At
anchor off Reporepo Island, Rangiroa Atoll
Wind: East, F3 gentle
breeze
Weather: mostly sunny, warm
I am a little
tired after an exhilarating day.
This morning I
went for a dive in the pass to the lagoon. We started outside and were swept
into and along it, I followed my dive buddy closely and was led into a dish
shaped chasm. We dove to its bottom to escape the worst of the current and
pulled ourselves along some thick cables which lay across it, presumably power
or telecommunications cables, and into a crevice off to one side. Olivier had
the carcase of a small shark with him which he tied off to some coral and then
joined us in the cleft in the coral where we anchored ourselves and peered over
the edge to watch what happened next. Soon a large school of fish gathered for a
communal feast, then a couple of smallish sharks appeared, lemon sharks I was
later told, and then I felt Olivier tugging at my buoyancy vest and pointing
over to my right. Now a very large shark had a appeared to claim its share of
the prize. Surprisingly none of the fish seemed at all fussed by its presence.
Eventually after lazily swishing back and forth surveying the scene like some
tolerant but arrogant ruler it simply swum in to the taste the meal. Then came
another shark, I could tell they were both tiger sharks, but this one was much
bigger, once again Olivier was tugging and pointing excitedly. Being a relative
novice I don't think I was fully appreciating the significance of what we were
seeing. I have to admit it all seemed a bit surreal, peering out through my face
mask, sort of like watching television in 3D but somewhere lurking in my mind
was the idea that these guys could leap through my screen if they so desired. At
one point this huge fellow swam straight towards us where we were hiding in our
cranny of rock and coral, gave us a good looking over then abruptly but smoothly
veered off to get back to the main business at the end of the rope. We were down
for quite a while, not having any dive instruments apart from the tank pressure
gauge I had to rely on Olivier to tell me when it was time to go. And all of a
sudden Olivier must have decided that the time had come, for he simply swam out
into the colosseum's arena, all the fish, including the sharks, scattered,
Olivier reclaimed his piece of line with part of the carcase still attached and
we continued on our way, back into the current of the pass. As we drifted over
the rapidly passing bottom we spotted a hammerhead shark patrolling below us.
Being the novice I had the largest tank and Olivier had to share some of my air
which I will confess after all the excitement I felt a little proud of. He
inflated the pick up float and after a six minute decompression stop we were
back on the surface and in the pick up boat.
In all I would
say quite an exciting dive. I sat quietly as the the four other divers gibbered
on unintelligibly like, well, like four excited Frenchmen. One of them, Bruno,
spared me a moment and said, “Bob, you are one lucky
guy.”
In the afternoon
I went for another dive, this time the highlight was swimming with dolphins. I
will admit I enjoyed this more, it was a much more interactive experience. We
were swimming along the reef edge out in the ocean when another group of divers
came our way and they brought the dolphins with them. Swimming with them was
amazing. I will admit I perhaps got a little carried away but the dolphins
didn't seem to mind, swimming around me, standing on their heads, eyeing me, and
dancing around me like they were trying to teach a one legged man how to waltz.
I did my best but then I caught the eye of Olivier and I could feel the waves of
disapproval magnetically transmitting through the water, as he waved me to
rejoin the group. I don't know if one can swim sheepishly but that is what I did
as I imagined the scolding I would have received if words could have been spoken
with a regulator firmly planted in one's mouth. We continued on our way, once
again back into the current of the channel.. We broke surface in the middle of
the channel and the cauldron of the tidal over falls. Standing waves stood tall
breaking around us and one of our number got a little separated, probably
because he was lugging a rather large video camera, but we were all being
carried on at the same rate so no problem. Olivier stayed by the separated
diver, the rest of us focused on getting back into the large inflatable boat
then once all aboard we went to collect the other two. We returned to the dive
shop well contented.
It was a
wonderful day. Time to turn in.
All is
well.
