S 16-03.4 by W 145-37.6 – This morning we went scuba diving. Special Blend had highly recommended the Fakarava Dive Center and we had booked an appointment the day before while in town. The dive master and his wife picked us up from Kosmos and took us out to a reef inside the lagoon near the north pass. It was just the two of us. The dive master adjusted Christi’s weights, saying she had too much. We loaded into our gear and jumped in.

Much to everyone’s amazement,Christi equalized with no problems and we were able to get going right away. The coral here was comparable to Apataki, but there were not nearly as many fish. The water was not super clear, but visibility was pretty good. We did see a few species here that we hadn’t seen before. One of the nice things about going with the dive master is that he knows the names of all the species down there. We saw a nurse shark that was about 5 feet long, a smaller black tipped reef shark, and another type of shark about the same size as the black tipped. We saw Trigger fish, which are larger fish with multiple colors, including red, and bug eyes. We saw a Moray Eel. We saw a Grouper. We saw both types of the long, skinny fish and found out the bigger ones are called needle fish. We saw lots of small zebra striped fish and lot of baby Parrot fish. The schools of these little fish huddled around coral formations that looked like plants with branches. When the dive master snapped his fingers, all the fish would, in unison, zoom inside the coral branches, hiding from the noise in the safety of the coral around them. A moment later they would re-emerge.

After SCUBA diving, we headed into town for lunch. As we walked toward the restaurant, we passed a group of men playing traditional music with traditional instruments. We stopped to listen for a minute, but we were hungry, so we continued on to the restaurant. There were tons of kids playing in the street, most of the littlest ones in their underwear.

The restaurant is right on the water and it has a unique ambience. There are wooden tables painted bright colors on a concrete patio and in the sand. The patio cover is palm frond. The décor included strings of coral and shell, Parues (traditional colorful cloth skirts) strung together, and big tree branches painted bright colors. They had really good, mellow background music, including Cold Play. It is tres chic.

Being that we are in French Polynesia, the food served here has a strong French influence. There are usually a few traditional Polynesian dishes on the menu. Raw fish served some way is always one of them. Raw fish is a staple around here. But, generally speaking, the majority of the menu choices are French food, or Polynesian dishes with a strong French influence, kind of like Asian Fusion. We love French food, and we really love Asian Fusion, so we have been loving the food here. They serve large portions that are comparable to the US. Christi had raw fish prepared differently than we had before, with onion in a vinaigrette sauce. It was actually simpler than the other preparation styles, but still good. Eric had Vanilla Mahi Mahi. The fish was perfect and came with a rich vanilla sauce on the side. The vanilla sauce almost tasted like Crème Brule. Eric had to restrain himself from licking the bowl.

On the way back, we saw that several people had joined the musicians, including 5 women who were dancing the dances that went with the music. Clearly, this was a rehearsal for an upcoming event. We sat down under a tree to watch the rehearsal. The group performed a slower, Hawaiian like dance.

When the dance was over, a woman who was observing cut in and made a request. Three very skinny and beautiful teenaged girls in bathing suit tops and Parue skirts joined in with the women and tried to follow along as best they could. There was a sound person, a camera man and a photographer on the girls, plus an entourage of people standing on the sidelines. It turns out that every few years there is a Tahiti model search competition, and the three winners of the contest get 5 year modeling contracts with a New York agency. These girls were the winners. The girls joined in three or four dances, and then the big group of them took off. The ladies rehearsed a few more dances, mostly faster dances with highly choreographed placements of each lady at each moment. Then the dancers and musicians disbursed, so rehearsal must have been over.

After the show, we headed back to Kosmos. We decided to stop and introduce ourselves to the boat next to us on the way in. They are from San Francisco. We ended up visiting with them for almost two hours. We also had another nice sunset.