We were tendered ashore in the lifeboats.
Five sea days from Hawai’i to here in French Polynesia. It is a stratovolcano like we have in the PNW only much steeper. The gentlest rise is 45 degrees and vertical bluffs abound. Besides the main crater there is a secondary vent, fumeroles, and a sill that’s over a mile long. Reefs and beaches.
Birds? It is to laugh. Except for the vertical surfaces, every inch is thick with trees. Birds hide in the dense foliage whether they intend to or not. And there are stromatolites out in the atoll here! Real stromatolites! A billion years ago stromatolites were all the rage. In fact they were about the only life forms around. Lots of fossils, but very few places where they still live. Bora Bora is one of those places.