about my travel mindset, or maybe it’s just that Disney does such a good job creating their immersive experiences that it feels like the real thing, haha. But that was what I kept thinking as we walked around (during the couple of dry spells). It felt a bit blasphemous, but hey, good job Disney, I guess. 

The whole place does have that island-y feel to it though. You can smell the salt air. The Four Seasons gave us more leis when we landed on Bora Bora and that added the smell of gardenias, which was lovely.  The air is super humid, but in a way that makes me feel like I’ve just stepped out a mani-pedi like, all the time. 

Once we got to the hotel, we had to wait for check-in, but Jones had rented out a villa for people to hang out in. There was a poolside day bed that reminded me of Bachelor in Paradise, so we went out there to take a nap, which was a great idea in theory, except that when it started really raining, we were trapped lol. The bed itself was covered and had curtains you could pull around, but there wasn’t really a good way to get back inside without getting soaked. We finally ended up climbing over the deck chairs, which had umbrellas over them. 

The Four Seasons actually has umbrellas for you to use when it’s raining. So we set out for reception at check-in time, but we were soon hailed by an employee in a golf cart, who gave us a ride, and then even took us out to our bungalow. (I later learned this is normal practice for check-in, regardless of rain.) We’re right about in the middle of the “pontoon” (i.e., dock), so it’s too deep to touch but not all the way out at the end in the middle of the lagoon. That’s what the area between the hotel(s) and the main island is called. Matthew would want me to tell the story of how I locked us out immediately... I wanted to do a walk-through-the-door video of the room, but we had already stepped inside and set down our keys (they were actually wristbands—we really should have put them on as soon as they gave them to us), and I had intended to close the door only partially, but in the shuffle of dealing with bags and everything, I accidentally pulled it to the locked position, and poor Matthew had to walk back up the pontoon in the rain... whoops.

The bungalow is amazing, obviously. It's the one where you can just jump off your deck straight into the ocean. The bathroom is like a full third of the whole space, and altogether it's the size of a small apartment. The room came with some treats a bottle of rosé, which I would have just ignored, but Matthew had the presence of mind to call reception and ask for something else, so they came and took away the alcohol and brought us fresh coconut water, as in, literally still in the coconut. I didn't love the taste, tbh, but it was fun to sit out on the covered portion of our deck and feel like we were actually on a tropical island.

 

So for the rest of the day, we really just kind of got settled and waited out the rain. I was worried we’d get soaked on our way to dinner, but the rain finally let up just as we were setting out, and the last bits of the sunset were lovely. We had a group dinner and then came back to the bungalow and went straight to bed. With the time difference, it felt much later, and it actually was nice, because it allowed us to get up early the next morning while still feeling like we slept in. 

Then, today the sun was finally out! We set out for breakfast and I was like, thissss is more like what I pictured. :D The water is a beautiful turquoise that goes out as far as you can see, which we sort of got a glimpse of, even with the rain, yesterday, but in the sun it just gleams. There are still some clouds hanging around the tallest peaks of the island, but hopefully those will clear up before we try to scale them on Saturday. 

9/28/24 

Of course, then it rained again yesterday, on and off throughout the middle of the day. Today was the day we were supposed to hike, but we’ve pushed it off to Monday in hopes it’ll get a bit drier and clear off the clouds a bit more. But back to Thursday. 

We didn’t do much in the middle of the day because of the rain, even though it cleared up here and there, but fortunately it didn’t impact our planned activity for the day, which was scuba diving! I booked us a “romantic” scuba dive, mainly because it was for just the two of us with an instructor (for a pretty decent price, considering), which makes me feel more comfortable, since I’m not a super confident diver. This was the right call, because I ended up being a bit of a hot mess, but we’ll get to that. 

It was basically a beginner-type dive, only about 15 feet, and it was in an area they called “the aquarium.” It was what they call a coral garden, and there were a few places where they’d spelled things out in (planted) coral on the seafloor, like “LOVE BORA BORA,” and the tour included “finding” a black pearl to give to your partner. I was worried it would be a little too simple and gimmicky for Matthew, but it was definitely just about my speed. He did say he still enjoyed it, but I think he would still have liked to do more. We also didn't really get any pictures, because I wasn't sure when we left how far down we were going and I was worried the phone and/or GoPro wouldn't be rated deep enough, but part of the package was that they have someone film and send you a video of it, so I'll post that down below my description.

So we got in the water, and at first I was super (over) confident, like I remembered how it felt to do it before (on our honeymoon ten years ago…) and I knew the instructor would do the actual work. But then my mask started filling up with water about every couple of minutes, which was not too big a deal when we were close to the surface, because we could just get up out of the water and fix it, but as we tried to go deeper it became a bigger problem. So at first we tried switching to a new mask, which helped a little, but like, maybe I was accidentally blowing out my nose without meaning to, or maybe I have a weird face shape that makes it hard to get a good seal, but if I exhaled too quickly or too hard, it would spring a leak. This led to a moment of panic where I tried to empty my mask underwater the way the instructor (whose name was Nikola) told us, but apparently I forgot the part where you’re supposed to blow out your nose when you do it, so it just flooded my mask completely, and I did panic for a few seconds (we were about 10-12 feet down, there was no going quickly to the surface at this point), but then my body remembered that I could still breathe through my mouth and got it under control. Nikola had seen me floundering, though, so he took me back up anyway and I emptied out the water and tried to get it sealed back up again on my face. 

So then when we went back down, you plug your nose to get the expanding air out of your sinuses by blowing it out your ear, and when I did that as we were getting to the bottom, I felt like if I let go of my nose, it would get water in it from the mask leaking again, and then I would have to go back up and fix it again… so I just decided to keep plugging my nose. I figured I looked like a dope, and yes, cognitively I understood that you don’t need to plug your nose in scuba, that’s kind of the point, but it kept me from getting in my head about my mask and was better than having to surface every few minutes. 

So we finally were able to get into the dive tour itself. The cameraman gave Matthew the pearl and a clam shell to like, put it in and “present” to me underwater, as part of the video. It was a little silly, but hey. The video thing was another reason I kind of wish I hadn’t felt the need to hold my nose, but I kind of figured out how to rest my hand on the regulator so it hopefully didn’t look quite as dopey as it felt. 

But we saw some fun things. They have clams here that have these bright blue and green and purple lips between their shells. The guide gave us a sea urchin to hold, which will grab on to your hand so you can like, turn it upside down, and he showed us some of the anemones that close up if there’s sudden movement near them. There was a big pufferfish sitting underneath a big patch of coral. And I didn’t know what it was at the time, but he poked this log-looking thing with a stick, and I thought he was trying to make it move, but it didn’t. But then when we were finished, he explained that that was a stonefish. It’s extremely poisonous, and Nikola said it was one of the biggest he’s ever seen, about the size of one of the big coconuts here, which is about twice the size they usually are. 

This is the video they made for us 
(fair warning, it's quite long)

There was another couple on our boat, and I was a little confused at first because Nikola and Manu (the film guy) were the only crew and it was supposed to be one-on-two, but then I realized we’d be taking turns. So we went first and then waited up on the boat while they did theirs. Matthew said his favorite thing about scuba diving and snorkeling is that it makes him feel like a seal, or a selkie, if you want to get mythical. He’d found a neat little shell while we were down there, in addition to the black pearl, which he said Manu, the video guy, just pulled out of his sleeve while I was distracted lol, but we do get to keep it, so that’s fun. 

Then we came back to the hotel and had dinner at the Asian fusion place and went to bed. We’ve been going to bed early because why not. It gets dark at about 7 p.m., so instead of adjusting fully to the time change, we just have shifted our sleep pattern. Which is actually good, because even when we need to get up early, it basically still feels like sleeping in. 

Here's a picture of the women's bathroom at the Four Seasons. 

They had a lily pond where the mirror would normally be.

So then yesterday was the first full day without any rain (yay!) and also we had a group activity that was probably the coolest thing we’ll do here. By the afternoon I was like, okay, it finally feels like we’re actually in Bora Bora! 

The travel people hired by Jones (Maritz) organized a Shark and Ray Snorkel Tour for us today. I wasn’t totally sure what that would look like (do we swim after a guide through an enclosed lagoon or something?) but it ended up that we got on a boat and they took us out to a few snorkel spots, where we could snorkel for a bit and then get back on to go to the next place. And guys, it was SO COOL. The boat had one of those side runner things with a net stretched out over it that you could sit on like a hammock, and our boat driver played songs on the ukulele while he drove lol, but that’s not even the cool part. 

Our first stop was a shallow spot that’s good for seeing rays, they told us it would be mostly sting rays or eagle rays. There were also a bunch of small sharks hanging out. I actually thought it was pretty cool to have one swim right at me and then veer off, which happened a few times. But our guides, who clearly do this all the time, caught a sting ray and were holding it (her, actually) and letting us all pet her, and then they actually let us hold her, which was fun. They did it a few times, kind of catch and release, so I think we saw three sting rays that way, but they all had no barb on their tails, which from what I heard the guides saying was because either they used it recently and it will grow back over time, or they were saying that one of them recently had babies, so it might have been related to that. They hadn’t like, had their stingers removed or anything. But ya, sting rays are all soft and slimy on their wings and then hard and a little spiny on their heads. 

 

So then we went out to a deep area. We saw some dolphins on our way there that came right up to our boat and swam alongside/practically underneath. Matthew said he thought it was about 20 feet—he free-dived to the bottom, and everyone was very impressed that he even did it without fins, since he jumped off the boat without getting any and then they were out by the time he thought about it and came back. He did that twice, though, and he also touched two sharks by swimming hard to keep up and then diving down from over top to swipe the edge of a fin. 

(no zoom on this photo!!)

Sharks are so cool. I love watching them move through the water, wiggling side to side, and it was so awesome to be so close to them. The sharks were black-tipped reef sharks, which are non-aggressive to humans. There were about six or seven of them hanging around, and the water was this deep, cerulean blue but also just clear as glass, which you can see from the pictures/video. I stayed up on the surface because snorkeling makes me kind of nervous. I still was having trouble with getting water inside my mask, although I actually borrowed my friend’s mask from back home, which has full-face coverage, so you don’t have to plug your nose and use a mouthpiece and try to keep it at the right angle to stay out of the water. But the sharks were up near the surface anyway (and I think the life jacket I used helped keep me from getting as sunburned). I think the boats drop some food to encourage them to come up. The best part, though, was when just about everyone had gotten back up on their boats (ours was the last one to arrive and then to leave) and all of a sudden the water was filled with these little black fish and the sharks all came up right in the middle (they were kind of skirting the peripheries more so when there were more people). 

Our last stop was another coral garden, but this one was out on the periphery of the lagoon, and it was amazing. The only coral I’ve ever seen in like the Caribbean is mostly yellow and green (at least, in the water). This stuff was bright purple and pink and yellow, and then there were the blue and green and purple clams, and they were even brighter closer to the surface (this spot was about 5 feet deep). There were huge bunches of the coral that you had to kind of swim around and through. There were lots of bright fish, too, but honestly the coral and clams were kind of the stars for me. 

    

Then we went to a “motu,” which is a little private island, for lunch. The food was probably the best buffet meal we’ve had so far, and the plates were woven out of palm fronds, which was super fun. Also, we thought we were done with the sharks and rays, but the tables we sat at were in the water just off the side of the beach, and there were about five sharks hanging around about 10 feet off, and then this sting ray came up and was begging for food. He was just a big old puppy, rubbing up against people’s legs and taking handouts. It was so cute. 

    

We tried really hard to apply sunscreen well, but it turns out it just is impossible to not get burned when you go snorkeling unless you wear like a long-sleeved shirt or something. I actually opted for a life jacket in the two deeper spots (the coral garden wasn’t deep but I couldn’t quite touch), which had the added benefit of keeping the sun off my back a bit more, but poor Matthew is pretty bright red all along the shoulders. My nose and cheeks got it pretty good, but other than that, I did okay. Super worth it, though, anyway. One of the coolest things I’ve ever done, and now it finally feels like we’re actually in Bora Bora! 

FaceTiming with the kids!

We had originally planned to go hiking this morning, but the clouds are just clinging to the top of the mountain on the main island, and the guide we’ve been consulting says it can be dangerous if it’s at all wet. We actually got a chance to see the one we’re planning to hike, which wasn’t quite as bad in terms of cloud cover (it’s not the highest one, which isn’t really scalable), but we decided to push it off to Monday to hopefully get a few more dry days between now and then. Today we’re going to go into town on the main island and tool around, do some shopping, and hopefully we’ll still get a chance to hike on Monday.

 

 9/29/24 

Shopping was nice. Jones organized a free shuttle for everyone that was kind of a mini yacht. It takes about 25 minutes by boat to get from Four Seasons to the main port, Vaitape. We spent most of our time looking at black pearls, which is a specialty of the Tahitian islands. I found a nice set that I’m very happy with. I also had to buy sunglasses, because I had tried one last time to resurrect my Hovens using epoxy, and it seemed like they were holding together, so I chose optimism and didn’t bring a backup pair, but then they broke Friday morning. Pretty much the first shop we looked at was a great little gift shop that had a ton of stuff. I actually ended up buying my pearl necklace there, as well as my customary magnet and the sunglasses, and even a hat, since I was starting to feel like I need a beach hat. The one I got is pretty cute and makes me feel pretty, so win-win. 

 

I want a photo to put up in my bathroom, and I had thought that if there’s some local photographer, I could get a print that would be better than something I could take. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any such photographer. We went into this neat little shop that had a bunch of local artists’ work, and we didn’t find what I was looking for, but after we left, the lady came out and chased us down the road lol (we were coming out of another shop across the street) to give us some posters she found in the back, just for free. They still aren’t what I was looking for, but it was nice of her, and she did have some lovely pieces, so we ended up going back for some to give as gifts as we were leaving. I’ve been trying to take some pictures around the resort to hopefully print one and put it up. I think I’ve got some decent options. 

After we got back from shopping, we took out a paddleboard and kayak from the hotel’s complimentary stash and tooled around the lagoon between the bungalows and the Four Seasons beach. I ended up getting a little bit of a sunburn even though we’ve been pretty diligent with the sunscreen, but I’m guessing we missed a spot. 

In the evening we had our theme dinner with Jones. The hotel set up tables on one of their beaches and there was a performance by Tahitian dancers and fire dancers. Bora Bora has a ton of raw fish dishes, the traditional one is fish soaked in lime and coconut, and for all I was weirded out by the idea of raw fish about ten years ago, these days I want to try it all. The buffet at the theme dinner was loaded with raw fish, including swordfish sashimi, which had me thinking it’s a good thing I’m not pregnant! Haha. 

Honestly, the best lunch/dinner food we’ve had was out at the motu on the snorkeling tour. The meat was cooked really nicely and they had some interesting local vegetables. The breakfasts are unparalleled, though. They had a different selection of delicious pastries every morning (my favorite was the Nutella-filled donut), incredibly fresh and sweet fruit, and Brioche French toast. There was a “red fruit” coulis that I had on the French toast and it was so good. I also liked the hash browns, and the scrambled eggs were a bit runny but had really delicious flavor. For lunch we mostly shared entrees at the beach grill. The for dinner, our first night eating at the hotel, we ate at the Asian fusion place. I had the chef special, which was shrimp with avocado, and I had them put the “spicy sauce” on the side. Then we had what felt like a very fancy s’more that had coconut ice cream in the middle. The next night we went to the Italian-French fusion place and had risotto and gnocchi, and for dessert we had a mille-feuille, which was really more like a trois-feuille (feuille = layer, mille = thousand, trois = three) but it had the right flavor profile, so that made me happy. A lot of desserts and pastries here are garnished with edible gold as well, which is kind of fun. Tonight we splurged and had rack of lamb and “porc sucre” which was pork with like a sugary crust on it, very tasty. We ended up not being able to go to any of the restaurants on the main island because we procrastinated looking into that and there were no reservations available, which is certainly a bummer, but I guess saves us the money of having to get there ($40–50 per person just for the hotel’s shuttle boat). 

This morning we went to church. There are four other Jones advisors here who are members, so the ten of us (with wives) got a boat together (which was nice because it split up the price of the boat taxi). Bora Bora, it turns out, has four whole wards. In fact, “Mormon” seems to be one of the main religions, as we’ve had at least one guide and the concierge bring it up, plus the guy I got my pearl earrings from. We attended the 9:30 ward, and they definitely noticed our massive group and even welcomed us in English over the pulpit. The meeting was otherwise in French, but I surprised myself by being able to understand enough to get the gist of about half the talks. I ended up kind of translating afterward for the rest of the group. This one lady told some good stories, and one was making everyone laugh, so they all wanted to know what she’d said. She spoke really clearly, so I was able to tell them it was a story about dealing with a Karen tourist and how the spirit helped her have patience and stay calm lol. 

9/30/24 

We did the thing! There were times when I had my doubts, but we climbed to the top of Mt. Pahia! 

I was starting to get nervous, because there’s been so much rain and nearly everyone we told our plans to (including locals) looked at us like we were crazy. So this morning I was feeling nervous about it, but I really wanted to hike the volcano and get to the top of Bora Bora, and Matthew felt confident it would go just fine, and it did! 

Our taxi driver (on land) was the first one to not balk at our plans. We took a boat from Four Seasons to their dock across the way and then a taxi to Vaitape, which is on the other side of the island and also where the trail starts. We got to the trail at about 7:20 a.m. The hiking guide blog we were looking at said 4–6 hours, and we were trying to catch the free Jones shuttle back at 1:30, so I wanted to make sure we had a full six hours to do it. 

The first stretch was pretty grueling, walking up a steep incline and then it goes pretty quickly into rock/tree scrambling. I was starting to feel lightheaded, but we took a rest and I was able to let the blood drain from my head and felt a lot better. After that, it was a lot of climbing, but it was all under tree cover, so we didn’t feel too hot, and the pace was manageable. We got a little bit lost on the way up and had to backtrack a little bit (the trail isn’t really marked for the most part). We’d found ourselves about 40 feet above the trail, and Matthew wanted to try to climb down but I didn’t want to end up getting injured (either of us), so we compromised and scaled a spot about 10 feet down instead. 

Then we came to our first rope, which was how we knew we’d found the trail again. It actually ended up being the most intense one, pretty much just walking up sheer, wet rock. I was a bit nervous, but after that it went back to having lots of tree roots for grabbing and pulling ourselves up, which was much easier. There were probably about 7-10 rope sections, with the longest being maybe 60 feet. I think that was the one that was basically just straight up a waterfall. There wasn’t a lot of water, really just a trickle, but that’s what it essentially was. 

My favorite spots on the trail were a weeping wall (i.e., water falling down it like rain) that we had to walk under. I didn’t even mind getting wet, it actually felt pretty good in the heat. And the other one was a cairn garden! If you know what cairns are, they’re piles of rocks that hikers use to mark trails, and we came to this one spot where people had built just dozens of them, and it looked so cool. Matthew was saying it looked almost like a set of idols in a hidden jungle temple. I even added my own little cairn; it was nowhere near as expert as many of them, but it was fun to do. 

The last rope ascent before we got to the top was pretty intense. I was in the lead at that point, and I had just looked back, where you could see most of the view (and also how high up you were), and I was regretting that a little bit. The rope was anchored on a rock above that you could see, and I was climbing up and it started to get real rock-climby. I was a bit scared but we were so close to the top, I didn’t want to quit! But I started to think, how are you even supposed to get down this..? And I looked down at my feet… and realized the trail had turned off about 7 feet below me. Actually I thought, “Oh, that’s how you get down. … Shoot, maybe that’s how you’re supposed to go up!” So it turned out you weren’t supposed to climb all the way up to the anchor, but I felt pretty cool for having tried it. 

This was that spot...

Then, finally, we made it all the way to the pinnacle, which was so amazing! I was the first of our group (term used loosely) to summit, and it felt so great. There was a pair of French guys (I think everyone we saw on the trail was French) who were directly behind us the whole way up and they became our trail buddies. The view was just spectacular. You can see all around the whole island, and we even saw our boat that was bringing over the Jones people and which we were wanting to get back on (they came into town for about three hours). We knew we needed to get going to make our shuttle, but it was one of those moments that it just felt like such a shame it ever had to end. Our French friends stayed longer because they had a drone they wanted to fly around, but after about 20 minutes, we started back down. 

I knew while we were going up that this would be the case, but down is SO MUCH HARDER. Our shoes were way muddier after slogging all the way up, which meant they were slippery in and of themselves, plus going back down from a steep ascent is just always going to be more perilous and difficult. About halfway down I was really starting to feel my legs, and by the time we were about a third of the way up (going down), it was all I could do to keep moving. But we made it without any major mishaps, and we even made our boat! We took the full six hours to do it, but we got into town with even a couple minutes to grab something from a shop that we’d missed the last time. 

By the time we finished, we were both just covered in mud. I felt a little bad sitting on the fancy boat cushions (thankfully they at least were pleather/easily wipeable). A couple of our friends who knew what we’d been doing cheered for us as we got on the boat lol. They told us we should just jump in the ocean, clothes on, when we got back to our bungalow. We actually did do that (well, Matthew jumped, I submerged off the ladder), and then we had grabbed a couple of Tide packs from the laundry on our way and we just peeled everything off and put it in the tub. We had to pick these little green burrs out of everything, not sure where those came from. And by the time we were done the water was totally murky.

Internet reviews are mixed, with some saying they never want to do it again even if they’re glad they did it, and others who would do it over and over. I totally would do this again, just not anytime soon, haha, as my legs need time to recover. But truly, it was everything I thought it would be, and I’m glad we didn’t let ourselves get scared off. It was the perfect way to cap off our trip. 

at the Farewell Dinner later that night

10/2/24 

They booked us on United on the way back (which, incidentally, caused some problems with our initial check-in with Delta on the way there because they were like, “We see you have a one-way ticket… you know you can’t just stay there indefinitely, right?”). The chairs are so small and, in Matthew’s words, “recline just enough to be insulting,” which made it really hard to sleep. Some advisors we met were saying that it’s better to book your own flights and have the travel people reimburse you, and I think we’ll try that next time. 

Our last day was lovely. We packed up our suitcases and then headed over to the spa, where we got a couples’ massage. It felt good on my sore muscles but didn’t really leave them feeling less sore afterward, haha. We really did a number on them Monday. They did a great job, though, excellent balance to where I could feel it without killing my tender sore muscles, and also some stretching, which I imagine was good for me. 

After the massage, I really wanted to snorkel in the hotel’s “marine sanctuary,” so we did, even though we kind of barely had time for it after also getting some lunch. I wasn’t sure what to expect and thought it might be kind of lame, but it was actually great! The main section at the beginning of the route was as cool as anything we saw out in the lagoon, and there was a helpful current running through it that helped keep you floating in the right direction (although it was a bit annoying at first because you had to swim against it to get from the entry point to the top of the sanctuary). They had all the bright-colored coral (not gonna lie, after seeing the coral in the Caribbean, I thought Finding Nemo was exaggerating) and fish. I actually saw the biggest and smallest neon clams of the trip in there, about a foot long and two inches, respectively (another thing I would have thought was made up if I hadn’t seen it). So it stressed Matthew out a little as we ran short on time to get to our boat to go to the airport, but I was super glad we did it. 

        

In some ways it feels like a whole lifetime since that first rainy day. We’ve been to the bottom and the top of Bora Bora and accomplished all the things we wanted to do here. Absolutely unforgettable trip. Here’s hoping the cancel curse* is broken!

*We’ve qualified for 9 trips, had to replace one with another, and set up five of our own, and this is the fifth total trip we actually went on, meaning 10 were cancelled on us. First was COVID; then they figured out the “travel cards,” which replaced our next six. We used those to go to Disney World, tried to go to Atlantis Resort Bahamas (canceled for family emergency), went on a Disney Cruise, tried to go to Hawaii (canceled for illness, we caught COVID that week), and went to Israel. Then we signed up for a trip to Machu Picchu that got canceled for civil unrest (which lasted about three weeks, and we could have actually gone if they’d just waited it out) and tried to replace that with Morocco, which had a massive earthquake a week before we were supposed to go (canceled). We finally made it onto an official Jones trip to London (although one of the major events we signed up for while we were there ended up getting canceled), and finally we made it onto a real Jones trip with no cancelations to Bora Bora.