Diving With Sharks!

We never managed to dive the pass at Kauehi as when we got there the sea was too rough to leave the boat. Instead, we went back to our quiet anchorage and then left the following day for Fakarava. The trip to Fakarava was only 40 miles but as we needed to leave in good light and arrive in good light we had to travel overnight. The winds were very light, so we literally drifted south overnight and hove to for 6 hours while we waited for dawn and finally arrived at the south pass at Fakarava about 6.30am.

Trying to time the entrance through the passes for slack tide is a bit like trying to do magic, it never works! Fortunately, with light winds the passes seem to be OK at any state of tide so we had breakfast while the waiting for the sun to be higher in the sky so that we could see the coral and then made our way into the pass. The channel focuses the tide and although we had only a couple of knots of current overall, we had 5 in one spot!

We anchored just inside the pass so getting to it in the dinghy to dive was very easy. The first day we left it too late to snorkel as the ebb had started. You can only swim safely with the flood so that if anything happens you get swept into the atoll rather than out to sea!

The following day we planned a dive with a few other boats. We were very fortunate as our friends on Ladybug were willing to snorkel and tow our dinghy so that we did not have to dive dragging it on a 100 foot rope. This day we were a little early and the current was fairly strong but the dive was amazing. In the centre of the pass there were hundreds of sharks just drifting in the current. We held onto coral on the bottom and watched them for quite a while. Due to the current there were very few fish visible but the coral was very pretty.

After our dive we all snorkelled back towards the anchorage with the dinghy in tow. Around the corner of the pass towards the boats the current picks up and was whizzing us along. It was as if someone was fast forwarding a video as everything was going by so quickly. We were impersonating 'superman' flying through the water! When we got tired, we all climbed in the dinghy and headed back to the boat for a rest.

The following days we did the same dive another 3 times and also snorkelled on the opposite side of the pass. We never saw as many sharks as we always timed the dive to have as little current as possible but this meant we saw lots more fish. There was one area in particular which was a little lagoon with a pass through it and the coral on either side was only a few feet deep. In this area we saw huge Napoleon Wrasse about 4ft long, numerous sharks and thousands of little fish. It was like our own private aquarium. The last day a pleasure boat was in this lagoon with clients and they were feeding the sharks only about 20ft away from where we were standing. Amazingly none of us felt threatened by the sharks. As soon as they got anywhere near they turned and swam the other way. It's nice to know that for reef sharks they are more interested in fish than people!

The wind turned so that the anchorage became uncomfortable so we moved to a quiet corner of the atoll and anchored off a palm tree lined beach. We stayed here for a few days having a rest after all our swimming of the previous days. Then we sailed to the north end of the atoll to the village which is where we are currently anchored. There are a few shops here so hopefully we will get bread and will go looking at pearls. There are lots of pearl farms here but at the moment we have no idea how much they cost!

Once we have shopped we plan to move to the next atoll called Toau. We will hopefully do more diving and snorkelling. We will have a week there before heading to Tahiti for a 2 day cruisers gathering.