One of the most beautiful islands in the world is almost too perfect, a poem composed of color, beauty and peace. : Bora Bora

Nothing can destroy the sunrises of Bora Bora or sunsets that turn evenings aflame, or rainbows that wash across the world’s loveliest lagoon.

Whatever else occurs, these blessings shall remain, as will the trade winds that bathe Bora Bora, and the rains that turn the island green, and the waves that pound the distant reef like claps of thunder.

In the minds of travelers the world over, Bora Bora remains their bali hai, an island almost too perfect to behold, a poem composed of color and beauty and peace.

James Michener described Bora Bora as the most beautiful island in the world, although that inveterate (and elusive) nomad of the South Seas, Henri Konrad, would argue in favor of Huahine. But never mind. It was Michener who brought Bora Bora to the attention of those who dream of the perfect South Seas island. Michener insisted that “everybody who has ever been there wants to go back.”

When Michener arrived, the flying boat from Papeete was met by vahines who paddled out by canoe. There were no motorboats on Bora Bora. Only the outriggers. Neither were there cars or motorbikes or telephones. Only a radiophone, and frequently it took hours to reach even Papeete.

Now, direct-dial telephones have been installed in the major hotels so that one can ring up Los Angeles or London as easily as one can phone for room service. During Michener’s earlier visit, islanders read by kerosene lantern. Today, TV aerials poke out of thatch roofs and locals gather before their sets for the next episode of “Dallas.”

Still, Bora Bora remains surprisingly peaceful, even with the rental cars and mopeds that rattle around the island. One can swim alone in the lagoon or be by oneself on a deserted beach. For vacationers who wish to divorce themselves from the world, Frenchman Claude Muraz and his wife, Annie, rent four thatch fares on a private isle in the lagoon.

For $100 a day, couples take up housekeeping in bungalows with kitchenettes, showers, a small living room and a loft for snoozing. And although room service isn’t provided, M. Muraz drops by every four days with fresh towels and linens. Also, each couple is given a motorboat to go grocery shopping across the lagoon in the village of Vaitape.

Muraz suffered burnout after spending several years in the boat-charter business in the Caribbean. On Motu Toopua he tends a lime and grapefruit plantation that surrounds his own fare . Only when it is necessary to shop in Vaitape does he leave his private island. It is his salvation, and the contentment is evident whenever he smiles. The world of noisy cities and high finance seems distant, particularly when the trades carry the fragrance of frangipani through the open door of M. Muraz’s fare .

Guests at Motu Toopua sometimes gas up their boats for trips to Vaitape and dinner at Mama Chou’s, which is run by an old Tahitian woman who serves chow mein and pepper steaks and curried shrimp on picnic tables covered with tapa cloth and hibiscus blooms. As one of the village’s reasonable restaurants, Mama Chou’s turns out fresh-caught mahi-mahi for only $7. Should it rain, she shoos her guests to picnic tables inside the restaurant.

Only a few minutes from Mama Chou’s, vacationers cast aside cares at two-bedroom bungalows strung along the lagoon and up the side of a mountain. Fares on the lagoon are pegged at $160 a day. The hillside bungalows at $130 a day accommodate a family of five and have kitchenettes and a stunning view of the lagoon.

Bora Bora Bungalows is a co-op, with three units owned by actor Marlon Brando. Another belonging to actor Jack Nicholson disappeared a couple of years ago during a hurricane.

Down the road, Yacht Club Bora Bora features the island’s only floating bungalows, which make for a rocky ride during a big blow. A better bet are the club’s garden cottages at 90 coconuts a day, this for two couples. Facing the lagoon is a bar straight from the pages of a Maugham novel, with loads of books and the sort of scruffy characters one expects to rub shoulders with on an island such as Bora Bora.

A similar crowd occupies the bar at the Hotel Oa Oa, which faces the motu of Claude Muraz. While a bit shopworn, the Oa Oa provides island atmosphere with good grog, fresh seafood and the echo of waves colliding with the reef. Of an evening, kerosene lamps glow while the moon spreads a silvery path across the lagoon.

The major domo, Greg Claytor, is a bearded, cigar-chomping 40-year-old ex-Angeleno who spotted an ad for the Oa Oa eight years ago in the Wall Street Journal. With a hankering for the South Seas, he recalled his father’s advice: “There’s absolutely no benefit in being a member of the ‘if only I had’ club,” and so took the plunge.

“When I’m 70, I won’t have to say, ‘Why didn’t I?’ ” Claytor said, studying the lagoon. He shrugged. “What it comes down to is how much money means to you, how much security means.”

Nonetheless, Claytor is becoming restless. His wife left recently, and the Oa Oa is up for sale. Where next? Claytor flicked the ashes from his cigar. “No idea. Someplace where it’s warm and there are islands, I suppose.”

Earlier, it occurred to him that he might go home again, but Claytor learned that this is the impossible dream. “The crime, the crowds, the dirty air. . . . “

And so, when the Oa Oa sells, he’ll be moving on. Perhaps farther into the South Seas, remembering the words of his father: “If only I had. . . . “

Years ago the serenity of Bora Bora seemed threatened by the arrival of an Italian film company that had chosen the island for a remake of the old flick, “Hurricane.”

The soccer field was turned into a set complete with thatch huts, and the producer took over the billiards hall and used the movie theater for storage space. Old hands feared the film makers would create unrest. More than 150 locals were hired as extras and laborers. Other Polynesians rehearsed for dance scenes. Some rented their homes to the movie troupe. By Bora Bora standards they were earning big money, and so the islanders began buying mopeds and motorcycles.

Elders fielded the nagging question: Would success spoil Bora Bora? Well, they needn’t have fretted. After the sets were struck and the film makers took their leave, everyone resumed their old life styles. Just as they had when 8,000 U.S. servicemen departed after World War II.

When the soldiers and later the actors were gone, the islanders returned to their old pastimes--fishing and gathering coconuts, breadfruit and papayas.

Despite all the attention paid to Bora Bora, the island remains relatively peaceful. More mopeds sputter along the single road that circles the island, but there’s not a single stoplight and only a few cars.

Islanders still paddle out to uninhabited motus just to watch the moon glow on one of those magic South Seas nights. They pay no income taxes or property taxes, and no one worries about the world beyond the reef.

In the village of Vaitape, shoppers invade Chin Lee’s grocery to buy loaves of French bread and cans of escargot and bottles of the local beer, Hinano. Besides groceries and grog, Chin Lee stocks car accessories, bicycle tires, kerosene lanterns, shaving cream, nuts, bolts, skirts and shirts.

In 30 years Vaitape has changed little. There’s a fast-food joint near Mama Chou’s and a new airline ticket office does business near the wharf. But if you blink, you may never see Vaitape--and it’s the biggest town on the island.

In the beginning there was only one hotel on Bora Bora, a flimsy six-room shack that a good gust would have blown into oblivion. Then a developer built Hotel Bora Bora. With its thatch cottages and over-water bungalows, it remains the most talked-about hotel in French Polynesia--with a view that’s simply startling, especially at sunset when islets in the lagoon are silhouetted against a flaming horizon. By day, guests snorkel, explore the lagoon by outrigger canoe or circle the island by bicycle.

The producer of “Hurricane” built a hotel for his cast, the Marara, and although the movie was a flop, the hotel is a huge success.

Guests of the Marara are delivered to the reef on shark-feeding expeditions, a pastime that’s spread to other major hotels, including the splendid new Bora Bora Moana Beach Hotel, where breakfast is delivered by outrigger canoe to over-water bungalows with master bedrooms, bathrooms with hair dryers, rattan furnishing and glass coffee tables through which guests peer at fish in the lagoon.

Vanilla vines crawl across the ceiling and sliding glass doors lead onto sun decks. To spark the dream, flower petals are scattered through the bungalows each day, making the Moana Beach the No. 1 honeymoon hideaway in French Polynesia.

Other than these glitzy hotels, Bora Bora hasn’t changed all that much. Chickens run free. Dogs still snooze by the road. Hibiscus, frangipani and other blooms grow wild, and always the distant thunder of waves raking against the reef stirs the soul.

Seeking Solitude

Since Gauguin, men and women have sought solitude in Tahiti, Bora Bora and the other islands of French Polynesia. Not all find it. Contentment must come from within, for this is merely the staging area, the setting where it may be nourished, if indeed it exists at all.

Locals, along with vacationers, gather at Bloody Marys, a restaurant-bar poking out of the palms near the Hotel Bora Bora. Bloody Marys is the sort of place where you expect to run into some runaway husband or perhaps Marlon Brando or Racquel Welch. The fact is, the actors’ names appear with those of other celebrities who have tramped across the sandy floor to tables with tree stumps for chairs.

Lanterns cast shadows across the thatch roof while Leo Wooten, a 41-year-old commercial fisherman and Richard Boone look-alike, swigs vodka while perched atop his private stool. Bloody Marys is his hangout, his unofficial office while he waits for the next drop-in customer to charter his boat, and he even has his nameplate screwed into the bar.

This evening he’s exchanging small talk with Baron George Von Dangel, a handsome Polish nobleman with a bald head and a cleft in his chin and who, by his own account, spent time in a Nazi concentration camp, was the mascot of the U.S. 5th Army in Germany, flew fighters with the Australian Air Force, attended medical school and piloted commercial airliners between Australia and North America.

A Romantic Memory

It was during his flying career and a rest stop in Tahiti, the baron recalls, that he met Thanjan Lao, “the most beautiful woman ever born.”

He spoke her name with unabashed melancholy. “She had raven-colored hair, a smile like an angel.”

Unfortunately, duty called, and the baron flew away to Acapulco. It wasn’t until several years later that he bumped into Thanjan Lao again in Papeete.

“I ran up to her and cried, ‘I’m George, the crazy pilot who wanted to marry you.’ ”

That very evening, over a dish of egg fu yong, he proposed. The baron sighed, recalling the episode. “She accepted.”

Alas, the romance did not work out. “It’s why I came to Bora Bora--to mend a broken heart.”

After playing a role in “Hurricane” the baron opened Bloody Marys. The restaurant was an instant success. Vacationers and celebrities flocked to his door. Except that the baron was a lousy businessman and he wound up losing Bloody Marys. Now he’s doing PR for the Moana Beach Hotel.

His Watering Hole

Still, Bloody Marys is his watering hole. He goes there frequently to visit with Wooten and with Alec Bougerie, an ex-Pennsylvanian who arrived in Bora Bora years ago via Hawaii, married an actress and later a singer. Now, in his twilight years, Bougerie is considering moving on to Maupiti, a small island on the horizon, the smallest and most isolated of the Leewards.

“We must all seek our place in the sun,” said the baron, with a touch of melodrama.

Wooten, the fisherman, ordered another vodka while Bougerie strayed off into the night and the baron shooed a cat out the door.

It was closing time at Bloody Marys.

Accommodations:

--Claude Muraz’s Fare Toopua, B.P. 87, Vaitape, Bora Bora, French Polynesia. Rate: $100 a day, single or double occupancy, with a private motorboat.

--Bora Bora Bungalows, P.O. Box 48679, Los Angeles, 90048. Rates $130/$160. (Monthly rates on request.) Phone (213) 652-6420.

--Yacht Club Bora Bora, Vaitape, Bora Bora, French Polynesia. Rates: $90/$200 (up to four persons per bungalow).

--Hotel Oa Oa, P.O. Box 10, Vaitape, Bora Bora, French Polynesia. Rates: $85/$125. Phone (213) 256-1991 or (800) 621-1633 in California; (800) 521-7242 outside California.

--Hotel Bora Bora, Vaitape, Bora Bora, French Polynesia. Rates: $240/$420. Phone (800) 262-4220 in California; (800) 421-1490 outside California.

--Hotel Sofitel Marara, Vaitape, Bora Bora, French Polynesia. Rates: $247/$420. Phone (800) 221-4542.

--Hotel Moana Beach, Vaitape, Bora Bora, French Polynesia. Rates: $285/$395. Phone (415) 331-2672 or (800) 346-6262.

Note: 7% tax is added to all hotel bills.