Sharks!!

We are anchored off of Rotoava village (pop. 470) in the lagoon of Fakarava, which is a World Heritage Site. It has been windy and rainy with squalls running through all day and night. Cindy and I got our first scuba dive in of the trip yesterday with one of the local dive operations. Turns out that Fakarava, and Toau next door, are two famous dive locations. Fakarava is known for the dive at Passe Garaue which is where they took us, just on the outside (ocean side). It would really rough water with all the wind but underwater you don't notice. The coral and fish life was amazing and the water clarity very good (about 60-70'). We have not been diving since 1996 so we needed to get our heads (and bodies) back in it. We did fine except Cindy was a little nervous.

I was invited by the dive shop to go on an advanced drift dive through the Passe Garaue, which is the big deal here. They did not think Cindy was quite prepared for it which was fine for her. It is famous for the large number and variety of pelagic fish, which are the ocean roamers, like sharks, manta rays, dolphins, barracudas, etc. And, there were lots of sharks!! Big and little Grey sharks - no Tigers, Hammerheads or Great Whites, but there were lots of them, and they got close up and personal as they are very curious about everything in their realm. I would not want to be bleeding around them but they were harmless this time. I also saw four very large dolphins in the distance and hoped that they would get closer but they just swam away. A barracuda made a cameo appearance swimming through all the other reef fish and then he disappeared. The trip back today, and yesterday, was extremely rough as we had to motor back through large seas and wind. Your hands went numb and your arms ached from holding on so hard to keep from being launched off the side or back of the large zodiac.

Tomorrow, depending on the weather, we will pull up anchor and go over to Toau which is much wilder than Fakarava with its stores, restaurants and airport. The diving is supposed to be superb there as well. I had the dive shop refill our two tanks and the little pony tank with fresh air and we may go diving by ourselves over there. Other than the painful sinus squeezes I get when diving, it is a cosmic experience like no other. Can't believe we haven't been in such a long time as we used to go all the time when we lived in Denver. With the boat we have not had the time or money to do it but you can't pass up the opportunities out here. People spend thousands of dollars to fly in here just to dive for a week and here we are!! I will try and put a pic with the sharks on the blog as soon as we get to an internet site.

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