Night diving and swimming with stingrays
Jackamy
Paul & Derry Harper
Sun 23 May 2010 08:45
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Sunday 23rd May
After the picnic Paul, Brian from Miss Tippy
and another Brian from a motorboat we met in Nuka Hiva decided it would be good
fun to do a night dive. The closer it got to going down the more nervous Paul
became. Amy jumped in the water off the side of the boat with a torch to see
what it'd be like and she quickly got straight back out as she said it was
creepy - this didn't do much for Pauls nerves! Once at the dive site he said he
relaxed and felt fine as they went down. They didn't see much though which
probably helped him because had they seen the 14 sharks that were out there the
other day I don't think he would have been so relaxed then.
  Brian (Miss Tippy) down in
the depths of the ocean.....in the dark
 A huge hermit crab, one of the
few things they saw
To reach Huahine, the next
island, at the right time you should leave Moorea at dusk and you'll arrive
the following morning. We had originally planned to set off yesterday
evening but this place is so beautiful we just couldn't bring ourselves to
leave. So what do you do of an evening in paradise......you play the 'Cardinal
Puff' and 'Harry One Spot' on board Chsalonina of course! A quiet night was not
had! But we were all up bright and early in the morning to go to a ray feeding
station. It took us around an hour to get there in our dinghy and we weren't too
sure what to expect as we all thought we were going to see different things but
what greeted us exceeded all our expectations. Around half a mile off shore
there was a sand shelf that you could stand waist deep in the water and there
were dozens of rays swimming around as well as around a dozen black-tip reef
sharks. They were all swimming in between our legs and brushing past us, it was
fantastic! Some had over a metre wingspan which at first when you're
in around 3-4 feet of water can be very daunting but when they brush past you
and you feel how silky smooth they are you begin to feel more at ease. It really
was a wonderful experience and definitely worth the hour long dinghy trip to get
there.
  The pictures aren't the best
quality because of all the sand particles but you can still see how close we
were. One even swam straight into me!
 3 on charge!
  Amy next to a baby
ray
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