French Polynesia - Snorkeling

We took a snorkeling adventure, which was incredible! First stop…some coral reefs filled with small sharks and stingrays. At first AB was a bit apprehensive to get in, as were many others on the boat, but the tourguide started feeding them saying that if you feed them breakfast, they “only bite you a little”. Then he proceeded to laugh with this funny school-girl like cackle, to which we all understood to mean that he was joking. He tied off some ropes around the boat, and told us that if we stayed behind the white rope, the sharks and stingrays would not come near us. Liar. As soon as we were all out there he started feeding them again and they all swarmed. However, they wanted nothing to do with us. They just wanted him to feed them, and then they swam around a bit. Once the fear factor was gone, we both started swimming along the white rope and taking tons of pictures. After about 20 minutes of doing that, our tour guide told us to follow him to more shallow waters near the coral reefs (too shallow for sharks and rays apparently). It was there that we started to see some incredible fish, coral, and plants. The colors are amazing! After doing that for about 25 minutes, it was off to our next stop.

Second stop was a bit deeper. Here we saw even more colorful creatures. Our tourguide gave us some food to feed the fish, so they would come near us, and we could take pictures better. AB even found a tiny seahorse. 

Third stop was to see Manta rays. Not to be confused with sting rays….they are not even a close comparison in size. The Manta rays we saw were about 3 feet wide for their body, stretching to 6 feet wide with their “wingspan”. They just glide near the bottom of the ocean. Unfortunately, our camera stopped working here. The last stop was to see bigger sharks. The size of these sharks was slightly intimidating. However, we both got in and swam around. AB could only do it for about 5 minutes and got back in because she swears they were swarming her. MB decided to get a bit more bold and try to ride one. The tour guide showed him how, and he was able to ride for about 10 seconds (not much, but by the time you swim down to it, you only have 20 seconds left of breath, and you still have to swim back up). Again, underwater camera still not working, so no pictures of this...sorry.

We were wiped out after the snorkeling, so we went back to take a quick nap before dinner at the fancy restaurant tonight. The prices were not cheap, but weren’t terrible either, but we signed up for the meal plan through the travel agent, we only paid for our fancy drinks.