Matira Beach

Matira occupies the southern tip of Bora Bora, the point where the main island narrows to a low sandy spit inside the lagoon. Almost every other beach on the island belongs to a hotel; Matira does not, which makes it the beach ordinary visitors and residents actually use.

It is known as the accessible face of a place otherwise organised around overwater bungalows. Bora Bora's reputation was built in the 1960s and consolidated by resorts on the motu — the outer islets — that most people never leave. Matira is the counterweight: a public beach on the main island, a short drive from Vaitape, where the lagoon can be swum without a reservation.

The shore is fine white coral sand curving around the point, with water that stays at knee to waist height for a very long way out. The lagoon floor here is sand rather than coral, so the wading is easy and the snorkelling modest; the good coral is further out toward the reef. Mount Otemanu rises behind, and the view back at it from the water is the reason people stay until dark. The point itself is worth walking around: the sand continues past the last hotel to the tip, where the lagoon meets the pass and the water finally deepens. That corner is the one place on the beach where the current is noticeable, and it is where the local boats put in.

Development is light. A handful of hotels sit along the road behind, with snack trucks and small shops nearby, and the beach itself has no concession, no sunbeds and no fee. The sand is public along its length and the sunset draws a mixed crowd of visitors and locals.

The only substantial public beach on Bora Bora, and free, which matters on an island where almost everything else is a resort's frontage or a private motu. Shallow, warm and calm the whole way out, with Otemanu behind you rather than in front. The lagoon tours leave from the other side.