Tales from the South Pacific
Sunday, May 22nd - Moorea
After the shark feeding it was very nice 10-15 minute boat ride along the coast of Moorea to the sting ray feeding area -- a very shallow (3 feet deep) portion of the lagoon. As with the sharks, and although we were out in their "natural" environment, it appeared that the rays were "trained" to start swirling around once a boat comes in and switches off its motor.
People could not get out of the boat fast enough and start wading through the shallow water to walk, swim, and snorkle amongst the rays. Again, our guide Siki brought some food out for the rays... but that involved getting under the ray and being careful that it got the food and not your hand (I think that is where the "sting" part comes in)... I think some "normal" folks were helping with the feeding here... but I was more than satisfied just to watch.
The rays were amazing... just effortlessly flapping their "wings" as they glide through the water... they are really quite long from "head" to the tip of their very long tails. I didn't touch and pick up the rays as others were doing... in fact, it seemed like I was a ray repellent... but I got close enough to enjoy them. Eventually a dozen or so black-tipped sharks came around as well... so got a double treat with a close encounter with both of these underwater creatures.
Tour guide Siki cuddles with some rays... and a boat-side view of a ray swimming by:
Finally, it was off to the private motu for the picnic. By that time, we had kind of guessed it was the "other" motu where we had been dropped off at the day before for some snorkeling on our own.
The picnic was very good.... lots of fresh fruit, rice, bbq fish... and one of the island specialties - poisson cru. This is a raw fish meal consisting of fresh vegetables and marinated briefly in lime juice & coconut milk. I am not the biggest fan of eating fish in the world - particularly the raw - but I have to admit this was really quite good... and the bbq fish was yummy as well. And beer and rum punch, too!
The final money making scheme of this adventure was purchasing your own VHS or DVD copy of the day's activities. This guy caught our eye very early on... and he turned out to be the videographer. He was all over the place, getting into scuba gear to capture the shark feeding... then otherwise collecting video of the boat trip, picnic preparations, etc. There were no problems with people signing up for their own copy of the 8000 CPF ($95 US) VHS/DVD that would be delivered to your hotel that same night. But we know ourselves pretty well... sure we would look at it once, maybe again with some company... but otherwise it would be sitting on some shelf in some closet collecting dust for many years to come.
Now, if the DVD included coverage of the guy TAKING the video we may have reconsidered. This guy was quite the stud ... think surfer dude with a French accent, just an extremly solid body and pretty darn ruggedly handsome to boot!
I did manage to secretly snap a few shots of him... so I present... Gael !
My apologies for not getting a shot of the front... I tried, but TRUST me the front is just as good as the back. Pretty difficult trying to play the "oh I am REALLY just looking at my digital photos through my viewfinder and NOT taking a picture of you" game. Though I guessed I shouldn't care... probably won't ever see the guy ever again!?!
Posted a few more pics in the Flickr vacation gallery... also adding a handy link to the gallery under the "About Me" section in the upper right hand sidebar.
Enjoyed your travel pics. You realize that Buckaroo and I are *extremely* jealous.
Posted by: Scott-O-Rama | Wednesday, June 01, 2005 at 02:43 PM