Day Three: Rays and Sharks

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Just finished my second day, first full day on the boat. Je suis tres tres tres rouge. What an amazing day though?! I woke up very early to watch the sunrise over Raiatea island. Some of the other passengers slowly started stirring as well. Hinano was the first, she came outside to take care of a few things with the ship and asked me if I meditate. “Non, je regard le lever du soleil.” Stephane was next to join me. The last two were the German couple who slept in well past the time the rest of us had eaten breakfast. We all kind of said that we slept okay, but it had grown too hot once the generator was shut off. But we all lived and we are in paradise. What do we really have to worry about?



The Mata Fenua headed off to Bora Bora, four hours of navigation in the open ocean. The netting between the two runners of the catamaran looked pretty compelling. I tried to stay there as much as possible during the first few hours, being a white kid from Nebraska, that did not last long due to the sun. I was not as bad off as the females of the group who all felt motion sickness due to the swells of the open ocean away from the protective atolls that surround virtually every island here. Bora Bora is gorgeous. There is a reason that it has been referred to as heaven on Earth. It absolutely is. The water changes from a dark blue to light sea foam green within feet of coming through the pass. Crayola does not have enough blues in their box to do this justice. We anchored in and had our lunch. Hinano is an amazing cook, I don’t like to take up valuable reading time, but suffice it to say that every meal we have had has been exceptional. With lunch finished a few of us decided to go for a swim. I found some cool shells, which I left of course, no way they were making it through customs anyway. I also found a ray chilling out in some coral not too far from the boat. After a few photos of it Wen let me know we were taking the boat out to see the rays. I thought to myself “the one I just saw?” That wouldn’t be very exciting. But we were in for a treat. We jumped in the little dingy and headed out to the sand area near the reef surrounding the island. Wen jumped out, followed immediately by me. It took the group a couple of minutes of watching before they decided that it was safe enough. Rays were all over the place. Attacking Wen as he fed them scraps of tuna, attacking isn’t the right word, but they were definitely persistent. We swam with the rays for a good 15 minutes before a shark joined in the fray. Once we had our fill we packed up and took off back to the boat. No one was left in the water besides Wen and myself once the shark was spotted my the group.



The next item on the docket for our group was to take the yacht over near the pass to swim with the sharks. I have swam with a shark before, so I felt well prepared for this. Wrong, there were sharks everywhere, all over the place, it was a shark frenzy. Mostly black tip reef shark, Wen chummed the water while I swam around to take photos of our photogenic guests. The rest of the group stayed right next to the boat and did not venture away. Wen asked me after a while if I wanted to see the big one. “Qui, qui, qui. Ou?” I replied. We swam a bit before he pointed to a huge lemon shark hanging out near the bottom. I was not able to make it down there to snap a photo before a group of scuba divers frightened it off. I was excited to see it but such is life. Au c’est la vie. I am sure the rest of the group thinks I am pretty crazy as I am out here doing this all on my own, but I know they enjoyed the photos that I was able to capture.



After the swim I was exhausted. We anchored the ship for the night near some of the more exclusive resorts here on Bora Bora. I started writing this blog just before dinner and finished it after. It was Italian night at dinner, not due to what we were eating, rather we were trying to speak and learn Italian from Mirko and Bernadette. Always interesting conversations with this group, all have pretty good senses of humor and that goes a long way with me. Anyway, I am exhausted and ready for bed. Tomorrow we have a busy day, so stay tuned. Hope all is well back in the States.

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Photos

Pull!
You will notice I was not helping.

Second ray coming right for me
They feel like slippery rubber.

Sharks circling the group
This one makes me laugh, they stayed near the boat thinking they were safe.