Month: May 2018

My feelings and perception of sharks has certainly changed over the last month as we have daily encountered the big fish in the water through our travels in the Tuamotus. But, diving with literally hundreds of sharks in the south pass of Fakarava has had the biggest impact. (They estimate 700 sharks live in the pass!)

Our friends on Kini Popo had arrived a few days before us, as we were still playing around in Tahanea. When we arrived, they all raved about diving with the sharks in the pass and excitedly told us about their night dive when the sharks are feeding and often bump into you during the frenzy underwater. Mike & I weren’t too sure about the night diving, but we were eager to see them during daylight hours.

Sharks get a bad rap. They’ve been portrayed as monsters on tv and in the movies. That isn’t to say that there haven’t been horrible encounters between humans and sharks. They are wild animals after all and can be dangerous. But, that doesn’t mean that we have to be fearful of them, just cautious. I’ve decided that the sharks are a bit like stray dogs – they are curious and may approach you, certain ones are dangerous, you should keep you eye on them, and you definitely should not provoke them. Somehow picturing the sharks as stray dogs has put it in perspective for me. Stray dogs have mauled people to death, but that is pretty rare and the exception rather than the rule. It is the same with sharks. When you think of the sharks as big dogs, they seem a lot less scary.

I was a little nervous before our first dive in the pass. We timed it to hit the very end of the flood, so there was just a little current taking us back inside the pass. We attached to a buoy just outside the pass to finish putting on our scuba gear and descend about 60 feet down. We had snorkelers up top to follow above us towing the dinghies. Thankfully for my nerves, the sharks were not immediately below us when we initially descended. Once we got to the bottom and looked around, all the nervousness disappeared and was replaced by the awe of my surroundings.

The visibility was easily 100 feet, and as far as you could see was a beautiful coral covered ocean floor full of sea life. I was glad we were almost at the slack tide so that we could stop periodically to look in and under the coral at the various reef fish. I have a fish identification book of reef fish of the South Pacific, but there were so many to remember that it didn’t do me much good to try and look them up when we returned to the boat. There was every color and shape of fish. But, the thing that amazed me the most was how docile they were. The fish didn’t scurry and hide as you approached, they would swim right up to you, sometimes inches from your mask. It was as though they were studying you as much as you were studying them.

As we swam further inside the pass, we started seeing the sharks. First, there were just a couple of grey reef sharks, but as we progressed we approached the “wall of sharks.” There were hundreds of sharks in the trench in the middle of the pass. They were all very docile, facing the incoming current and looked as though they were suspended in mid-air. A few swam toward us, mainly because we happened to be in their path. But, as they got closer, they changed paths and swam away. It is a little strange to play chicken with a shark coming toward you, but they always blinked first. When you see these sharks just hanging out, not attacking fish or looking menacing in anyway, it is easy to relax around them. Apparently at night is when their behavior changes and they are on the hunt. During the day, they are just resting. In fact, there were a few white tip reef sharks that were resting directly on the sand, and a couple were laying inside a cave. It is contrary to what I understood that sharks had to always keep moving. Clearly these sharks had other ideas.

The sharks weren’t the only stars of the dive, of course. Probably my favorite part of the dive was when I was able to swim right next to a large spotted eagle ray for several minutes, as he just glided a couple feet away from me. A thrilling experience. And, we got to see the famous Napoleon fish, which are these 2-3 foot long green fish that are shaped a bit like a giant parrot fish.

At the end of the dive, you come across a half mile long reef that is only about 15 feet deep. The current usually picks up over the shallow area, so you just fly above it. It also drops you off right outside the anchorage by the boats. Mike and I both said this was easily the best dive we have ever done. So, of course we had to do it again…and again. In all, we dove the pass four times over the next few days. The conditions were perfect, and we couldn’t pass it up. Hopefully, we’ll get a chance to do some more dives in the Tuamotus that are just as incredible.

We shot a bunch of GoPro video, which I will work on editing. But, as much as we like the GoPro, it is no substitute for professional video. Another boat gave us a copy of a documentary called “The Grouper Mystery.” It is a program about the Fakarava South Pass, and the video footage is incredible. If you can find it, I highly recommend watching it.

In the video, a group of French scientists are studying a phenomenon that happens once a year only in the Fakarava South Pass where thousands of grouper congregate to spawn. It happens around the full moon in July every year, so we are going to miss it by about a month. But, we did see lots of grouper in the pass that look just like the ones in the video. The incredible thing in the video is that one of the scientists does a 24 hour dive in the pass to view the sea life for an entire day. It was certainly a big feat, and I don’t believe it had been done before. They get some amazing photos and videos of the sharks at night feeding on the grouper. We also heard that the May issue of National Geographic also features the pass, so check it out.

If diving is one of your passions, and you make it to French Polynesia, don’t miss diving the Fakarava South Pass. It is definitely worth it! Or, if you don’t dive, just watch the movie…

We’re still in Fakarava now, and we’re trying to learn to Kitesurf! More about those adventures next time.

~katie

The next atoll in the Tuamotos that we ventured off to was Tahanea. It is supposedly a park reserve. There is a rare type of sandpiper bird that is lives here, so the atoll got park status. There are just a few people living on Tahanea, maybe 10-15. They are mostly there for the Copra trade (dried and pressed coconuts). It’s hard to imagine living somewhere so remote with so few people!

Our friends on Ivadel had already moved on to Fakarava, and Kini Popo was anxious to go too. We were not yet ready to leave this beautiful spot, so we said farewell for now and headed across the lagoon alone. We arrived at probably the most beautiful anchorage we have ever seen, and that is saying a lot. The water was crystal clear blue. The palm tree studded motus had white sand beaches, and that day was calm and sunny weather. After dropping the anchor, we sat to take in the beautiful scenery and appreciate how few people get to see these amazing out of the way spots.

The next day we decided to go exploring on the islands. We had seen all of the palm trees and decided we needed to go get some coconuts. Mike brought his machete, and we brought several containers to pour coconut water into. There weren’t too many green coconuts just lying around, so Mike did his best impression of a monkey and climbed the palm trees. He knocked coconut after coconut down to the ground. Soon we had gathered quite a pile.

Mike went to work with the machete cutting away the husk at the top to get a hole opened to get at the coconut water. There is nothing quite as refreshing as coconut water straight out of a coconut! In all, we loaded up over 2 liters of coconut water and hauled back the coconuts to scoop out the meat inside. Quite a delicious snack!

There were three other boats anchored near us, and they invited us to join them on the beach at sunset for a bonfire. The days are warm here, but the sun goes down early. The nights are cool and pleasant (it is almost winter in the Southern Hemisphere), and a bonfire on the beach is the perfect way to spend an evening.

We spent the next day snorkeling some of the reefs with some of the new boats we met. The most amazing thing on the reefs were the grouper! Usually when we have seen grouper in the past, they take off into a hole or under a rock the minute you see them. Of course, it certainly doesn’t help if you are holding a speargun. But, clearly these grouper had no fear of humans. They just hung out and even swam up to you. I’ve never been 12 inches from a grouper in a staring contest until now. It was pretty funny.

That night, Mike really wanted to go hunt for lobsters on the outer reef. I reluctantly agreed to go. It didn’t really sound like that much fun to me. At the last minute, one of our new friends Robert decided to join us. So, the three of us went trekking out over the coral in the moonlight with our dive lights. It really was beautiful on the reef. We were in knee to thigh deep water with coral all around. We did our best to walk between the coral heads so as not to damage it. The waves were crashing onto the reef as the swell rolled in from the deep ocean just a few yards away, but it was very peaceful.

The two real hunters got to work searching every nook and cranny around the reef for any sight of lobster. They even put on masks to get a better look under water. But, despite a pretty exhaustive search, there were no lobsters to be found. We were later told that you have to do it when there is no moon, but who knows… We did find lots of sea urchins, but I wasn’t brave enough to take any. I’ve only eaten it at sushi restaurants, but Robert said it is good on pasta. Maybe I’ll try to prepare it next time we come across the urchins.

After a few days of bliss in this beautiful place, we decided it was time to go meet up with our friends in Fakarava. We were pretty low on fresh foods, and had resorted to eating a lot of canned food (not my favorite, but I try to make something decent out of it.) So, we departed Tahanea just before sunset hoping to catch the 6 am slack tide at the South pass of Fakarava.

Even though we had little daylight, Mike let out a fishing line. Just outside the pass of Tahanea we caught a nice 15 lb yellowfin tuna (no more monster tuna for us!). It was a great end to our time in Tahanea, but we were looking forward to Fakarava, where we had heard our friends had already dove the south pass, famous for its hundreds of sharks! Eek!

-Katie

We left Raroia with our friends Dan, Dan #2 and Michelle on Kini Popo and our French friends Caroline and Phillipe on Ivadel en route to Makemo, an easy overnight sail to a new atoll. We were happy that Phillipe and Caroline decided to follow us, as Caroline has been helping me with my French, and in exchange I have been helping her with her English (which is much better than my French!). In addition to being able to practice what little vocabulary and grammar I know so far, Caroline has taught me useful phrases like, “Il ya un trou dans mon verre,” which translates to “there is a hole in my glass.” That is exactly how most of our French/English lessons go as Caroline and I hang out on the back deck of Ivadel with a bottle of wine while the boys hunt for coconut crabs (they still haven’t caught any.)

We initially anchored right off the village at Makemo, which was much more populated than the village at Raroia. They had paved roads, several magazins, a post office, a restaurant, a bakery, a church and a pretty good size school. The people were incredibly friendly and interested in all the boats anchored off their little town. We were able to pick up some provisions to restock our supplies, although fresh fruits and veggies were scarce. But, it was nice to get some fresh baguettes for a couple of days and eat some delicious poisson cru at the little restaurant.

While we were anchored at the village, we heard from another boat that a couple of the pearl farm guys were looking for a boat with scuba tanks to help them out. Mike and Phillipe offered to help. The next morning, the boys grabbed their scuba gear and headed off in a local skiff. The guys needed divers to descend to about 75 feet to tie some line around some coral heads at the bottom on the lagoon that they would use for their pearl farm operation. Mike and Phillipe descended with the lines and a camera, so that they could video it for the pearl farm guys. That way he would know that they secured the lines the way he wanted it. They returned later that day with big thank yous from the pearl farm guys. Mike & Phillipe weren’t asking for any compensation, but we wondered if they might give us some pearls for helping them out. We didn’t get any pearls, but they did give us five gallons of diesel and a bottle of honey, which is more useful than pearls anyway.

After a couple of days at the village, we decided to head to an anchorage about halfway down the lagoon between the east and west pass. It was about a four hour trip, and we had to go relatively slow to avoid any bommies. Bommies are large coral heads that grow up from the bottom of the lagoon and can be at or just under the surface. Some are large and look like small reefs, but others are small and difficult to see from a distance. One bommie we passed was just under the surface about 10 yards away, and we were in 130 feet of water. We had heard that a catamaran earlier in the season had hit a bommie on this route and punctured one of its pontoons! We did not want to take any chances.

It is easier to see the bommies if the sun is overhead or slightly behind you. If the sun is in front of you, the glare off the water will make it difficult, if not impossible to see them. And, these lagoons are not always fully charted, so our electronic charts are only slightly useful. In order to get a better view of the bommies from a distance, the best thing to do is to have someone go up the mast to the spreaders (about halfway up the mast, depending on the boat) as a look out. From that height, you get a much better view.

Our friends on Ivadel had gone a little bit a head of us, but we decided on a plan with Kini Popo. We would have one boat go in the lead with someone in the spreaders, and the other boat would follow closely behind in their tracks. The lead boat would radio back about any obstructions they observed. Because four hours is a long time for someone to sit up on the spreaders, we would take turns switching places.

Mike and I decided that I should be the one to go up the mast while he stayed at the helm. When it was my turn to go up, I slipped into the harness and attached the main halyard. We have mast steps, so I was able to climb up the mast to the spreaders as Mike tightened the halyard as my safety line. When I reached the spreaders, I was able to stand on the spreaders as I sat back into the harness. It was necessary to hang onto the mast so that I did not swing around as the boat moved forward. There was little wind or swell, so it wasn’t too bumpy a ride up the mast.

The view from the spreaders was great. I was able to call down to Mike and radio back to Dan on my handheld VHF about the reefs and bommies I saw in the distance and when we needed to adjust course. Aside from my job as lookout, I was able to enjoy the view from that height of the atoll and lagoon. It also happened to be my birthday, and I laughed a bit that this was quite an unusual way to spend a birthday!

Ivadel was several miles ahead of us, but Phillipe occasionally radioed back to tell us, “Small potatoes here, no good, no good.” It took me a second to realize he was talking about the bommies. We were able to mark his position on the chart to avoid. Later I said to him, “Je voudrais savoir por quois les pomme de terre.” He just laughed and explained that the French refer to the bommies as potatoes or “potat,” because they look like potatoes just under the surface of the water. I had to give him that, they do. So, we are now referring to the bommies as potatoes.

That night Ivadel invited us all over for a birthday celebration on their boat. Caroline had baked me a delicious chocolate cake, and we shared several bottles of wine. Caroline and Phillipe presented me with a large box as a birthday gift, which I was not expecting. But, I had to unwrap several smaller boxes to get to the actual gift, which was a beautiful black pearl! Dan also had a gift, but it was really a hilarious gift for everyone, as he brought out seven temporary Tattoo tattoos. They were stick on tattoos of the character Tattoo from the TV show Fantasy Island. We all laughed hysterically as one after another we applied the silly tattoo to various parts of our body. Dan #2 even applied it to his bald head! Thankfully, they came off in a couple of days.

We enjoyed a couple of days at this beautiful anchorage playing on the beach before heading toward the East pass. The anchorage by the East pass was a bit tricky, as we had to navigate around several reefs and try not to get our anchor or anchor chain caught on any coral. We had been managing the technique of floating our anchor chain with buoys we got from the pearl farm, but it is still easy to get caught up on the coral, and has required us to dive on our anchor when we set it and before we pull it up if there is a lot of coral around.

The main reason we wanted to stop at this anchorage was to dive the pass, which we had heard was beautiful. We did a test run snorkeling so that we could see where looked like a good place to dive, and found that the North side of the pass had a beautiful coral reef with a sloping wall down to about 60-70 feet. That was perfect.

The next day we got all our scuba gear ready to go in the morning. We were waiting for slack tide just before the flood. But, there had been a strong south swell which sent lots of water over the reef on the south side of the atoll. That meant that a lot of water was coming into the lagoon throughout the day, and even more water was being pushed out through the pass during the ebb. So, even though the low tide was predicted at a certain time, the ebb was lasting much longer. We waited and waited until we could see that the current was slowing down and finally jumped in our dinghies several hours later.

It was almost slack tide when we finally jumped in the water and got ready to descend. We tied Dan’s dinghy to ours, and Mike clipped our dinghy to his BCD with a 100’ floating line that he uses to secure his speargun. I’m happy that the line is getting some other use, because we are not spearfishing here. We’re told that the locals that spearfish have about 10 seconds to get the fish out of the water or into a box before the sharks will be on it. No, thank you!

We descended inside the pass down the sloping coral reef wall and headed out toward the pass. We knew that the tide would start to flood soon, and we would turn around and head back inside the pass when the tide turned. Because it was basically slack tide, there was no current when we initially descended, and we could easily swim and and enjoy the beautiful coral and reef fish. It was like diving in an aquarium. My favorite were these little purple fish that I kept seeing swim around the coral. There were a few reef sharks which were mostly cruising far above us in the shallow areas of the coral reef, but nothing like the sharks we saw in Raroia.

Just as we were getting to the outer edge of the pass, we could feel the current start to flood, and we all turned around and headed back to where we started. The timing was great. On the way back, Mike and I hung back behind the other three and looked under a few rocks, which paid off. First, we saw a lion fish, which is one of the most poisonous fish in the ocean. We obviously did not touch it and were wearing gloves. Next, we found two moray eels. We’ve seen lots of moray eels in the past, but this is the first time we’ve seen two in one hole. We looked down to see two heads sticking out with their menacing looking mouths open at us. Pretty interesting. In all, it was a wonderful dive, and I was pretty proud of the five of us for figuring out how to dive a pass ourselves. It made it all the more special.

Next, we were off to Tahanea…

~katie

p.s. Hoping to be able to post video of our dive when we get to Tahiti.

We timed our arrival with our friends on Kini Popo at the pass at Raroia just perfectly and only had about 2 knots of current against us as we transited the pass. We followed the channel about 1.5 miles south to the anchorage in front of the village where one other boat was anchored. This was our first atoll, and we were immediately surprised by the fact that people live in this remote place. The village was very small, and it is hard to imagine there are more than about 100 people that live here. But, they have a small store with supplies and had just gotten internet access (although it is dial up speed).

Everyone ashore was extremely friendly, but especially the kids. When school let out and on the weekend, the kids liked to play at the quai and swim in the water. They all wanted to know our names and begged us to come play with them. One day they got their hands on a couple of paddle boards and piled on to go visit the boats. While Mike was on shore, a couple of girls about 10 years old approached on a paddle board and wanted to come aboard. I was in the middle of cooking something down below and told them maybe later. The next thing I knew, they were on the boat next to us running around and having a great time.

Because we were so close to the pass, we wanted to dinghy back to the pass to do a drift dive. The pass isn’t too deep here, and since we hadn’t really figured out how to dive the pass, we decided to snorkel and free dive it rather than pull out the scuba tanks. We invited a couple of other boats to go with us, piled in a few dinghies and headed out with our gear.

As I mentioned in the previous post, the large amount of water that flows in and out of the lagoon in an atoll through the pass with the tides creates a very strong current. So, if you snorkel or dive in the pass at any time other than slack tide, you are going to drift quickly with the current. We were hoping to time our dive with the incoming tide or flood, but when we arrived it was still ebbing flowing out of the lagoon. We decided to jump in anyway.

As I was putting my mask on and about to jump into the water, I heard our friend Dan say, “Nobody panic, there are a lot of large sharks.” That isn’t really something you want to hear right before you leave the safety of the dinghy and jump in. But, I jumped in anyway. Immediately I saw several 6-7 foot sharks hovering around. We would later identify them as grey reef sharks. We all stayed in a group and were floating with the dinghies. Each dinghy had one person holding onto a line attached to the dinghy. We quickly realized that the sharks were just a little curious but not otherwise aggressive. We all kept an eye on them, but none of them got close enough to make us fearful.

We had jumped in the water inside the lagoon and started drifting toward the pass. As we got closer to the pass itself, the current started picking up speed. Soon we were ripping through the pass. Mike and Dan made numerous dives down about 30-40 feet, and the view from the surface looked like they were flying in outer space as they quickly passed over the reef below. We saw tons of reef fish and sharks, but the highlight for Mike was when a school of wahoo passed right by him just outside the pass.

The drift through the pass was so quick that when we reached the outside of the pass, we all jumped back in the dinghies to head back to the starting point inside the pass and do it again. In all, we made about four trips through the pass. But, the craziest part happened on our second pass through.

As we got through the pass to the other side, we drifted a bit into the open ocean where it was much deeper and we couldn’t see the bottom. At first we just saw a couple of grey reef sharks, but very quickly as we got deeper, more and more sharks appeared. Suddenly there were 20-30 sharks circling below us. And, a few wanted to get a closer look at us and headed up quickly toward us from the deep. I think we were all thinking the same thing when Dan said to the group, “Everybody out of the water!” We all got back in the dinghies with our hearts pounding and a rush of adrenaline. Our books tell us that the grey reef sharks are sometimes aggressive and dangerous. I don’t think anyone really wanted to test out whether or not that is true.

After our fun time at the pass and the village, we decided to head across the lagoon to check out some of the other motus. The reefs in the lagoon were very visible and easy to avoid. We reached the other side of the lagoon just in time to watch a beautiful sunset and take in the palm fringed motus in front of the anchorage.

We did some exploring the next couple of days, including seeing the Kon Tiki monument. If you’ve read the Kon Tiki book or seen the movie, Raroia is where Thor Heyerdahl crashed Kon Tiki into the reef after crossing the Pacific. We also visited a pearl farm a short distance from our anchorage. There were only a few guys working on stringing some small oysters together. Apparently, later in the year Chinese workers come to do the grafting where they insert the grains of sand into the oyster to make a pearl.

We were also joined in the anchorage by Manatee (a different Manatee from the boat we helped take through the Panama Canal last year) and our friends on Ivadel who pleasantly surprised us when they showed up. With four boats, there was definitely enough people for a party, and we made a big bonfire on the beach with drinks, snacks and even some s’mores.

Mike and Phillipe made friends with one of the pearl farm workers named Ludo who offered to help them try and catch some coconut crabs ashore. The coconut crabs are huge land crabs that primarily eat coconuts. We’ve heard they are delicious, but are yet to try them. Ludo explained that you need to set up a trap to catch the crabs by breaking open some coconuts and tie them to the base of a tree. Then, you return at night to hopefully grab them as they are feeding. You have to be careful grabbing them and putting them in a bag, because their strong claws could take off a finger. Mike, Phillipe and Ludo made a couple attempts to catch some but came up empty handed. They did find a couple of smaller ones, but they weren’t big enough to keep. We’ve heard that there are lots of the crabs on Tahanea, so the boys plan to try again in a different atoll.

Overall, we had a fabulous week in Raroia. It was a great first atoll to explore, but we wanted to head to Makemo. Kini Popo and Ivadel decided to come with us, so we would continue the party heading west.

~katie

p.s. I sound like a broken record, but I’ll post photos and video of our dive with the sharks when we get to Tahiti.