Lagoon Tour

Up once more at red-vented bulbul fart for an all-day tour with a watery theme. Yes, we were going to go swimming, diving, and otherwise interacting with aquatic wildlife of a Mo’orean variety. The hearty man ate a condemned breakfast, then we were ready for pick-up at 8:00am, along with another French couple from Sofitel. We picked up four more along the way – two French and two Aucklanders, who were staying at what appeared to be a pizzeria.

After driving round what seemed to be most of the island, we reached our starting point and boarded the vessel. We were greeted by Charlie, our guide, and captain Kali, of Enjoy Boat Tours. We first headed out of the lagoon to the open ocean, to see some lemon sharks.

Mo’orea is surrounded by an atoll reef, with 12 gaps in it. The gaps are caused by rivers flowing into the sea at that point – coral will only grow in salt water, and the fresh outflow causes gaps in the atoll. We went through one of these, donned flippers, masks and snorkels, and took to the water, which is delightfully warm in these parts, even in the ocean. We looked down and round for sharks. There was a lemon shark and some reef sharks, but I didn’t get to see either. Maybe I needed to dive deeper and down. After swimming for a bit we reboarded and headed to another area outside the reef.

Here we saw a humpback whale with her calf basking at the surface, and she shortly upped tail and dived to the bottom. When they do this, they stay down for around 25 minutes, to have a snooze on the ocean floor. Unfortunately the boat had stopped for this, as there are regulations about how close you can get to a whale (300m), and as we waited for resurfacing, the motion in the ocean had its inevitable effect on me, with a short bout of mal de mer. Once the whale had reappeared (some way off), we headed off at full speed, and I made a just as speedy recovery.

We now headed inside the lagoon, where the water is much calmer, and followed the marked channel to a shallower area with some coral reef. We stopped to watch some spinner dolphins, so-called because they jump out of the water and spin around - which we saw a couple of times. Then took to the water again to look at reef fish in their multiplicity of colours. This was just a short stop, before we continued on to one of the islands in the lagoon, where lunch had been set up for us.

Clearly the chef had got there in advance, as the fire was going and the fish was cooked. We had barbecued tuna, mahi mahi, and chicken. Before we started, however, Charlie and Kali gave us a quick demonstration of how to make poisson cru, using tuna, cucumber, onion, carrot, coconut milk (freshly squeezed by Charlie) and lime juice. We enjoyed our lunch with salad and rice, and pineapple dusted with fresh coconut. On the sand on the beach we saw crabs, both hermit and non-hermit, and in the water, mullet of varying sizes turned up, as well as a stingray and a small  black-tipped reef shark. They appeared almost on cue as the washing-up was started, and fought over the scraps of food. Also circling overhead were grey-backed terns, and Charlie offered up bits of food for them to grab from his fingers, or thrown into the air. Once everything was cleared up, we fully expected a demonstration of how to open a coconut followed by how to tie a lavalava, but neither of these things happened! Instead, we reboarded as there was still much to see and do.

Nicola records a ray saying "OI! Where's me lunch?"

Our first stop in the afternoon was in relatively deep water, but still inside the lagoon. Here, Charlie found and pointed out to us some turtles on the lagoon floor. As we were looking a school of large rays passed beneath us. Charlie eventually located the turtles, and we saw half a dozen or so. After we’d got back on the boat, we spotted two of them coming up to the surface for air. They don’t stay long!

The final call was at the petting zoo. This was an area of the lagoon where the water is chest-deep, and stingrays regularly turn up here to be fed. Some of these were quite large – particularly when the matriarch turned up, but they were allowing themselves to be touched, and indeed approached Charlie eagerly (they know who has the food!). Also circling the area, and sometimes zooming in between us, were black-tipped reef sharks – some of which were much larger than the ones we’d seen so far, around 2 metres of so in length. There were more small coral growths, so there were the inevitable brightly-coloured reef fish, including some parrotfish and a triggerfish.

That was the end of the tour. We had seen wonderful things on a beautiful sunny day, and enjoyed a typical Polynesian feast. We landed back at the dock and took our transport back to the hotel, to wash the salt out of our togs and hair.