Last week I moved anchorages on Moorea from Cooks Bay to the outside of Opunohu Bay near the coral and then later to the head of the bay. I really loved Moorea.
In the area I was anchored, there had been coral damage from a cyclone many years ago. Swimming around that area was really nice, but there weren't very many fish. One of the locals had created and sunk a number of tiki's in the anchorage area, which was cool. They ranged in size and were all variety of shape.
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| A Tiki! |
One of the big attractions of this area is that you can dinghy over to an area where tourist boat operators have been feeding the sting ray's and sharks for years - they now come to the area when boats arrive and you can mingle with them. Its a shallow sand shelf, 3 to 5 feet deep, and you can literally walk around and watch the sharks and sting ray's swim by you. I'll spend more time on this in a future blog post.
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| Shark! |
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| Sting Ray! |
I left Moorea for Bora Bora at 9am on June 20th where I arrived the next morning. I'm currently on a mooring off of the Mai Kai Marina. They have pretty decent wifi here in the harbor and I've been geeking out a little, spending quite a lot of time online catching up with what is happening in the rest of the world. I was finally able to watch some of the Apple WWDC video's, just to prove my geek credentials. I'm in Bora Bora watching video's of a new programming language (Swift! Looks awesome!) and other software development stuff. Its been nice to catch up a little.
I'll check out of French Polynesia on June 30th and then head further west. I think I have a plan for where I'll go now - although I've been changing my mind quite a lot over my route so won't mention it until I give it a few more days to mellow.
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| Leaving Moorea |
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| Sailing in pretty calm seas and good wind |
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| Bora Bora! |
Craig, I hate you sometimes! Did you take the picture of this shark? And the ray? They're so damn clear (especially the shark). I spent thousands of $$ on a Galapagos cruise and none of my underwater pictures are this sharp. Damnit. :(
ReplyDeleteMy other sailing friend, Chris, is in Fiji/Tonga this summer and has sent out a general invite again this year. But trying to meet a sailing boat halfway across the world would cost a fortune in airfare (as it would have to be last minute). Your pictures are making me weep. But still glad that you're enjoying yourself. I can console myself with the fact that the sun sets at 9 PM here right now. :)
I don't really have a secret technique for the underwater pics. The camera is a Nikon Coolpix AW110 and is submersible to 59ft, much deeper than I snorkel. With that camera my technique is: go somewhere absolutely beautiful; take a _lot_ of pictures; hope a few of them turn out ok. I'm pretty happy with the camera. It also accepts a circular polarizing filter for above water shots.
DeleteAmazing colour. Is it really that turquoise? And the Tikis underwater seem friendly. Are the sharks and sting-rays the same?
ReplyDeleteMum
The color, is if anything, more vibrant than what you see in these pictures. Its breathtaking. The sharks and stingrays are totally friendly. I have just posed another article solely about that experience, along with a short video I created. The video doesn't do the experience justice - being there was orders of magnitude more awesome than what you see in the video. So cool.
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