Bora Diving Center, Bora Bora, French Polynesia

Dear Fellow Diver,

"Ia ora na!"

The crew of the Bora Diving Center boat greeted us with the traditional Tahitian "good morning" as I arrived at the Intercontinental Bora Bora dock for our first dive, scheduled for an 08:15 departure. I handed my bag to dive guide, Amaury, who set up my gear on a 15-liter aluminum tank, while my partner, who is not a nitrox hog, opted for the 12-liter tank. They bungeed the tanks onto the aft receptacles of their 10-meter aluminum monohull and distributed twopound weights. After we motored out of the inlet, the captain goosed the 300 hp Suzuki outboard, and we headed to Tapu Nui, a small island just beyond the lagoon. Amaury briefed my partner and me, as well as the two other divers, a Swiss couple.

"Tapu Nui means big taboo. The little island over there used to belong to a queen, so it was taboo. Now it's a private island and shark feeding has been stopped, but we'll probably see black tips and maybe a lemon shark or two." In the past, snorkelers had joined the shark feeding, which, considering that most attacks occur on or near the surface, probably contributed to the ban.

The staff helped us into our BCs and ensured our tank valves were open. While a giant stride was called for, those who were superannuated or had physical issues found backrolling easier. I dropped into clear 81-degree water over a rolling field of healthy pocillopora meandrina (cauliflower) coral. The schools of colorful fish swarming the reef amazed me. Orange-spined unicorns, coral hawkfish, threadfin, ornate, and long-nosed butterflies shared the site with blue wrasses and odd white-spotted puffers. Moorish idols seemed to bounce off the coral as they pecked a living from the coral heads. Soon, a black tip shark appeared over the crest of the wall and was eventually joined by four more. They came closer and closer, often hanging around the entire dive, and finally passed beneath the boat as we took our safety stop.

Back on board, Amaury distributed paper cups of hot tea and water, then passed around a bowl of cookies. It's a French territory, so they could have at least offered croissants. We had no towels and no camera rinse tanks, but we had the entire ocean for our sanitary requirements. And we did.

I'm a big fan of one-hour surface intervals, and as we munched, the boat moved to the next site. Amaury asked, "Have you ever been to the moon?" He compared the next site to a moonscape, rolling low hills with expanses of white sand. With both hands facing downward, fingers crooked like claws, it was a signal meant to lie on the sand and dig in our fingers to hold on in the mild current.

After backrolling in, we met at the boat's bow, trying not to get conked. Descending on healthy 6- to 8-foot coral heads with small Tridacna clams embedded, I could see it would be a great dive. The sandy bottom began to undulate in little grooves. As I settled in a sand chute with a large coral buttress, an eagle ray appeared at the edge of the drop-off at the canyon's entrance. After gawking awhile, Amaury signaled us to swim around the canyon's outcropping. Another chute led to a sandy canyon, and Amaury pointed at five eagle rays. I crawled over and dug in. Facing the current, the rays hovered as close as 10 feet away for at least 20 minutes or more. We stared at them, they stared at us. Well, maybe. Occasionally, they dipped and snatched a snack out of the sand.

Bora Diving stowed our gear overnight, rinsing and hanging it to dry. The next day, they strapped our gear on tanks, with our fins and masks in our mesh bags beneath the bench seat. Other than us, most divers rented gear; Aqualung Wave BCs, 3mm wetsuits, Helix regulators, and Stratos fins were included in the price of the two-tank nitrox dive. It was new, clean gear, which lets you skip baggage charges and saves you from lugging stuff from home and back.

The next day at Anau, we backrolled into the clear blue water and gathered at the anchor line until the guide, Manu, assembled the group. We descended over a hill of healthy Montipora coral, defiled only by whiteness at the tips of the corallites. Visibility quickly decreased as we dropped over the reef's edge to a sand channel, then went up and over another finger reef, then down to another sand channel to wait for mantas. Visibility was down to 20 feet. Before long, the first manta appeared over our heads. I rose to the reef top to watch it swim away, and another appeared from behind. We swam to a low spot in the coral and hunkered down. Mantas appeared, then disappeared into the murk to make a sweeping turn and return. A vast (I'd guess a four-meter wing span) mostly white female, visibly pregnant, flew slowly over me, then released a brown cloud, enveloping me in a plume of manta merde. Isn't that supposed to be good luck?

The Ha'a Piti site offered dives in both the lagoon and the lee of the ocean. The ocean site is supposed to be an ancient volcanic caldera, a shallow circular depression about 50 feet deep. As we circumnavigated the opening, our lights disturbed two whitetip reef sharks lying under a narrow overhang, and they swam frantically back and forth, trying to pass us to reach the open sea. Who said divers don't affect marine life?

Bora Bora is an island within a fringing atoll. Most resorts are on the long, narrow islets surrounding the main island. Back at the Intercontinental in time for lunch, we ate at the open-air Sands restaurant, enjoying the lagoon view. The cuisine included raw and cooked fresh seafood, burgers, pizza, salads, and tacos, all well prepared and all at New York prices, since, of course, everything is flown in from other nations. Pizzas in U.S. dollars were about $35, and after a morning of diving, would only satisfy one person. I liked the healthy poke bowls, available with either tuna or shrimp, for $28. Burgers with fries ran $37 to $48 for the loaded-bacon-cheese-infarction on a plate. The shrimp and tuna tacos were fine, but there were only two to a plate. The dinner menu added steaks and pastas. Except for the three wines produced on Rangiroa at $57 (let's face it, where else can you drink Tahitian wine?), the carte des vins ran from ridiculous to call-your-banker. Because hotels pay up to a 200% tax on alcohol to the government, a bottle of the 2019 Joel Gott Pinot Noir from America was a mere $98. If you wanted to sip a glass of the 1996 Chateau Latour with your grilled rib steak with four spice gravy, you'd be looking at $34. For the rest of us, the local Hinano beer was quite good at 10 bucks a bottle. The friendly bar staff politely and happily indulged me in teaching them how to make a Hemingway -- his special daiquiri -- even though it was already listed on the happy hour menu.

The décor in the Bubbles Bar was 2001: A Space Odyssey meets A Clockwork Orange. Fearful that I would either besmirch the white couches with some post-prandial accident or perhaps be unable to rise from the couch unassisted, I avoided it. So did everyone else. I never saw a single soul there, even during happy hour, when, despite the bar's name, champagne was not included in the list of discounted libations. Note to self -- even the champagne in Papeete Duty Free is cheaper. Next time, buy a couple of bottles and enjoy the staggeringly beautiful sunsets over Mount Otemanu from the villa.

The cave-like Reef restaurant is reserved for cultural night barbecues and breakfast. The petit-déjeuner had everything from fruit and cereals to sushi and eggs on order, and was included in the room price. We don't chow down before boarding a boat, so next time, after our second mortgage is approved, we'll ask for brekkie to be excluded.

Then there was Le Corail, where gentlemen (or me) are required to arrive in long trousers, a collared shirt, and enclosed shoes. Desirous of experiencing the "Experimental Cuisine," I tore through the closet but could come up with nothing more than faded jeans and Birkenstocks. I thought about dyeing my feet black, but then I read the menu and noted that the appetizers included "A Perfect Egg" with black garlic ice cream and caviar coming in at a cool fifty bucks. The prices all went up from there. If there had been a microwave in the villa, we'd have survived on popcorn and ramen.

All the spotlessly clean villas are overwater and reached via concrete walkways, the surface of which resembled a New Jersey highway after a particularly harsh winter. Every villa had a living room, a TV, WiFi, a couch on which to strew all your gear, and a glassed-in sea view window in the floor. The large bathroom had separate sinks, a separate shower with moldy grout, and a free-standing sparkling tub, which came in handy for washing our gear after the last dive, after which it was no longer sparkling. A patio with a lower swim deck led down to the water's edge. We were surprised at how few fish were in the lagoon, so we didn't snorkel. Not all villas had sunset views, but villas 119 to 121 sure got spectacular sunsets.

The mattress was firm. The HVAC system had two thermostats, which drove us a little crazy, waking us up one night freezing and the next night sweating. Maintenance quickly arrived and set everything to rights.

The boat on the last day sported two 250-horse outboards, and this thing kicked ass. The sky was perfectly clear, and we returned to Anau looking for the mantas, but only one showed up; the others perhaps embarrassed for wrapping me in a brown cloud. Passing several pods of bottlenose dolphins, we moored at Tapu Canyon, outside the lagoon, for the second dive. Some websites caution beginners about strong currents, but there were none that day. Although as deep as 130 feet, as our second dive, we didn't go below 65. Fish abounded in the crystal-clear water. I tried to slip into a perfect bait ball to surround myself with fish, and a hundred or more blue stripe snappers obliged. I passed red tooth triggers building nests, and teardrop and pinstripe butterflies munching on the coral. When I stopped to watch fire gobies pop in and out of their holes, a spotted boxfish came by to inspect. No sharks or rays appeared. My dive ended in the canyon, a funnel-shaped cut in the reef that began almost too narrow to navigate but widened 20 feet as I kicked past the egg-shaped boulders scattered on the bottom. It became our safety stop. As we rose to hand up our weights and BCs, the current returned, and I clung to a ladder, struggling to hand up my fins. Dive guide Shanka offered to help everyone, but I declined and made it up the longer of the two ladders. On the way back to the Intercon, we were treated to a trip around the island. Dazed by the green of the island and the blues of the water, we promised the guides we would be back.

After we got home, the first thing we talked about was returning. I'm investigating Airbnbs on the remote atolls, and maybe staying on the actual island of Bora Bora, rather than the mega-expensive resorts. Of course, having saved all that money, at the end we might spend a couple of nights in luxury.

-- DL

Our undercover diver's bio: DL got his Open Water certification in New York in 1987, having failed a resort course in Jamaica due to a misunderstanding about the local flora. He added C-cards in Advanced OW, Rescue, Oxygen Management, Advanced EANx, while traveling to Caribbean, Mexico, Egypt, Hawaii, PNG, Australia, Bikini, and Fiji. He has dived the 200 feet deep Windjammer wreck in Bonaire on air six times, earning him the nickname "Old Twitchy."

DIVER'S COMPASS: In September, a premium economy seat on United from Newark to Papeete ran about $3,715.00. After September, the cost just goes up . . . When we arrived in Papeete, we spent one night at the IHG/Hilton, which was seriously needed after flying in from Newark. Good food, great people, comfy beds, and a tame bird to sit on your head during check-in . . .We used the True Tahiti Vacation travel agency to book all our ground activities. A representative whisked us through immigration, helped us with the luggage, and took us to the hotel shuttle. When Air Tahiti changed our itinerary by scheduling our departure from Rangiroa an hour earlier, if we hadn't used True Tahiti, we would have missed the flight . . . We flew Premium Class inter-island, which got each of us an extra 50 pounds of checked baggage, an extra 11 pounds of carry-on, a special seating area in the unairconditioned airports, an escort to the plane, an amenities kit, and a snack box. Waiting areas for non-reserved seats are often described as cattle pens . . . Papeete has an eminently skippable downtown area for shopping . . . The president of True Tahiti is Laurel Lauderbeck. She lived in French Polynesia for 20 years and dives so that she can answer all your questions. https://www.truetahitivacation.com . . . If you dive multiple islands, you can benefit from the Te Moana Pass. It's valid on 11 islands in Polynesia at 16 partner centers, including: Bora Bora (Bora Diving Center) https://www.boradiving.com/en https://thalasso.intercontinental.com, Raiatea (Hemisphere Sub), Tahaa (Tahaa Diving), and Fakarava (O2 Fakarava, Kaina diving). You can share your dives with your partner or buddy . . . The per-tank rate is $850/10 dives. The posted rate at Bora Diving Center is $230 for a two-tank dive . . . Single tank afternoon dives require a minimum of four persons and are listed at $120. Night dives are $170 . . . The Lonely Planet's Tahiti & French Polynesia Diving Guide lists small resorts, bungalows, and pensions that are much less expensive than the big resorts.