Fakarava Diving the Ocean Side of the Pass

This morning we began the day with another dive, this time on the ocean side of the north pass. This was definitely our best dive yet. The coral here was extremely colorful — light blue, lavender, bright yellow, dark yellow, black, white, various shades of beige. No single color was dominant. The coral also had a lot of variety in shapes, including some formations that looked almost flower-like in addition to all the shapes we had seen before.

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Fakarava Diving and Dancing

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.

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Anaho Bay Pictures

We made it to a place with semi-decent wireless Internet! Before we continue on with the daily updates, we need to get you caught up on pictures from blogs past. The last photos were leaving Taiohae, Nuka Hiva on our way to the remote Anaho Bay. Here is a view of Anaho from where we are anchored in the bay. If you look carefully, you can see the buildings that make up the village (click on images for larger versions):

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View of the bay from the shore of Continue reading

Apataki Snorkeling Fun

Today we went snorkeling in the reef near the boat. There are a lot of areas with coral around here, and yesterday on our dinghy ride yesterday we staked out the spot that we thought looked best. It is huge, has lots of coral, and is shallow so you can see everything snorkeling and don’t need to actually dive. We agree the reef here is better than both the ocean and the lagoon in Manihi.

The coral wasn’t quite as good. It was mostly shades of beige, with some dark yellows and purples here and there. There were a lot of cauliflower looking coral and a lot of long, skinny ones that look like a thorny plant. In the ocean at Manihi there was more color and more shapes of coral, like brain shapes. We also forgot to mention that there was a little bit of black coral in the ocean in Manihi. Continue reading