Rangiroa

This place is nothing short of spectacular. An atoll like Ahe but on a much larger scale. You cannot see from one side of it to the other. 40 miles long. 15 or so wide. The color of the water seems almost fake. So brilliantly blue and azure. People are friendly. Unlike the alien colony on Ahe. Dawn flew in so the world is complete now.

 

Nice place for a bike ride!

There are only two entrances to the Atoll. In spite of being 110 miles in circumference. Both pretty easy and wide. But they run fast and hard when the tides are moving. Pods of dolphins come and surf the standing waves. Just for fun. I am trying to get some pictures to post. One of the German fellows on Dingy has some pictures that look like a national geographic cover. 

There is a place they call the aquarium. It’s along side of a sand bar at one of the entrances. About 500 yards from where we anchored. It hides behind the rip tide and has almost no current. Quite remarkable given that the other side of the bar can have 4-5 knots. The snorkeling there is unbelievable. You drop off the side of the dingy into thousands of fish. One area is carpeted in green coral with deep fissures and crags with all kinds life in them. There are a couple of large moral eels. Then the sharks start to meander by. White tip and black tip. I have some gopro video of black tip sharks going by with Dawn in the frame. At one point there were three black tip sharks under us. That got me a little nervous. They are not a problem while alone but get more aggressive as their numbers increase. In Galapagos when there were three of them schooling our guide hustled us back to the boat.

Bob, being devoured! OK, not really.

So many fish you cannot get a picture of the fish! Who is this guy mugging in the front?

Had dinner with friends from Trillium last night. At a place called Chez Lili. Lili is an amazing person. Originally from Madagascar. A one woman show. And the food is 5 star. We kind of overwhelmed her. 8 of us and another ARC table of 10. So Iris and Lorenzo pitched in to help. Iris knew her from a previous trip here last year when she waited tables for Lili to pay for scuba dives. Last we saw of the two of them they were doing dishes and hanging laundry. What a great crew. And they commute to and from Vivo by kayak so they are very energy efficient.

Went on a guided tour of a place called Reef Island. An hour by powerboat. This is one big atoll. Waded to shore with our packs and snorkel gear and found a little slice of aquatic heaven. It is one of the shallow cuts that are inflows and outflows with the tides. Not deep enough and to many coral heads for boats. The life was amazing. The water so blue and the sand so white it hurt my eyes. So I’m snorkeling along with tears running down into my facemask. We thought that was cool. Then we gathered and did a short hike on the reef to a truly other worldly spot. A lava flow must have hit the surf line some millions of years ago. It created a wall of jagged lava that blocks the incoming surf. But it flows through the porous formations. We drift snorkeled the shallow inland salt water river that it creates. I have video of passing through it. Ran into a variety of sea cucumber that is about 6 foot long. Looks like an undulating piece of vacuum cleaner hose. With some alien looking tendrils that scour for food. Remember the movie tremors? Its that worms little brother. I guess they can’t hurt you. Other than scare the creepy snot out of you. So after a while at that spot off we go to the next destination. The guide says we are heading to the next motu (segment of the Atoll rim.) for lunch. Thought he was kidding. It was about ¼ mile across a tidal flat that had a couple of knots of current flowing. And it went to chest deep. So we do a platoon march into the pass. Took maybe 15 or 20 minutes for everyone to get across. Dodging coral and sea urchins. The lunch was excellent. Rice, grilled fish and chicken, coconut bread, ceviche. All made at home by the head guide. Then he had the women of the group weaving baskets. Quite comical. He was a very patient instructor. I would have hit someone upside the head. It was like a summer camp craft project. Where everyone gets a ribbon but some of the projects look like monkeys made them. While we were there a school of 3-5 foot black tip sharks formed off the beach. Couple of dozen or so. We entertained ourselves tossing little bits of leftover food and trying to grab one by the tail. Real bright huh? Well, I’ve got video to prove it. I wonder why sharks bite people. You grab one by the azz and they just might add you to the menu. The irony was that the boat we would wade out to and leave on was on the other side of the ticked off sharks. So….  us guys stood around (grammar check that one!) hoping that we were not up next for arts and crafts. Since we had been giving the gals such a hard time we knew the payback would be brutal. Then across the shark bank for an hour back in the powerboat for a dip at the aquarium. The fish schools were so dense you had a hard time dropping off the boat. It was solid fish. The local guides toss fish scraps in to keep the fish interested. And they know the boats individually. When our yellow boat showed up they were all over it. When we went there in the dingy we did not get the same welcoming committee. Snorkeled around for a while. So many fish it was hard to get pictures. They were right in front of the camera at all times. There are a couple of moral eels that make a home there. One is huge. Its head the size of a Chicago soft ball. Opens his mouth and the scavenger fish clean its formidable teeth. Another one was pretty good sized. We were looking at it and Dawn said, “Do they ever come out of the hole”? “Don’t know but don’t think they would with us around,” says me. I was wrong! We go back to looking at it and it swims straight up out of its cave right at us. I have a picture of it but its head is barely in frame and its body runs out of frame. It was about 3 foot long and that’s how close it came. Then back down to its hole. Probably chuckling the whole way. Going to tell his drinking buddies that night how he scared the @$%^@$%^ out of the mono horn butt fish. (That’s what moray eels call snorkelers.)

I shaved! It hurt. Good thing I only have to do it when Dawn comes around.

Bob and Lorenzo in their new badazz hats! Really funny till someone looses an eye.

So one more dinner at the wonderful place called Lilli’s and we get ready to leave paradise.  We will miss Rangiroa and the beauty of its people and waters. A divers heaven.

So we leave at 7:00 AM for Moorea. The sister island of Tahiti. 221 miles and no wind. It’s hot and raining. And we caught a Cormorant while fishing. Those are not very bright birds. Saved it though. Reeled it in and got it untangled. It bit me and flew off. Probably come back later and poop on the boat somewhere. Should have eaten it.

Cormorant, its whats for supper. Naw, I let him go. After the ingrate bit me!

Next up…….   Moorea. In the French Society Islands.

M