Wingy
Contributor
Sorry for the delay in responding, had a few things on. Ok, having dinner tonight with the old owner from No Surrender the boat that did surrender (circumnavigated aus, nz, pacific islands all the way out to Marquesas, Australs and Rapanui, back up through torres strait around birdsdhead peninsula, back down thru indo, singapore, thailand.......and sunk 30m from Hillaries yacht club). Obviously after sinking our logs and charts were er..wet..but we will piece together our route and I will probably put it in a word doco and pm it to you.
Always enter on a slack tide, especially rangi - glad to see you hang your husband out to look for bombies, I think I have spent more time hanging upside down off bowsprits looking for bombies than actually sailing over the years lol. What a wonderful adventure. Soggy Paws guide is great was just having a look at it.
One thing I would suggest throwing in if its not going to add too much to your route (and it wont) is going over to the Marquisas - absolutely stunning and very rarely visited. You can dive at Nuka Hiva there but the rest of the Marquisas are ringed with very foreboding cliffs. If you do get there, its a very different FP again - the wild horses of the Marquisas have been there since the Spanish stopped in for a look and are magnificent. You can hang a left and head to Hawaii no dramas
When you are in the Societies, you no longer have to pass customs at Papeete if you have been in and seen the gendarmes at any other point of landing (Gendarmes at Moorea and Rangiroa seem to be the less busy and speak better english) - Id bypass Tahiti Yacht club and anchor up in Opunoha bay in Moorea. Provisioning up would be cheaper in Tahiti but its only a ten minute ride by the ferry anyway so you would be best taking your tender and provisioning there. Opunoha bay is quiet beautiful. Theres a fantastic restaurant just by the bay too...trying to remember the name but its always full of (french) locals and tourists. If you feel like seeing if your legs work on land theres often a market when the cruise ships are in at Oponoha pier. Great place for pareos and pearls...but save the pearl purchase for Rangi when there are no cruise ships in you will get a much better bargain.
To be honest I really wouldnt bother diving BB - Raitia may be little tiny bit better and anchorage used to be cheaper and is only a few minutes away. Snorkel BB save your dive budget for the Tuomotos. Given you are doing the Tuomotos and all those other wonderful places all you will really see at BB is Lemon Sharks conditioned to arrive at the sound of the cattleboat engine. I personally dont like Topdive and prefer to go with local french ops as im Cmas certified.
I am a bit ambivalent about dive passes. For some people they work out great value, some people get stung by weather and cant use all the dives before they leave and lets face it, a credit for next time you come back to a dot in the middle of the ocean is pretty much a write off. Unless you have your own boatIn your situation where you are not bound by a flight schedule it may be a great option for you.
TBH I have not known anyone with personal experience using the Te Moana pass - but it looks pretty good on paper. You could easily sneak in a dive at Tahiti...or two..theres a wreck there and also a nice not too ballistic drift the Tahiti express.
Saving your dives for the Tuomotos and snorkelling the societies seems to be the way to do it. Dive Spirit Fakarava and Six passengers seem to get good reviews so I would focus my diving there if you go with the pass.
You wont have any trouble with briefings in French - if you do have a ridiculous question someone will ask someone to translate out in the tuomotos. I believe all the centres with the Te Moana pass are fine with Padi.
Its pretty much standard for most of your route - inside lagoons and leeward good, outside lagoons as im sure you would know can be rough - remember this when you are doing the passes - if you do a blue water entry its likely going to be a swell but you end up in the nice bathtub lagoon, the opposite way, you end up perhaps in the blue with some nice sized sharks and those walls of fish you are looking for around..not to mention the dolphins
Fakarava still eludes me due to a plane deciding not to fly (this is common in FP but wont affect you) but I recently spoke to someone who had just come back and said the diving was awesome at faka but hit rangi at the wrong time. Try and schedule your trip around avoiding the cruise ships - and check the schedule of the aranui supply ship - we basically followed that out to the marquisas to make provisioning easy.
There are a couple of things you need to do in FP - have a bloody mary at Bloody Mary's in bora bora (because its bora bora) eat a gateux at Caramalline in Moorea and come in from an awesome dive on Rangi and have lunch at Lili Cafe - the mahe mahe with vanilla sauce is amazing.
If you need crew let me know lol....very jealous....fair winds will have that word doco to you as soon as I can.
Oh yeh - moorea - lots of blacktips and lemons and eagle rays, also a nice pretty dive called Coral Gardens. Worth doing as its a nice pleasurable easy dive.
Always enter on a slack tide, especially rangi - glad to see you hang your husband out to look for bombies, I think I have spent more time hanging upside down off bowsprits looking for bombies than actually sailing over the years lol. What a wonderful adventure. Soggy Paws guide is great was just having a look at it.
One thing I would suggest throwing in if its not going to add too much to your route (and it wont) is going over to the Marquisas - absolutely stunning and very rarely visited. You can dive at Nuka Hiva there but the rest of the Marquisas are ringed with very foreboding cliffs. If you do get there, its a very different FP again - the wild horses of the Marquisas have been there since the Spanish stopped in for a look and are magnificent. You can hang a left and head to Hawaii no dramas
When you are in the Societies, you no longer have to pass customs at Papeete if you have been in and seen the gendarmes at any other point of landing (Gendarmes at Moorea and Rangiroa seem to be the less busy and speak better english) - Id bypass Tahiti Yacht club and anchor up in Opunoha bay in Moorea. Provisioning up would be cheaper in Tahiti but its only a ten minute ride by the ferry anyway so you would be best taking your tender and provisioning there. Opunoha bay is quiet beautiful. Theres a fantastic restaurant just by the bay too...trying to remember the name but its always full of (french) locals and tourists. If you feel like seeing if your legs work on land theres often a market when the cruise ships are in at Oponoha pier. Great place for pareos and pearls...but save the pearl purchase for Rangi when there are no cruise ships in you will get a much better bargain.
To be honest I really wouldnt bother diving BB - Raitia may be little tiny bit better and anchorage used to be cheaper and is only a few minutes away. Snorkel BB save your dive budget for the Tuomotos. Given you are doing the Tuomotos and all those other wonderful places all you will really see at BB is Lemon Sharks conditioned to arrive at the sound of the cattleboat engine. I personally dont like Topdive and prefer to go with local french ops as im Cmas certified.
I am a bit ambivalent about dive passes. For some people they work out great value, some people get stung by weather and cant use all the dives before they leave and lets face it, a credit for next time you come back to a dot in the middle of the ocean is pretty much a write off. Unless you have your own boat
In your situation where you are not bound by a flight schedule it may be a great option for you.TBH I have not known anyone with personal experience using the Te Moana pass - but it looks pretty good on paper. You could easily sneak in a dive at Tahiti...or two..theres a wreck there and also a nice not too ballistic drift the Tahiti express.
Saving your dives for the Tuomotos and snorkelling the societies seems to be the way to do it. Dive Spirit Fakarava and Six passengers seem to get good reviews so I would focus my diving there if you go with the pass.
You wont have any trouble with briefings in French - if you do have a ridiculous question someone will ask someone to translate out in the tuomotos. I believe all the centres with the Te Moana pass are fine with Padi.
Its pretty much standard for most of your route - inside lagoons and leeward good, outside lagoons as im sure you would know can be rough - remember this when you are doing the passes - if you do a blue water entry its likely going to be a swell but you end up in the nice bathtub lagoon, the opposite way, you end up perhaps in the blue with some nice sized sharks and those walls of fish you are looking for around..not to mention the dolphins
Fakarava still eludes me due to a plane deciding not to fly (this is common in FP but wont affect you) but I recently spoke to someone who had just come back and said the diving was awesome at faka but hit rangi at the wrong time. Try and schedule your trip around avoiding the cruise ships - and check the schedule of the aranui supply ship - we basically followed that out to the marquisas to make provisioning easy.
There are a couple of things you need to do in FP - have a bloody mary at Bloody Mary's in bora bora (because its bora bora) eat a gateux at Caramalline in Moorea and come in from an awesome dive on Rangi and have lunch at Lili Cafe - the mahe mahe with vanilla sauce is amazing.
If you need crew let me know lol....very jealous....fair winds will have that word doco to you as soon as I can.
Oh yeh - moorea - lots of blacktips and lemons and eagle rays, also a nice pretty dive called Coral Gardens. Worth doing as its a nice pleasurable easy dive.
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