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Cruising and Diving in French Polynesia (LONG)
Marquesas Itinerary: October 20-30, 2003.
INTRODUCTION AND GENERALITIES. This is my third Cruise-and-Dive trip (on the islands of the ports of call in the French Polynesia of the South Pacific. This report is mainly about the DIVING on the islands of the 10-day Marquesas itinerary, of the Archipel des Marquises, written during the early morning hours when the local time is 4-6 am but my biological clock says it's 10-noon (Eastern USA; GMT -0400). Later, I'll file a report pooling together the SCUBA DIVING locations I've done in the French Polynesian islands based on my four recent trips there (3 cruises of 7, 10, and 10 days respectively on the Tahitian Princess cruiseship, and 7 days on the Tahiti Aggressor liveaboard). FRENCH POLYNESIA. It consists of five groups of islands, the best known of which is Archipel de la Societe, containing Tahiti, Moorea, Huahine, Raiatea, Bora Bora, and many other smaller islands. Then there is Archipel des Tuamotu, the best known island of which is Rangiroa, and is the group of islands dived by the Tahiti Aggressor. Archipel des Marquises consists of a group of islands about 800 miles from Tahiti. This trip featured two of the most important islands in that group, Nuku Hiva and Hiva Oa, but only one of the has a dive shop. The other two archipelagos in French Polynesia are Archipel des Australes (accessible by ferry to Ryoa) and Archipel da Gambier (accessible by ferry to Mongareva) both from Papeete in Tahiti). No cruiseships visit any of the islands in Australes or Gambier, but the Tahitian Pricess cruiseship has two itineraries that embark from Papeete, and goes to Samoa (1,300 miles from Tahiti), and to the Cook Islands (600+ miles from Tahiti). Since both these itineraries cover some of the islands in the Society Islands group, I had previous been mistaken to think that Samoa and the Cook Islands were part of the French Polynesia, but they are not and are far away WEST of the French Polynesia! So much for the geographical factoids and orientation. DIVING FROM A CRUISESHIP VS ON A LIVEABOARD. The main difference between diving on a liveaboard and from a cruiseship is that I did 22 dives in 5 1/2 days on the Aggressor, whereas on a Tahitian cruise I typically do 1 dive (occasionally two) on each "divable" port/day, totaling perhaps no more than 4-6 dives on almost as many different islands on a 7-10 day crusie. Surprisingly, the cost of a 10-day Tahitian cruise, in a spacious state- room with private balcony is only about HALF the price of a cabin of half its size, on a typical 7-day Aggressor or Peter Hughes liveaboard, because of the deep discounts cruiseships have been offering. That's why I was on the Tatitian Princess in June 2003, now, and April 2004, all 10-day itineraries (Samoa, Marquesas, and Cook Islands respectively). On cruises, the cost of diving is extra -- about $70 per tank, all equipment included, on most islands. But the FOOD, dining, dancing, evening shows and other entertainment, as well as living comfort are heads and shoulders better on a typical cruise than the best of the liveaboards. Thus, we found it, especially for islands in the French Polynesia, a better bang for the buck on a cruise (booking our own dives) than on the Tahiti Aggressor say, with the cost of unlimited number of dives included in a 5 1/2 day diving charter. ROUGH ESTIMATES OF COSTS OF CRUISING VS LIVEABORD. I estimate the cost pp (EXCLUDING roundtrip airfare to Papeete, Tahiti but including the connecting package from Pepeete to Rangiroa, and tip) for a week (7 nights and 5 1/2 days diving) on the Tahiti Aggressor to be about $2,600 USD, whereas the 10-night cruise on the Tahitian Princess (EXCLUDING roundtrip airfare to Papeete, Tahiti, and extras for dining and alcholic breverages, but INCLUDING tip and the cost of 5 1-tank dives on five islands) to be LESS than $2,000 USD, pp., in a 7-th deck stateroom with private balcony (listed at over $2,600 USD). In short, the liveaboard scene is for die-hard, gung-ho (younger) divers whereas the cruise-and-dive scene is more for the laid-back divers, who enjoy partying and topside-attractions and/or less concentrated and strenuous diving, and are generally older folks who want to SAMPLE the diving and the topside attractions in several islands on a single cruise that might otherwise take months or years to cover. MY RATING OF THE FRENCH POLYNESIAN Scuba Diving LOCATIONS. At the risk of some inevitable apple-vs-orange effect, I shall put a rating number (0-10) on each of the dives, with reference to some of the best sites/locations in which I've have done many dives: Site/Locations Approx. # Times dived Rating Coco's Island sites 40 9.5 Palau (Blue Corner) 10 9.2 Punta Tunich, Cozumel 30 9.0 Palau (other sites) 50 8.8 Bloody Bay Wall, Little Cayman 100 8.6 Punta Sur, Punta Sur II, Cozumel 85 8.5 Palancar Reef, Cozumel 500 8.2 North Walls, Grand Cayman 50 8.1 Santa Rosa Wall, Cozumel 90 8.0 Turks & Caicos 120 7.5 The Great Barrier Reef, Australia 14 7.3 The Bahamas 200 7.2 Belize, Lighthouse and Outer reefs Other Caribbean locations (BVI, BWI, Aruba, Barbacos, Sint Maartin, 75 7.0 St. John, St. Thomas, Saba, etc) 150 6.5 Kona, Oahu, Hawaii 30 6.3 Roatan and Bay Islands 80 6.2 Tobago (for Forest Aten who called me a "negative old codger" because of my assessment of Tobago diving :-)) 13 3.0 10-Day MARQUESAS ITINERARY ON THE TAHITIAN PRINCESS. This report is to give you an idea of what such a 10-day cruise on the Tahitian Princess cruise is like, divingwise. The cruise itinerary was: DAY PORT Arrival/Departure Dive Shop October 20 2003 Papeete 21 Moorea 8:00/17:00 Bathy's Dive Shop 22 Fakarava (at sea) 23 AT SEA 24 Nuku Hiva 8:00/17:00 Centre de Plongee des Marquises 25 Hiva Oa 8:00/17:00 26 AT SEA 27 Rangiroa 8:00/16:00 Raie Manta Club 28 Raiatea noon/24:00 Hemisphere-Sub Plongee 29 Bora Bora 8:00/17:00 Bora Diving Center 30 Papeete 6:00/ GETTING THERE. The gateway to all five archipelagos of the French Polynesia is the Faaa (Fa-ah-ah-ah) airport of Pepeete (Pep-pee-et-te) of Tahiti, which is only one of the islands of the Society Islands group, though the entire groups of hundreds of ialands are sometimes referred to, inaccurately and collectively as, Tahiti. At various times, Hawaiian Airline, Air Tahiti Nui, Air France, and Air New Zealand connect from LAX or HNL to Papeete (PPE). Recently the Princess cruise used mainly the chartered airline OMNI (operating under Delta) for the LAX-PPE connection which takes approx. 8 hours flight time (1:45 pm departure from LAX, arrival at Papeete 6:45 pm local time) so that even if one starts from the East Coast, one can easily start in the morning, and arrive Papeeta the evening of the same day. MOOREA. (Pronounced "mo-oh-re-ah") Sister island of Tahiti in the Society Islands archipelago. There are several dive shops that can be pre-booked via email: Bathy's Club (689) 56.21.44 Moorea Fun Dive www.divemoorea.com Top Dive - M.U.S.T. www.topdive.com Scubapiti www.scubapiti.com We chose to walk-on and play-it-by-ear, having dived with Fun Dive and Bathy's Club before. As we disembarked the first tender from the cruiseship, about 8:15 am, the Top Dive rep was already there waiting for the 5 divers who had booked with them, and they were waiting to be picked up by a dive boat right there. We asked if we could join the group, but since they had no tank for us on the boat, the question was moot. So, we repeated our prior experience in June by taking a free shuttle to the Beachcomer Hotel to dive with Bathy's Club. The driver offering the free shuttle was Emmanual, whose relatives own the Black Pearl business across from the hotel, and also other tourist businesses all over the island. Thus, he was willing and eager to take anyone to, or near, those businesses, without any obligation for the free-riders to buy anything. As it turned out, by the time we got to the dive shop about 8:45 am, the diveboat was already fully loaded with 12 divers from the hotel and ready to leave. Since Sue and I had all our own gears and the owner JP (Juan Pedro DURAN LOPEZ) remembered us from June, we filled in the remaining "standing room" on the boat, and we were off to a "shark feeding dive" at the Canyon. JP was most cordial and accommodating. After we had finished the dive (when we had no bargaining leverage on the cost of the dive) he not only gave us discount for our good looks g, he recommended, at our request, and phoned the dive shops with which we had dived before in Raiatea and Bora Bora, as well as one we hadn't dived with before in Rangiroa, to dive with them on our dates of arrivals. Thus, with the exception of the Marquesas islands (one of which Hiva Oa has no dive shop at all), our dives were booked for the remainder of the trip, without a single email or phone call by us. Two of the operators JP phoned remembered us from previous dives with them, so we must've done something right, or terribly wrong. I hope it was the former. :-) In the French Polynesian islands, blacktip and reef sharks are seen on almost every dive, often by the dozens without any chum. Thus the "feeding" was apparently staged for those clients with video and cameras to take some closeup shots at the "feeding frenzy" when the DM waves BIG fish heads with dangling meat, as well as poking the sharks away with the same heads, while all the divers gather around and watch at a spot around the feeding-DM at the "canyon" at 70 fsw. The feeding-DM wore a chain-mail protective glove on the feeding arm, while several other DMs hover behind the "seated" divers, and keeping an eye on the feeder, with easily 40-50 lbs of fish-heads in the mesh bag. The main guests were the blacktip sharks. They were small ones, ranging from about two to five feet in length, but large in number, perhaps a couple of dozens. One lemon shark (one can easily tell from its bull- shark shape because there are no bull sharks here) came early but wasn't interested enough to stay. The other uninvited guests joining the party are several 1-2 ft ramoras, dozens of large (2+ ft) rainbow jacks, dozens of moorish idols, damselfish, one Titan Triggerfish who managed to snatch a large fishhead from the DM while the sharks couldn't, and assorted reef fish which seemed unconcerned that they might be mistaken by the sharks to be part of the chum. When the fish heads were consumed or dragged away by shark or fish after about 30 minutes, we looked at some resident lionfish under coral heads while the non-air-misers were escorted back to the mooring line to the boat. The dive logged 55 minutes; 72 fsw max, with water temp 79-82F. The visibility ranged from 60-100 feet on a somewhat choppy sea. Good dive. For the special circumstances encountered, I would rate this dive 8.5. After two days at sea, we arrived at Nuku Hiva, the largest of the 12 islands (6 inhabited and 6 unpopulated) of the Marquesas Islands, 800 miles northeast of Tahiti. Four of the islands in Marquesas are accessible by air: Nuku Hiva, Ua Nuka, Ua Poa, and Atuona. NUKU HIVA. Population 2,375. Marquesas Islands group. Population 7,000. There is only one dive shop listed in Nuku Hiva: Centre de Plongee des Marquises. www.marquises.com (689) 920.088 Since that was the only dive shop on the island, I was pretty sure I would have no trouble finding it after we took the earliest tender to shore. And when I saw a boat with scuba tanks in it at the pier, I KNEW we were in luck. As it turned out, the scuba shop was right at the pier! We were the only two divers from the cruiseship making the dive though. Four other divers I met who wanted to dive today were too late by the time they got to shore because the shop would not make another dive until it's too late in the afternoon for them to do so. It turned out that we were DOUBLY lucky today, besides making the dive. We learned from the dinner waiter later that this was the FIRST time the Tahitian Princess visited this island ... and ... it was the most fantastic dive I've done for quite awhile because of the hammerheads and manta rays we saw in our dive at Sentinelle aux Marteaux (Hammer- head watch). The DM Jonathan said they don't normally see mantas at this site -- only the hammerheads. But today we saw mantas throughout the one-hour dive -- large ones, at least a dozen of them (from the different markings I could tell). On descent to 80 fsw, we immediately saw three hammerheads (about 6-7 feet in length) and two large mantas. Except for a brief reappearance, we didn't see any more hammerheads the rest of the dive. Instead, the manta rays kept coming back, in groups of 2, 3, and 4, sometimes below us, sometimes above, but never afraid of us -- one swam toward me and glided right over my head where I could have touched it. I suspected it was curious about my hood which had a shark's fin on top of it. That manta was probably wondering if it was a new species of shark or a large unicorn fish it encountered. This unexpected manta dive was better than any of the FIVE I did at Yap where we waited at the same spot at their cleaning station on every one of those dives. On this "hammerhead dive", we were swimming the entire time, looking at other sights and fishes. The topography of the site reminded me of Cocos Island. The island is all rocks, extending from the surface to a sand-bottom flat at about 110 fsw max. Besides the main attractions, we also saw several lionfish, moorish idols, long snout butterflyfish and other species of butterflyfish and damselfish. The dive was in slight to moderate current. My Reefnet gizmo logged 100 fsw max for 1 hour and 3 minutes, on a 72 cu.ft. steel tank, at water temp raging from 80-82F. For the expected hammerheads and the unexpected manta encounters, I rate this dive a 9.2! After a day at sea from Oa Hiva, we returned to Rangiroa, the largest atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago. It's the second-largest atoll in the world, outranked only by Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands. At 5:30 am, the ship entered the narrow Tiputa Pass (where we did two fast-drift dives from the Tahiti Aggressor, less than a year ago). By 6:15 am, the ship was anchored in the same cove as the Tahiti Aggressor, less than 100 yards apart. The tenders started taking passengers from the ship to shore at 7 am, an hour earlier than usual, because the departure time is also an hour earlier, at 4 pm. RANGIROA. The best-known island of the French Polynesia for shark diving. Population 700. Rangiroa has more than 240 motu (inlets). Blue Dolphins Diving Center www.bluedolphinsdiving.com Dream Dive Center www.dreamdive.pf Top Dive Rangiroa www.topdive.com Rangiroa Paradive www.chez.com/paradive Raie Manta Club Rangiroa www.ranemantaclub.free.fr The Siz Passengers www.the6passengers.com Juan Pedro of Bathy's in Moorea had booked us with the Manta Club. At 8 am we were promptly picked up at the pier the cruiseship tender dropped us. The dive shop was only around the corner, a couple of minutes away. We donned all our gears at the shop and were off on a rubber dinghy with 5 other French divers to the Outer Reef of the entrance of Tiputa Pass. We dived this exact location when we were on the Tahiti Aggressor! The reef was a wall dropping off from about 50 fsw. It was NOT a shark dive as we expected in Rangiroa. We saw exactly ONE medium sized reef shark. It was a hard coral reef with schools of barracudas, jacks, and snappers, and tons of various colorful smaller reef fish. Of the bigger fellas, we met a leisurely swimming manta ray of about 6-foot wing span. A videographer and I were able to stay right on top of it without swimming hard, for about half a minute. A 3-foot turtle was busy chomping on a piece of coral without paying attention to all the photogs and divers hovering around it. It never swam from its meal. There were several Titan triggerfish and medium size balloonfish. It was a completely leisurely dive on a mild drift, with 100-ft visibility, 80F water temp and my dive logged 1 hr. 4 minutes, with max depth 126 fsw, on a 72 cu.ft. steel tank. Against my prior expectation, this dive was as disappointing as the Nuku Hiva dive was an unexpected pleasant surprise. The location was an excellent one, however, and I would rate it 8.5. The cruiseship left port at 4 pm to navigate through the Tikihau Atolls. Early next morning, the cruiseship took a scenic cruise inside the Tiahaa lagoons before docking at Raiatea at noon. RAIATEA (Pronounced "rai-ah-te-ah") Population 10,037. Society Archipelago. Hemisphere-Sub Plongee www.diveraiatea.com Te Mara Nui Plongee (689) 66.11.88) We dived with the Hemisphere-Sub dive shop in June, and booked it again at the recommendation of Juan Pedro. The shop turned out to be the same one the cruiseship booked its 11 divers, except they were charged more. Since everyone (who signed up) show, we were in an "overbooked" situation. The DM with whom we dived before said she would go with us and two other divers to a different site. I assumed, optimistically, that the other two were more experienced than most of those who signed up with the cruiseship and that the DM was going to take us to a better, perhaps more challenging site. Instead, no other diver showed up, and she took us to a SHORE dive from the Hawiki Hotel to an old wooden ship wreck! Whether that was a "good" wreck and she was doing us a favor was beside the point. I DON'T like diving wrecks. When we learned that it was going to be a SHORE dive to the wreck, I put my foot down and said a firm "No!". After some negotiation, we decided we would rather NOT dive than diving some mucky wreck, she finally admitted they had only ONE boat, and that we could re-start at 2:30 when the boat returned. We were the only two divers on that dive! Though we had dived the same site twice, the Miri Miri, or formerly Napolean Miri because of the resident friendly and HUGE Napolean Wrasse there (which had since been hooked by fishermen), it was still a good dive, with good vis, lots of colorful reef fish, on a sloping hard-coral wall that goes all the way to the surface from about 120 fsw. We saw only two sharks, but two clownfish, five lionfish, an unusual looking "spotted green" moray, and a small Napolean wrasse, in addition to the myriads of reef fish. When he DM started to brief us on when to terminate the dive based on the amount of air left, I volunteered that we would do only 1 hour (and said we probably would have half a tank of air left, :-) remembering that was a dive averaging only about 50 fsw). As it turned out, I wasn't far off the mark -- I had 1200 psi (72 steel) and Sue had a couple hundred more, when we finished the dive which logged 1 hour 3 minutes, 83 fsw max and 79F. I would rate this site an 8.0. It was hard to believe that we were into Day 10 of the cruise when we entered the lagoon of what James Michener called "the most beautiful place in the world", Bora Bora, shortly before 8 am. BORA BORA One of the best known in the Society Islands Archipelago. Bora Diving Center www.boradive.com Bora Bora Blue Nui www.bluenui.com Mara Dive Center www.sofitel.com Nemo World Bora Bora www.nemodivebora.com Again, our independently booked dive turned out to be with the same shop the cruiseship booked, Bora Diving Center. We were picked up by the dive boat directly at the pier where we disembarked from the cruise ship tender because the boat already had all the gears of the other divers. We didn't even have to fill any form because the owner Michel dived with me in June and he remembered me from dives we did in 2000. We dived a site I've never dived before, the Manta Ray wall inside the lagoon. For any site INSIDE the lagoon, with no current, the vis is is always poor -- which accounted for the appearance of mantas who thrive on the plankton that made the low vis! The site had a max depth of about 80 feet to a sand bottom, and the vis was perhaps 30 near the surface, dropping to 10-20 feet at various depths near the bottom. But we found manta rays from the start of our descent on this dive throughout the rest of this 1 hour dive. There wasn't much else to see. The mantas range in size from about a 6-foot wing span for the males to 10-ft for one large female. BT 1 hr. 1 minute; Max depth 73 fsw; water temp 79-82F. I rate this site a 7.0. Add 1.0 if you're a manta ray fan. Other sites in Bora Bora are not up to par with other islands of French Polynesia. Note to snorkelers: Both the cruiseship scheduled tours and snorkelers outnumber (certified) scuba divers by at least 4 to 1, on every port. While IMO Bora Bora had the LEAST to offer in scuba diving sites, the opposite seems to be the consensus for snorkelers who pay $50+ for a snorkeling trip while the scuba divers pay $72+ for a one-tank dive on all of the islands. Concluding remarks for SCUBA divers: I didn't fully appreciate the remark I reported (in my 1992 Cocos Island dive report) until now, what a famous Japanese photog and scuba magazine publisher, Akira Tateishi, said through his interpreters, that prior to his trip to Cocos, he thought the BEST diving in the world was in the French Polynesia! Of course the French Polynesia covers an area greater than the entire USA or the Caribbean, with as many dive locations/islands. MY subjective ratings of 9.5 (for Cocos) and 8.5 (Moorea), 9.2 (Nuku Hiva), 8.5 (Rangiroa), 8.0 (Raiatea), and 7.0 (Bora Bora) for the five islands dived on this trip seem to echo Mr. Tateishi's sentiments. Some of these islands and sites are not in the usual lists of wannabee locations such as PNG, Maldives, etc., because they are so inaccessible and so rarely dived! Thus, I think, in today's market of cruises with deeply discounted fares, it's a tremendous opportunity for scuba divers to try the cruise-and-dive scene, especially at exotic locations like the islands in the French Polynesia. I am already booked on the 10-night, Cook Islands itinerary, on the same Tahitian Princess next April. Aloha and Happy Halloween, -- Bob. (at LAX Hilton on Halloween before the brooms start flying). |
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Cruising and Diving in French Polynesia (LONG)
Wow what an interesting review.
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Cruising and Diving in French Polynesia (LONG)
(Reef Fish) pounded away at his
keyboard resulting in: :Later, I'll file a report pooling together the SCUBA DIVING locations Man, I tells ya. You might have to replace your typewriter ribbon after this report. Sounds like you had a good time, Glad to hear it. Dan Bracuk If at first you don't succeed, you run the risk of failure. The Best of rec.scuba http://www.pathcom.com/~bracuk/RecScuba/ -----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =----- http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! -----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =----- |
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Cruising and Diving in French Polynesia (LONG)
Reef Fish wrote:
Snip nicely complete report Thank you for such a thorough report! It was a pleasure to read. Amber |
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Cruising and Diving in French Polynesia (LONG)
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