Moorea

Update #19 - Part 1

Our anchorage in Moorea (picture courtesy of David Berting)

It’s Wednesday night, July 20th, and we are currently underway, sailing to Aitutaki in the Southern Cook Islands.  We need to update you on our time in the Society Islands.  Thinking back I believe our last update was written in Papeete, Tahiti, when we had just arrived to the Society Islands.  Since then we have visited Moorea, Raiatea, Taha’a and Bora Bora. 

Before leaving Tahiti we spent a few days anchored at Maeva Beach.  While there we finished up projects and went on our first wreck dive where we saw an old airplane and schooner. 

We then took a day sail over to Moorea where there was a reunion of sorts.  As we pulled into the anchorage we were welcomed by friends we’d first met in Mexico who came over in their dinghies to say, “Hello.”  The following day we joined three other boats to go swimming with the sting rays.  It was absolutely brilliant!  Jumping into 3-4 feet of clear turquoise water we were surrounded by them!  We had some mahi mahi bits and the rays would literally swim up to us and hug us in an effort to be fed.  Their bodies were soft and smooth though their tails were coarse like sandpaper.  We had to be very careful to shuffle our feet and not to land on any of them while getting in and out of our dinghies.  Thankfully everyone had a great experience and no one got stung!!!  Later that day most of the cruisers met up on shore for an afternoon of sand volleyball.  While in Moorea we were also able to do some hiking, biking and diving.  A local we met over in Papeete had invited us to look her up when we arrived in Moorea.  She was the manager of the Dolphin Swim at the Inter-Continental Hotel and we got a personal tour of the sea turtles and dolphins.  We really enjoyed Moorea and hope to return.

Our friends on Seayanika and David Berting on the way to the ray site

A ray in Moorea

Sally feeding a ray

Moorea Videos

Below are the videos taken at the Moorea ray site by our friends on Tin Can (Thanks Ian & Becky!). As you'll see from the we were up close and personal with both the rays and the sharks. The sting rays would let us pet them while we fed them little bits of mahi mahi. This is definitely one of the highlights of our voyage and a "do not miss!!!" for anyone going to Moorea.

The videos can be viewed by right-mouse-clicking on the picture and selecting "save-as". Once it has been saved to your computer you can watch it by opening. If you do not have Apple's Quicktime Video it can be downloaded for free at www.apple.com/quicktime/.

With the exception of video number two, these should be short downloads for anyone with a broadband connection. If you are using dial-up, it may take a while to see the videos.

Sting Rays in Moorea - 8 seconds (2.14 MB)

Becky from Tin Can feeding the sting rays bits of fresh Mahi Mahi
- 42 seconds (6.13 MB)

Video of Sam swimming with the sharks - 4 seconds (1.17 MB)

The sharks swimming around us in Moorea - 10 seconds (2.59 MB)