Diving with Martin and Ginger

This morning we woke up to 18 knot winds, swells in the normally flat lagoon, and overcast skies. We were going diving with Martin and Ginger, and we were a little nervous. Except for the “Spaghetti” dive, we have not dived without a dive master. Eric got the inflatable dinghy ready. As the four of us were leaving for the dive site, Giles called over to us that his anchor was stuck. Martin hopped in snorkel gear and thankfully with a couple strategic tugs on the chain had Giles’ boat freed in a couple of minutes.

We followed Martin and Ginger over to the site, near the pass. It was a very rough and wet ride, which was increasing our nervousness. As we were loading into our gear, they told us they have been on 800 dives. Phew. Just as good as being with a dive master. We’d be OK. Martin and Ginger each brought very high end underwater cameras down with them.

Under the water it was perfect. We had timed it so there was little current. It was just as clear below the water as above. Both Christi and Eric had a little difficulty equalizing, but within a few minutes were down. We started in a shallow area and got progressively deeper. We went down to 70 feet. The coral wasn’t particularly colorful, but the formations were beautiful. There weren’t nearly as many fish as we expected, but there were still plenty to keep us enthralled. Generally larger specimens of some fish we had seen before. We saw some blue spotted grouper, some extremely large zandus cornulus (angel fish?), some large parrotfish, some surgeon fish, some butterfly fish, some goatfish, a couple of sharks, an enormous tuna, a trumpet mouth fish, and a barracuda, to name a few. We also saw a couple of surgeonfish doing their mating dance. There were a lot of oysters. The highlight was the starfish. At least, we think they are starfish. They are a shaped like a five pointed star and a beige-pinky color with a light brown design. They are 2 2.5 feet big and puffy. They look like a decorative pillow on a little girl’s bed, not a sea animal. Ginger and Martin were taking pictures like crazy of the different critters.

Once we were done with the dive, we headed back to Kosmos for lunch. We finally saw our first turtle. We have been hoping to see one forever. He just nonchalantly swam by Kosmos. Of course, as soon as we pulled out the camera, he dove. We have also seen several black tipped reef sharks cruising by.

After lunch, we decided to go snorkeling around the boat. There are a few large coral formations under Kosmos and a lot of tiny reef fish living in the coral. We can’t believe how great this spot is. We saw our resident sharks and some parrotfish, several schools of tiny fish, several pillow looking star fish, and lots of neon lipped clams. The coral here has many large baby blue and yellow-green patches, but is mostly colorless. Under the boat, we saw that our anchor chain is wrapped around a coral head. And we do mean wrapped around good. Getting out of here is going to be a challenge!

After dinner, we invited ourselves over to Martin and Ginger’s boat to look at their underwater photos and videos. They are incredible. If anyone is interested in seeing what the underwater world of French Polynesia looks like, check out their website at www.saildosgatos.com. They also have pictures from the Caribbean.

There were no lights around us except for the feeble anchor lights from a handful of boats. The sky had only a few small clouds. The moon didn’t rise until midnight. It was the perfect combination for star gazing. We went to the top deck and were mesmerized by the millions of brilliant stars in the sky. The Milky Way looks like a long, skinny illuminated cloud. There were several shooting stars. It is hard to believe those millions of stars are always there, since seeing them is so rare.

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