Diving in Bora Bora

[Cali_diver]

We are going to Tahiti on the Paul Gauguin cruise in July/Aug. We went last year and dove Tapu in Bora Bora, but I was wondering if anyone knew of any other don't miss dives in Bora Bora since we will be there for two days. I thought I read somewhere about rays, but not sure what time of the year they are there.

Same with Moorea, doing a 4 day pre-stay there......

 

[edpdiver]

We are going to Tahiti on the Paul Gauguin cruise in July/Aug. We went last year and dove Tapu in Bora Bora, but I was wondering if anyone knew of any other don't miss dives in Bora Bora since we will be there for two days. I thought I read somewhere about rays, but not sure what time of the year they are there.

Same with Moorea, doing a 4 day pre-stay there......

I have been to Bora Bora and Moorea (on the Paul Gaugin cruise, and on a land-based trip, too). I think that all of the typical dive sites are quite similar really. That is not a bad thing because they are really beautiful, but there is not too much in the way of topgraphy there that is super memorable, mostly beautiful healthy hard coral carpets, and lots of beautiful fish and sharks. The point is that all of the dive sites were excellent, but none stood out as qualitatively superior to the others. My recollection is that the dive operation from the Paul Gaugin is quite expensive and only does one-tank dives, though. You might want to go with an independent operator to get better prices and to get in more diving if possible.

Erwin

 

[TSandM]

One thing we learned during our Paul Gauguin trip is that there are several dive ops at many of the islands, and you don't HAVE to do the boat-organized dive. If we had been able to dive with the boat people, off the RIBs, it would have been fine; but we had so many divers on the ship that we were farmed off to shore-based operations at very high cost. Contact operators ahead of time and arrange your dives, and you will save money.

I did not think Bora Bora was great diving, nor Moorea; both places had a lot of dead coral (they have been experiencing a plague of crown of thorns starfish, doing a lot of reef damage). But if your cruise goes to Rangiroa, by all means dive there. That was some of the best diving I have done anywhere in the world.

We enjoyed the PG for other reasons, but I would not trumpet the diving as a reason to do that cruise. Except for Rangiroa, that is.