Bora Bora: the Pacific's most photographed lagoon

Remnant of a sunken volcano surrounded by an nearly perfect coral barrier reef, Bora Bora has become synonymous internationally with tropical luxury thanks to overwater bungalows invented right on this lagoon in the 1960s.

Boats remain the primary means of transportation between motu and lagoon.

The day begins on the lagoon by boat, with Mount Otemanu serving as backdrop: a volcanic cone over seven hundred meters high visible from practically every point on the atoll.

Passing in front of the resorts on the motu, you recognize the descendants of the first overwater bungalows in history, built in 1967 by three Americans in love with Polynesia and today replicated throughout the tropical world.

In the shallow and transparent waters of the coral reef, almost uninterrupted around the lagoon, rays and small sharks swim just meters from the shore, making snorkeling safe even for first-timers.

The day closes at Matira, the only easily accessible public beach on the island for those not staying at a private resort on the motu, ideal for sunset.

Many Bora Bora resorts are only accessible by private boat from the airport: those arriving without an organized reservation risk remaining literally stranded, almost in the literal sense, on the wrong dock.

On boat tours that stop among the lagoon's sandbanks, you swim side by side with rays that have been accustomed to visitors for years, in waters that rarely exceed one meter deep.