French Polynesia, October 2010

Snorkeling with humpback whales, face time with feeding blacktip reef sharks, eye-contact with play-fighting adolescent bottle-nose dolphins, diving with more than hundred gray reef sharks, swimming with napoleon, ... plenty of fascinating encounters indeed!


travel blog

French Polynesia - info sheet

Visum	For Europeans a valid passport is enough, but when transiting through the USA a to be paid and approved ESTA application is also required.
Time	French Polynesian time = CEST — 12h
Weather	Air temperature: around 25-30°C, with occasional rain showers. Water temperature: 26°C.
Currency	1 Euro = 119 XPF
Language	French & English are spoken by most.

Teatime with a nurse & some hungry boys

→ Among Sharks, clip #5: Nurse & Blacktip Reef Sharks

Back to the future

Our time travel journey started yesterday at 5am with a 15' transfer by van to Papeete's air-port, for the first jump of our voyage, arriving in Los Angeles 3h into the future, after having hung 7h30 in the sky.

After a short Starbucks break, we boarded another, less comfortable but more efficient time machine, fast-forwarding us to Paris 9-1h* into the future in only 9h30. (* Losing one hour due to a seasonal irregularity, i.e. summer time returning to winter time overnight.)

From Paris to Munich time remained un-stretched, meaning we flew one hour and arrived exactly one hour later too. In time for our 2h earth-bound shuttle to Sonthofen.

Simply said, it took us 30h to get back home from the other side of our blue planet. With all our luggage. And some jet-lag.

Fakarava - Tahiti

Shortly after breakfast we're brought back to the atoll's populated north by boat (1h40) and pickup (25'), where after check-in at the airfield we're treated by our host to a plate of spaghetti so as not to travel with an empty stomach on the short (1h) flight to Tahiti.

Pink sand motu

Napoleon

Burning ear

Worrisome. As soon as we submerged my right ear started acting up: a slight discomfort and constant crackling noises at first, a painful burning sensation later on. So much so I had to abort the dive after having endured it for 44', my ear by then claiming my full attention.

Frustrating. Now that we at last enjoy warm sunny weather, with a beautiful reef full of sharks at our doorstep and curious napoleons begging to be photographed, I can't put my head below the waves.

Gray parade

The incoming tide today graced us with great viz and a stream of at least a hundred grays flowing by supremely.

The passage

Tetamanu's tidal passage is a less demanding and thus more enjoyable dive than Rangiroa's high-flow Tiputa. Not only that, the local gray reef sharks can be observed here within recreational depth limits, that is, between 20-30m. Special encounters are less probable though.

Besides the resident grays (carcharhinus amblyrhynchos) and the occasional blacktip (carcharhinus limbatus, not to be confused with the more common carcharhinus melanopterus, a.k.a. blacktip reef shark), the healthy reef's alive with smaller & bigger fish, most noteworthy of these being several napoleons, which, like sharks, have alas become a rather rare sight these days in asian waters a.o.

Rangiroa - Fakarava

Short 1h30 flight from Rangiroa to Fakarava*, via Manihi, followed by a 25' pickup ride and 1h30 speed-boat transfer to Tetamanu Village, a basic but friendly resort located on Fakarava's south end, right beside the Tumakohua passage, French Polynesia's #1 dive spot.

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We're warmly welcomed by Annabelle, Tetamanu's charming hostess. The two french guides though seem a lot less enthusiastic. Both are here temporarily. Not surprising I guess given the rather isolated nature of the resort and the fact that there's only one great dive site.

Polynesian black pearls

Today we visited Gauguin’s Pearl Farm, where we got shown around the sweat shop and informed about the pearl cultivation process.

Silver banquet

Got my mask knocked or kicked off upon back-roll entry. Luckily another diver saw it sink and caught it before it disappeared into perdition. Not quite the close contact with wild-life I had in mind coming here.

After several no show dives, our guide once again took two frozen tunas down with him to attract some action, desperate to offer us some entertainment. This time on Avatoru's reef edge, under slightly better controlled circumstances.


Guest list: one large & one medium silvertip, besides a couple of smaller ones for good measure and some gray reef sharks.

Forbidden attraction

Forbidden shark feeding dive off the coast so as not to upset the local fishermen? The sharks weren't hungry though, with just one silvertip and less than a dozen gray reef sharks joining our party after hanging around in the blue for almost half an hour.

I'm no expert, but hanging down some boxed bait from a bobbing boat while having a dozen uncontrolled divers hovering all over the place waiting for some feeding action, just doesn't feel safe right to me.

Eye-contact!

This morning we've been split up in two teams. A deep six team and a shallow four team. I'm in the latter by choice. No way I'm diving to 50m on a single tank of air with unplanned decompression and possibly strong currents, just to get a bit closer to the gray sharks congregating down there. Not to mention with a bunch of unknown, probably unqualified, and thus for me unreliable divers.

Soon after submerging, we're passed by a tight pod of seven bottle-nose dolphins and get approached by the resident school of large barracudas. Still wowed by these wonderful sightings, Yann suddenly points upwards. At the surface, two dolphins are taking a deep breath before plunging 25m straight down towards us. WOW! They appear to be two adolescent males undecided about play-figthing together or taking a look at us mesmerized tourists. So they show off both to each other and us, swimming real close to me several times. Once even close & slow enough for a brief eye-contact!

Afternoon slack-tide dive without anything worth mentioning. That's just the way it is with action diving. Either it happens or it doesn't.

Easy diving

Two nice & easy dives today, one at Avatoru and one on Tiputa's outer corner reef.

Avatoru sightings: handful of relatively small silver tips plus a larger one, schooling juvenile barracudas and big eyed jacks and a dozen or so of very serious looking african pompanoes.

Tiputa sightings: seven gray reef sharks coming up from the blue hoping to get fed, two chasing tunas trying to catch a meal, a lone napoleon and some heard but unseen dolphins.

Shock treatment

We're ten divers plus two french guides and a polynesian boatsman on a big zodiac from The Six Passengers. It's overcast and the sea's kind of rough for our first dive at Rangiroa's famous Tiputa passage. Not what I'd call ideal conditions nor site for a check dive...

We're all supposed to jointly roll-back into the ocean at 1-2-3-GO! Standard procedure, but with empty BCDs to be able to submerge immediately upon entry. As I roll-back on GO! I can see the diver on my left still sitting on the boat. Splash! I'm about to pop back to the surface, surrounded & buoyed by bubbles, when I suddenly get knocked on the head by a tank. Shocked, I need a moment to recover my dislodged mask and my bearings as waves keep rolling over my face. Except for Petra, everybody has immediately submerged, including my hit-and-run man, and is already carelessly playing with a couple of dolphins down below. Luckily only the side of the tank made contact and chafed my hooded head, and I'm able to dive and enjoy some nice sightings too, e.g. a school of big barracudas, five mantas in a row flying by beneath us and a carpet of gray reef sharks down below around 50m. The dive's end though is again rather stressy, as we get sucked through the passage by the incoming tide.

The late afternoon sunset dive is a much more relaxing and uneventful happening, on top of a very nice reef with plenty of life, several schools of juvenile barracudas, two eagle rays flying by and various relatively close encounters with bottle-nose dolphins :o)

Moorea - Rangiroa

Early pick-up at 4:50am in front of Linareva for the 40' bus ride to Moorea's airfield and short 10' hop to Tahiti's airport, in time for our connecting 1h flight to Rangiroa and short ride to the Maitai, a modern impersonal 39 bungalows resort. Room to room a 5h transfer.

The Maitai's restaurant serves good but expensive food (1500-3000 CFP/meal). Across the street are a small store, selling baguettes, cheese, tomatoes, chips & water (110 CFP/1.5l bottle) a.o. and a small restaurant, serving pizzas (1250 CFP), meat & fish dishes.

Dive briefing by Yann at 14:30 for Tauchertraum's group of ten divers.

Sightseeing tour

Half a day island sightseeing tour (4000 CFP/pers) in a 4x4 pickup-jeep together with a couple of americans and two mexicans.

First stop: a small business cooking up various strange tasting jams from exotic fruits. More interesting and informative though is their experimental vanilla plantation. Note that most of French Polynesia's vanilla normally comes from Tahaa, Raiatea or Huahine.


Next: quick photo shoot at the Belvedere, for a panoramic view of Moorea's imposing land- & seascape. Followed by a look at some jungle overgrown ruins. There being no written language, except for body tattoos, there's not much known about the past of the people here. Last stop: fruit juice and liquor tasting in a tourist shop.

Catering

As already mentioned in a previous post, we get a generous breakfast served on our terrace each morning at 7:00 (or later if you so wish).

For lunch we do with bread, cheese, sausage, tomatoes & cucumber.

Most evenings, we enjoy a tasty (*) dinner at Linareva (2000 CFP), ordered upon request from an excellent catering service by our hosts.

Alternatively, there's a small but good open-air pizzeria two minutes by foot from the resort, where Daniel quickly prepares ones choice of pizza (1300-1500 CFP) in a matter of minutes. It's also possible to get picked up for free by several restaurants further up or down the coast, but we haven't felt like trying any of those out yet.

For those in a cooking mood, each bungalow has its own kitchenette. There are two mini-markets about 5-10' by bike up & down the road from the resort. Check your change though in the one down the road, otherwise you'll unfortunately get ripped off big time.

Bruno, living besides Linareva, makes various ice cream flavors for several restaurants & hotels on the island, but also sells to passersby's (500 CFP for ½l).

* Except on thursdays (& saturdays?) where it seems to be another cook at the stove. Alas that's also the closing day of Pizza Daniel.