Le Plongee & Walking around Avatoru Motu

MFT: Dolphins leaping clear out of the water in the pass

LFP: Dragging a heavy GPR and heavier pack back for 5.5 miles around town 

Hallo, so today we went diving in the morning! On the way through the pass, we even saw a pod of dolphins frolicking! At one point they were leaping completely out of the water almost 5-6 feet into the air. It was like something out of sea world but ever so much better! We went outside of the pass and first dove down into the blue (on the ocean side). This basically means you dive down into this deep blue water and there is nothing to see around you. I mean no landmarks, certainly no bottom, just blue water as far as you can see. Its very disorientating. Our dive master (Eve, who married a Colombian woman and speaks excellent Spanish and English) wanted us to see some sharks and dolphins. Apparently the way to attract sharks (sans chumming or other food) is to take a dive glove off and kick it into the water so it spins around. He did this a couple of times and low and behold a silky shark appeared out of the blue! This shark was about 6 feet long and very gorgeous. To be honest I’ve never been so close to a shark before withOUT a glass separating me (ala aquarium). It was amazing to see this animal swim around us (total disinterest in us, passing interest in the glove). 

We stayed in place (mostly, hard to tell with no land marks) and ended up attracting something like another 10 sharks all told. Different species but mostly reef sharks. At one point there was 7 sharks circling us (I had a moment of uneasiness at that), but again they were completely uninterested in us and would quietly cruise by the glove and then circle a couple of times before leaving. After that we swam (underwater) towards the reef on the ocean side and then followed that to the pass before coming up for air. We saw lots of fish (barracuda) and pretty reef fish (some nice parrotfish). It was a fun dive and definitely furnished lots of memories!

The dive master, Eve, has been really nice to both Lynn and me. It has been over 6 years since I went diving and Lynn has never been certified (though she has gone diving in the Great Barrier Reef and in a pool). He has been really patient and careful with us. It turns out that Lynn can now get certified with only 3 more dives! This is great because its a fun thing to do every now and then (if expensive) and will probably be useful for Astronaut training. 

This afternoon we separated after a fantastic spaghetti lunch. I strapped on the GPR and GPS and went a walking around town while Lynn went to go do another dive. I ended up walking about 5.5 miles around town and covered a good distance (about 3/4) of the main motu. We will finish up the rest on the last day when Lynn leaves for Papeete and the day I leave (both of our flights are in the late afternoon). It was a productive day of walking (if tiring) and I got some good cross-shore GPR transects (finally)! The GPS was misbehaving again (boy is it temperamental and totally unpredictable!). But otherwise I’m happy.