Fakarava, French Polynesia
/After a quick day in Rangiroa, we headed north to another atoll called Fakarava. There isn't much to see on land here, as its just a narrow ring of sand and palm trees surrounding a huge lagoon, but the diving was incredible. We booked two dives and everything we read said that the diving here would be very similar to the diving in Rangiroa. Other than the unbelievably clear, 80 degree water, we found it to be a completely different experience. The reef here was completely untouched and full of color and life.
We knew we could expect to see some sharks but we were blown away. Just off the face of the cliff wall we saw a group of maybe 40 or 50 swimming around schools of smaller fish. We also saw several moray eels and all kinds of tropical reef fish. On our last dive of the day, just as we were finishing up our air, we saw an enormous Manta, about 6 or 7 feet across. He had come up from below us and began circling around to take a look at us before heading back down below. Samantha and I were the only people diving, but there were other people from the cruise on our little boat that were snorkeling. At the end of the dive we exchanged info and ended up having dinner with them and a few other people. As Sam said in the last post, we were by far the youngest guests on board so some of the older folks thought it was fun to hang out with us, sort of as a novelty. Fortunately for us, most of these particular old folks have been cruising for as long as we've been alive, and were loads of fun to be with. They included us in their private tour of Easter Island, which will be our next and final destination! Stay tuned!
