7/7/2026 10th Anniversary Trip Day 3: Snorkeling with Sharks and Stingrays
For our first morning in Bora Bora, we started with quite a magical start! First things first was the breakfast buffet bright and early at 7am. We were about to go on a Full Day Snorkeling trip with Lagoon Services Bora Bora and it was going to be about 7 hours long so I figured wise not to over-eat -- we'll get another 3 mornings at this epic buffet so no need to try every possible thing the first day... I had to repeat this to myself:) The coffee was incredible!! Wasn't sure if it was the coffee itself or the cream in it, but it was magnificent.
The bungalows, the mountains, and Michal!
The pastries were out of control delicious
Time for some more Red Tuna and Salmon
Glorious view from Breakfast
So...many... passion fruits...
We finished an awesome breakfast and sat for a very 'short' 1 hour only today; we'll take it more leisurely on the future days. This day was the most scheduled of the trip, with the pickup at 8:30 for the snorkeling trip. Our guide Mana picked us up and I apologized for being a minute or two late. "Hey! You're on Island Time, buddy! All is good!"
Mana picked us up in a cool outrigger-canoe style speedboat, pretty sweet. We met some of the other travelers that were staying at a couple of the other hotels and everyone was super nice and celebrating something special on this trip.
The first stop was the Coral Garden. We had brought our own masks on recommendation from Lonely Planet and a few other spots, and they did not disappoint. The mask is made of one piece of glass and was very clear. The snorkel itself is super amazing and has a valve in the front (for when you get water into the tube, you don't have to shoot it all the way back up the snorkel) as well as a stopper at the top ("dry snorkel") that lets you dive down without the tube filling up with water. Pretty cool stuff!
Alex kindly lent me his GoPro 11 which was amazing as I was able to capture some really cool videos I'll post here. Along the way, Mana showed us a mountain with a hole in it. He said that his people believe that Maui broke the hole in the mountain, making the cave, and in a 2nd attempt, lifted the mountain up out of the water with his hook! He talked about the movie Moana and was clearly quite excited and pleased about the Polynesian vibes successfully portrayed in the movie.
Excited to snorkel!
The hole Maui made when he lifted the mountain out of the water with his hook
We arrived at the Coral Garden and it was great. First some underwater photos from the GoPro and then a video.
Michal getting ready for the initial snorkel
These funny Clam guys were smiling at us!
Pretty incredible times! After this we drove a bit more and we saw a giant shark in the water, which Mana pointed out to us. This was a different type of shark to the main ones we would be seeing today, which were Black-Tipped Sharks.
This mountain he said is supposed to look like a face
So... sharks eh!??!? Let's go!! It was incredible that they came so close -- it was crazy, you just dunk your head underwater and there's a bunch of sharks, right there. Michal was a little bit iffy on this whole 'swimming with sharks thing' but I was very proud of her for just jumping in and doing it anyway.
And here's the video of us from both this location number 2, and the final 3rd location I'll talk about next. WOW this was incredible. What an absolutely stunning experience this all was. This is the main video of the day so this is the main thing to watch. The 2nd location, the sharks were all around and it was made even more picturesque by seeing some divers as well that show up in the video here, too. The 3rd location was my favourite spot on the trip since you were so close to the sharks and it was crazy how much they swim around you and right by you.
So after the first shark spot, we were pretty PSYCHED. Mana played the Ukelele and told us stories of when he was younger, growing up fishing. "If you go out for a day of surf, you better bring something [some fish] back!" How cool of a childhood that must have been.
We continued enjoying the weather and the good times and chatting with the other travelers, and then we arrived at the final spot, a Sharks and Stingray location!! I had thought these rays were harmless MANTA Rays... turns out, nope, they are real Stingrays!!! Mana said he had a favourite one and they were 'friends' and he knows her by name, so he held her and let us touch the underside of it's body and fins which was insane. I thought it was like holding a giant Portobello mushroom.
At this last spot, there were a few stingrays (not manta rays?!?!?!) and more (circling!) sharks. It was all a bit nuts, but amazing, and definitely my favourite spot of the snorkeling trip. There were some incredibly bright coloured fish and the yellow-finned ones seemed the most friendly.
Michal took some photos too while I was in the water, and I got some photos with the GoPro in addition to the video above.
Mana with his "girlfriend", the Stingray!
"Feels like a Portobello Mushroom!"
What an absolutely stunning experience this all was. The water is an unbelievable shade of green, teal, dark blue, all changing in different locations. It was quite unbelievable and just stunningly gorgeous.
After a glorious 4 hours on the boat and snorkeling 3 times, we headed to a private island (Motu) for us to enjoy a huge lunch they had prepared for us. This was epic, they had rice, poisson cru, chicken, beef from Australia, Fish steak, Po'e (with Pumpkin), Pamplemoose, Pineapple, Breadfruit, Plaintain, and some sort of potato-y thing.
Mana explaining the food
This really hit the spot after all that snorkeling!
The Po'e was good and I really liked trying all these new things
Mana showed us how to put together a leaf-plate for our food
At lunch, we ended up sitting with the other couples from California/Seattle west coast. We had a nice chat with the San Jose couple that were there celebrating their 30th Anniversary! I joked that we were gonna have to figure out what to do now because it would be hard to beat this trip, and instead of smartly waiting for this trip for our 30th Anniversary like them, we were doing it for our 10th Anniversary! They suggested we just plan to come back for our 30th:)
After we finished lunch, there was a short coconut-opening demonstration, before we wrapped up the day and took the boat back to our hotels. On the way back, Michal and I got a good laugh as Mana was playing Ukelele and singing, and so he had no hands left, and was driving and steering the boat with his feet -- just like the bird does in the movie "Flow"!! It was really funny and the music was great. He played Somewhere over the Rainbow as well as a Polynesian version of Justin Bieber's "Baby". So fun and so funny.
And then arriving back at our hotel entrance, stunning:
Back we go to our hotels. What a great day out.
Enjoying music and the weather
Saying goodbye to Mana at our dock
The view from the hotel lobby!!! Not bad eh?!?!
We got back to our EPIC Overwater Bungalow and relaxed... imagine that?! We did some late afternoon reading(!!!) and took it easy after a long and fun day out. My favourite part of the day was definitely the 3rd snorkeling spot, given how close you were to the rays and the sharks. Wild!!!!
For dinner, we went to the 'casual' poolside/beachside dining area which was much fancier than expected for the dinner setup. We got the Lagoon Fish Ceviche, got a side of the smallest corn on the cob ever made, and then really won with the most utterly amazing whisky-mashed sweet potato. We also shared a main of an amazingly fresh Mahi Mahi with creamy vanilla sauce.
Lagoon Fish Ceviche with Aguachile marinated pineapple, avocado, jalopenos, edamame, and coriander
Mahi Mahi with Vanilla sauce, Sweet Potato Puree flambeed with Bourbon Whisky and Roasted Hazelnuts
Random cat!!!
The waitress and waiter were both very funny and cute and you could see they really just wanted to provide excellent and memorable service. The waitress apologized for having minimal English and I said I would try to use my French and she literally giggled as she walked away. Everyone is so jovial here, it's amazing.
The final hilarious thing of the evening was we asked the waiter if we could take one of our breadknives back to the room since I had the fruit from the Papeete Market and wanted to eat it in the evenings. He returned with a serrated steak knife from the kitchen that he said would do a better job on the fruit, and then asked us "Shall I have it delivered to your room?" which gave us a good laugh, given how amazingly unnecessary it was to make someone else schelp for this request. He was only a LITTLE bit horrified that was said we'd just walk with it, and he delivered the knife wrapped in a napkin for our safety:) Needless to say, it was time to get going on all these mangos and passion fruits that I bought!
Tomorrow: less of a plan. More relaxed and less scheduling. Sweet dreams of sharks and stingrays!
