Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Well, it's all over. But my god, it was fantastic!
Back from French Polynesia where I experienced some of the most breathtaking diving ever.
We started in Papeete, Tahiti. We only had a day there, so time for one dive in the afternoon.
As we moored the boat at the line, a pod of spinner dolphins came by and one treated us to a trademark acrobatic spinning leap from the water.
Under the surface, visibility was good (around 35m) and the highlight was three spotted eagle rays that swam gracefully by the drop-off.
Next day we made the short ferry journey across to Moorea.
We dived with TopDive and I have to say, they were the most professional outfit I have dived with. If there was one criticism, it is that they didn't explain to us they used steel tanks. None of us had dived with them before, and all did the first dive chronically over-weighted.
The highlight in Moorea is the shark feeding. At the beginning of the dive we saw literally dozens of black-tip reef sharks. The dive master, wearing chain mail glove, takes down a tuna head or tail and tempts in the larger, two metre lemon sharks. Most of the time the DM was obscured by a cloud of fish. Despite this being a daly occurence, the sharks are wary and have three or four swim-by's before taking the bait.
This friendly Moray got petted every day...
From Moorea we flew to Rangiroa and the scenery changed. Intead of the rugged tree lined mountains, we were on an atoll -on one side the ocean, and on the other a lagoon.
These were linked by Tiputa Pass. We didn't realise it a first, but weather and tides had been somewhat unusual and the drift dive through the pass was impossible for the first few days due to strong currents. Maybe we didn't appreciate either, that these strong currents were a magnet for some of Rangiroa's bigger inhabitants.
We came up from the first few dives whooping with laughter. 50 Grey Reef shark, 10 Manta Rays, 10 Turtles, 5 Napolean Wrasse and the odd dolphin!
I was using the video on most dives, so not many photos. I will try to grab some stills from the best of the video on a later post.
Finally, on our last night we invited Eric the dive master down to the bar for a beer.
Now, I'm an Essex boy, and here we are in one of the most remote, exotic places in the world.
So what does Eric turn up wearing?...
Back from French Polynesia where I experienced some of the most breathtaking diving ever.
We started in Papeete, Tahiti. We only had a day there, so time for one dive in the afternoon.
As we moored the boat at the line, a pod of spinner dolphins came by and one treated us to a trademark acrobatic spinning leap from the water.
Under the surface, visibility was good (around 35m) and the highlight was three spotted eagle rays that swam gracefully by the drop-off.
Next day we made the short ferry journey across to Moorea.
We dived with TopDive and I have to say, they were the most professional outfit I have dived with. If there was one criticism, it is that they didn't explain to us they used steel tanks. None of us had dived with them before, and all did the first dive chronically over-weighted.
The highlight in Moorea is the shark feeding. At the beginning of the dive we saw literally dozens of black-tip reef sharks. The dive master, wearing chain mail glove, takes down a tuna head or tail and tempts in the larger, two metre lemon sharks. Most of the time the DM was obscured by a cloud of fish. Despite this being a daly occurence, the sharks are wary and have three or four swim-by's before taking the bait.
This friendly Moray got petted every day...
From Moorea we flew to Rangiroa and the scenery changed. Intead of the rugged tree lined mountains, we were on an atoll -on one side the ocean, and on the other a lagoon.
These were linked by Tiputa Pass. We didn't realise it a first, but weather and tides had been somewhat unusual and the drift dive through the pass was impossible for the first few days due to strong currents. Maybe we didn't appreciate either, that these strong currents were a magnet for some of Rangiroa's bigger inhabitants.
We came up from the first few dives whooping with laughter. 50 Grey Reef shark, 10 Manta Rays, 10 Turtles, 5 Napolean Wrasse and the odd dolphin!
I was using the video on most dives, so not many photos. I will try to grab some stills from the best of the video on a later post.
Finally, on our last night we invited Eric the dive master down to the bar for a beer.
Now, I'm an Essex boy, and here we are in one of the most remote, exotic places in the world.
So what does Eric turn up wearing?...
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