Tahiti - Moorea Trip

Just got back from a couple of weeks in French Polynesia. Spent most of the time in Moorea in a modest bungalow on the beach. Turns out our bungalow was next door to ScubaPiti, a great small dive outfit that seems to cater to mostly "local" tourists (I think I was the only American on all 11 dives I did with them). In any case, I had a GREAT time. The guides (Eric, Henri and Dominique) were all great. Highly recommend them!

Now, about the dives. WOW. My first dive was "The Aquarium" in Tahiti. This was also my first dive since my cert. We did a back flip entry, which surprised me. More on that later. Dove to about 40'. There is a Cessna and a boat down there. Pretty fun for a newbie diver.

So, all the dives were drift dives, and you do the flip entry for them. I was pretty unaware of this. Escorted drift dives are VERY cool. In some places we got to "swim" through narrow "channels". Reminded me of the pod races in Star Wars.

Off to Moorea. I did 11 dives from 62' to 94'. There were about 5 main dive sites. Each one was cool, even on repeat visits. The water temp ranged from 77 to 79 (even at 94'). The vis was amazing. I saw so much I can't even remember half of it. Here are a couple of highlights.



- Turtles, friendly enough to pet
- Stingrays (3 - 5' across)
- Eagle Ray (while snorkeling)
- Lots of Moreys
- Lemon Shark, about 10 - 11'
- Black Tip Reef Sharks, boring after a couple of dives
- Clownfish / Anemone
- Huge coral growths.
- The Rose. If you go, and can get your rescue diver cert beforehand it is recommended. At 90' it is an amazing dive, but is supposed to be spectacular at 130 or so.
- Huge amounts of fish

If you know what you are doing, you can do a few things pretty cheaply. Like, if you know where to find the rays, you can go out on a rental kayak and feed them / pet them yourself. We snorkeled with them in a Motu across from our bungalow and pet and fed them at 1' near the shore.

I hired the ScubaPiti photographer for one of my dives. Well worth it. She took photos of the dive, and included her "Best of Moorea" photos (flowers and stuff) and "Best of Ocean" folder with most of the fish I saw while there.

All in all, a GREAT way to get introduced to diving. Just so you all know, I returned Sunday night at 7:00 PM and drive to Monterey at 6:30 monday am to get some local diving in. Just wanted to get right back into it. FYI, it isn't that cold here!

If anyone is interested in going, let me know. Our bungalow was about 1,000.00 per week I think (with a small kayak included). It is small, but on the beach, has a showerhead outside and hose and was perfect for diving. In any case I can direct you to the Motu with the rays.

I have a lot of photos, if I post them somewhere I'll let you know.

Mark

Nice Report! Glad you had fun.

Mark,

Thanks for sharing your trip report. Glad you had a great time.

(watch out because there are some dive police here that will chew you out for diving so deep when you are so new to diving. Sounds like you did fine and were with DMs so no problem, but some people . . . --*rolling my eyes*-- )

So how expensive was it to get to Tahiti / Moorea? (I don't even know where that is, much less how to get there) How many people does a $1000.00 a week bungalow hold comfortably? Just curious since you said that it was so good.

Funny how the first time you see some animals it is the most exciting thing in the world, but after a while, and after seeing a whole bunch of other stuff you get kinda bored with it.

Once diving in Florida I mentioned Seals and all the locals got real excited. We just have gotten used to them in Monterey. And Starfish. I could not believe how excited some people in Cozumel got when they saw a couple starfish. I can't remember a Monterey dive without hundreds of starfish (or atleast dozens!)

Thanks again,

Wristshot

Heh, right you are. SeaStars (oh no, I'm a seastar cop) are EVERYWHERE here. Even the beach.

Tahiti is due South of Hawaii, on the other side of the equator. It is winter there right now.

700.00 - 1000.00 per night for an over the water bungalow. 52.00 for a single tank boat dive. 1900.00 for a fancy deep sea reel, that is 700.00 here. Since they are French, I think you have the normal European taxes, and since they are so far away from anywhere it is big bucks to get anything there. Fresh stuff has to be flown in. Sorta like Hawaii, but more. Moorea is right across from Tahiti (30 minute ferry ride). It is more the "tourist" destination. The bungalow had a small bed for two in the back and a small bed for one up front. You could probably squeeze 5 or 6 in there, 3 is pretty comfortable. The bathroom is in the back room though, so the person up front has to go through the back room next to the bed to get to it. It was pretty hot too so you didn't sleep in much ... The airline tickets were about 800.00 each, not too bad. The flight arrived at 3:30 am and left at 2:30 am though.

I was worried a bit about the depth. They were like, 20 - 25 M in the beginning, so I'm thinking 75, but it is really almost 85. For the first couple of dives I hung out about 15' above everyone else. I just made sure that I kept cool and focused on where everyone was and enjoyed myself. For the 94' I was at like 89' and had some room under me, so I just swam down, hit the 94 then started back up. Couldn't resist, ya know?

With that said, I wouldn't even consider going over 60' here with my dive buddy. We did 50' yesterday to the Metridian fields and that was pretty hardcore IMO. There is a big difference diving with a group of people with 150' vis and experienced dive guides and diving with your newbie buddy (who did a great job of navigating I must say).

Other fun things we did that you wouldn't normally do.
- Night spearfishing (with a pole spear), glad I had my UK Light Cannon
- Gun spearfishing (no weights, just a small speargun and my snorkel stuff)

Mark


Cheers,

Mark

Mark,

Good info.

When I first started diving we often dove off of a friend's boat in and around Monterey. I liked the area near the Aquarium and near where the Metridium fields are. There was a hard bottom at 55 ~ 65 feet so I knew that I could not get out of control deep. Now deeper dives don't bother me at all but it was nicer in the beginning to stay in shallower water and have one less thing to worry about. There is a lot of great stuff to see without having to go real deep.

Good to see that you and your newbie buddy are being sensible. Get the experience, get the proper training and continue enjoying it all!


Wristshot

Stayed at ClubMed and dove with them. As you stated, quite beautiful and interesting. At that time I think I paid about a thousand for the week including food and diving. The only thing I paid extra for was a deep sea fishing trip. Flight from LAX took 9 -1/2 hours. Great trip, few Americans, and the European ladies, top notch! There were a lot of Japanese newly weds there but they pretty much stayed by themselves.
Glad you had a great time. Oh, one last thing. I charged everything on my AMEX Card and was never billed!!! Wish I had stayed longer.