Well, the evening of the 2nd day was much more upbeat with the team. They went around the circle and everyone spoke. They even gave me a chance to say something -which was unexpected. I was really just there to observe. But I told them, "Je pense que Air Tahiti est incroyable!" They got a kick out of that. To me -these guys were world champions in this sport. Toward the end, they asked me to pray for the team. Later I found out that one of the team members had referred to me as "Father" when he found out I'm a pastor. Also, Yves told me that they were actually a little surprised at how well they did -and they gave glory to God for that. They said they were glad to have Yves and myself with them. :)
That night back at the vacation home -with Pero and Anna was incredibly tranquil. We sat by the bay and looked across the water and gazed at the stars -which you can see so clearly here. Pero mentioned that the actors from Hollywood had actually been staying close by because Bora Bora gets crowded. They were probably attached to the two huge yachts we'd passed in our little boat. In fact, Pero said that he prefers Tahaa to Bora Bora because there are hardly any people in Tahaa. We woke up at sunrise to the sound of roosters. There are a lot of them here! Yves said they were praising God with their song. Indeed. I imagined -instead of "cock-a-doodle-doo", they were saying, "Merci Seigneur!" (Thank You, Lord!)
We got to the boat and back around to the team. Then the final race was on -and I felt certain that it must be the most difficult. We were back to around a 5 hour journey going from Tahaa to Bora Bora. This time the pirogues seemed to get much more spread out. At times I even wondered if we were still on course. But you could look ahead and see boats with big yellow flags helping to keep us on track. The closer we got to Bora Bora, the more amazed I was all over again to be here. I wish I could post pictures with this -but I won't be able to until I get back to my own computer.
Bora Bora has some of the bluest, clearest, beautiful water I've ever seen. It was like looking at Never Never Land with the island and the aqua water. We cheered the guys on. You could tell they were getting tired and a few boats passed them. toward the end. Mario yelled out that there was only 2 minutes to go and the guys really poured on speed. Actually there was more like 15. :) They ended up coming in 21st place that day. When they pulled in they were greeted by cheering fans. We all jumped into the water to congratulate them. They were all smiles and we celebrated with some watermelon. There were hundreds of smiling people just celebrating in this beautiful place. It was an awesome way to end the competition. Overall in 3 days of racing, they came in 19th place in the most intense competition in this sport. I thought they were "incroyable".
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