Bora Bora: A Romantic Island for a Party of Two

As author Gertrude Stein might have put it, Bora Bora is romantic is romantic--the epitome, the essence of escapist togetherness. As James Michener did put it, Bora Bora is the island you always want to come back to.

My husband and I first came to Tahiti and Bora Bora to escape our three teen-agers and, of course, to rediscover romance. But because the aforementioned trio were going to the orthodontist every week and wearing out three pairs of tennis shoes a month, we came here the first time, by necessity, on the cheap.

True to Michener, we had always wanted to come back, and do it with a certain amount of style. Not necessarily to wallow in opulence, but certainly not feel guilty because a day’s stay cost as much as our daughter’s flute lessons for six months.

I wanted to stay at the world-famous Hotel Bora Bora in an over-water bungalow, watching extravagant sunsets from our private balcony, and order fine French cuisine without comparing it to the price of homemade meat loaf.

After 15 years, I finally made it back.

Few Forgotten Things

But before I go any further, much as I hate to nit-pick, I must tell you about a few things I forgot to bring that would have made the return trip total perfection: canvas sneakers for walking on the reef; a small backpack, handy for bike and scooter rides; insect repellent.

And my husband.

I don’t want to go into details; it’s too complicated and embarrassing. It’s enough to say that he didn’t join me (I had left earlier on business) because I made a colossal faux pas with his passport.

So there I was, alone, on romantic Bora Bora where everyone is half of a couple, each one just oozing with romance. Honeymooners, second honeymooners, lovers of all ages rekindling the magic.

They snuggle together while lying on the soft white sand. They hold hands walking slowly along the beach. They giggle over private jokes on sunset cruises. They take picnic baskets and go off to secluded motus (little islands). They gaze into one another’s eyes and exchange secret knowing smiles over candlelit dinners.

I’m not being paranoid, but I don’t think any one of the amorous couples wanted my company.

Sure, singles come here (Club Med, for example), but they just didn’t happen to be at the Hotel Bora Bora when I was. The only mateless people I saw were three young single men with their parents. They ogled the tanned lovelies on the beach (who had their own handsome companions) and looked even gloomier than I.

Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t hankering for hanky-panky, just some platonic company other than “Bess W. Truman,” Margaret’s biography of her mother. Bess was a wonderful lady, but a homebody--not a Bora Bora companion at all.

I had some adjusting to do if I wanted to be happy in paradise as a lonesome. First I had to stop wallowing in self-pity; then quit worrying that my husband might have started divorce proceedings.

Mostly it worked out OK, but sometimes I got lonely. Whacking a tennis ball on the hotel court’s backboard isn’t really a fun afternoon.

Your Point of View

Has success spoiled Bora Bora? Has progress during the past 15 years brought more negative than positive changes to this secluded island of awe? It depends on your point of view. The most important thing hasn’t changed: The incomparable beauty described by Gauguin and Maugham and Stevenson and Michener remains untouched.

Emerald volcanic peaks soar above a vivid blue and green lagoon crowded with brilliant multicolored fish. Orchids, gardenias, hibiscus and frangipani still grow wild. Tahitian fishermen still paddle outrigger canoes into melodramatically red sunsets.

The bicycle and motor scooter remain the best way to get around, and getting around is considerably more comfortable than 15 years ago. The 17-mile road around the island, once the world’s longest pothole designed for fast land crabs and slow pigs, is paved.

Even the rental vehicles have improved. Bora Bora Auto Rent provides sporty red Peugeot motor scooters with automatic shifts and thick, cushioned seats. Fifteen years ago our pained posteriors bumped along on motorized bikes with seats about as comfortable as the benches at Hollywood Bowl.

On that trip the front tire of one of our bikes expired with a defeated sigh halfway around the island. It took us half the day to be rescued by a 14-year-old Polynesian girl, the rental company’s chief mechanic and master giggler. Our suggestion that perhaps we deserved a slight refund for lost time was met with gales of giggles.

This time, once I remembered to use the hand brakes and stopped dragging my feet to stop the scooter, I got along just fine. But you still have to keep an eye out for land crabs, fallen coconuts and chickens (alive and dead) in the road.

Vaitape, the island’s ramshackle principal village, still doesn’t have a stop sign. Chin Lee’s grocery store remains the largest building and the Protestant church’s steeple is still the highest structure in town. The small blue stucco Catholic church doesn’t have a steeple yet; the church bell dangles from a tree branch in the front yard.

The people are still friendly and cheerful, with that “who cares” attitude, and Sunday on Bora Bora is still their day of rest and recreation, taken up by church, sports, singing and dancing.

Movie Theater Closed

Modern improvements mean that electricity and the telephone have replaced kerosene lamps and the radiophone, and most Tahitians have color TVs and VCRs now. When the Video Club Bora Bora, a one-room plywood shack with a thatched roof, started renting out cassette movies, everyone stopped going to the island’s one movie theater and it closed.

But don’t expect your hotel to be a high-rise with room service, air conditioning, TV and telephones. Most have comfortable Polynesian-style thatched roof bungalows with ceiling fans. And quiet seclusion.

The Hotel Bora Bora has put in a desalinization system, so I didn’t have to dump buckets of lagoon water into the toilet tank to flush when the water table went bare.

I didn’t miss the raucous South Pacific rooster sounding reveille at 4 a.m. Instead, I was lulled to sleep by the brown boobies in the palm trees; it was like bedding down in a nocturnal aviary.

Every morning a hotel staffer with a bucket of water and a stiff brush was down on his hands and knees on the walkways, scrubbing up what gravity brings down from overhead birds. Now, that’s class.

A few new hotels are scattered about, but still none is higher than the tallest palm tree. In 1977 film maker Dino de Laurentiis built a hotel especially for his cast and crew while filming his remake of the movie “Hurricane” here. Sofitel of France now operates it as The Marara.

Truncated Condominiums

A developer started a 50-unit condominium complex on the north side of the island in the late ‘70s. Nineteen were completed when three were destroyed by a cyclone in 1983. They haven’t added on since. No one seems to care.

Bloody Mary’s, a Tahitian restaurant-bar with the reputation of serving some of the best seafood in the South Pacific, opened in 1978. It’s on the road between the Hotel Bora Bora and Vaitape, with a view of Bora Bora’s twin mountains, Pahia and Otemanu, dominating the horizon.

Co-owner Craig Goold tells all about the fish that are attractively displayed on ice in pandanus leaves--what they are, where they are caught, what they taste like and how they can be cooked.

After you’ve made your choice between snapper, parrotfish, tuna, trevally, spiny lobster, wahoo and a dozen or so more, chef Tony grills, fries or barbecues it for you over smoldering lava rocks. You can have either a garlic cream sauce or green peppercorn sauce. I smothered a delicate parrotfish filet under garlic. Who would care about garlic breath?

The decor can best be described as tropical--hanging palm fronds and coconuts, tree-trunk stools (no cushions) and a sand floor. The waitresses wear pareus and thongs. The mood is casual, more lively and boisterous than romantic, but not the place for a sedate single. The three young unattached men were there with their parents, still flirting--this time with the hostess until they discovered that she was Goold’s wife.

Later, on le truck back to the hotel, I overheard one couple telling another about their motor scooter ride around the island that morning. Seems that their Peugeot had fizzled to a stop with a flat tire and they had sat by the side of the road for more than two hours before someone came to pick them up. But, they got a 30-minute credit on their rental time.

Now, that’s progress.

For further information, contact the Tahiti Tourist Promotion Board, 12233 W. Olympic Blvd., Suite 110, Los Angeles 90064, phone (213) 207-1919.