Tahiti & Outlying Islands Recommendations

[Maxpcf]

Hello,

I'm looking at taking a cruise with a couple other people of Summer 2018 to see Tahiti and her outlying islands. We're all fairly experienced divers and would like to see the "must-sees" as well as get a feel for the life of the area. We're from S. Florida, so I'm not sure how comparable it may be.

We are currently considering Paul Gauguin as they seem to offer a lot of dives from the boat. We'd happily take another line but think it might be complicated to coordinate dives with on shore operations when we only have a single day on the island.

Have any of you done something similar to this? Which islands would you say are richest in life? Any must-see sites, underwater or above? Any general advice?

Thanks,
Max

 

[Wingy]

The Tuomotos - Rangiroa and Fakarava - forget Bora Bora diving unless you like lemon sharks conditioned to appear like pavlovs dogs at the sound of topdives cattleboat engine. Moorea has some not bad diving and is a really pretty Island but if diving is your focus - you can't beat The tuomotos. I have not been tempted by reviews of the French Polynesia master LOB but I did see the Paul Gaugin a few times - quite nice boat.
I don't see that it would be that complicated to arrange diving with an onshore op - in Rangiroa I can recommend Rangiroa Plongee highly. However, you will encounter the CMAS and FP diving "rules" - there are quite a few threads on here - unless you are CMAS certified.
Another less luxurious and slower but fun boat to consider is the freighter Arenuie if time is not a impacting factor.

 

[Cali_diver]

@Wingy is on point here. Although we did have some off the beaten path fun manta and eagle ray dives in Bora Bora. Oh and one year we had humpbacks come in pretty close.

I have been on the PG 3 times. I have dove with them and without them. They do use outside ops for some of their dives. The dives they offer are pretty mundane, catering to the less experienced. Fun but if you dive a lot they might be a bit beginner for you. They are easy to work with and they do help with your gear. We have been lucky to get our own guide to venture away from others but would not count on it. If you book with outside ops you can usually do 2 dives in the morning and get back to boat for late lunch. For Fakarava and Rangiroa they use outside ops for their advanced dive selections but don't count on shooting the passes. The ops will usually not take unproven divers through without knowing abilities (CMAS and FP diving "rules"). You will just do outer reef even though they bill it as the pass. I would recommend you spend a few extra days in Fakarava (my favortie) or Rangiroa after the cruise to really experience the Tuomotos. If you have any specific questions about the PG just fire away. We did couples and family cruises and really enjoyed the boat and service. I can give you recommendations on things to do!

 

[Altamira]

We did an 11 night Paul Gauguin cruise last year, and found the ship and crew to be outstanding. We cruise a lot and totally enjoyed the entire cruise. In fact it ranks in the top five cruises we have made. I agree pretty much with what Wingy and Cali_Diver said about the diving, but found all of the dives to be a lot of fun even though not particularly challenging (if challenging dives is your thing). Diving from the ship when not using outside vendors was like a liveaboard in that you launched on a zodiac from the back of the ship which opened like a huge drawbridge. All you had to do was show up at the appointed time, and your gear was already loaded on the Zodiac. The crew cleaned and stored our gear after diving. I found they tried to group the divers by experience when able, and had a couple of dives down to 110'. One of our dives at Bora Bora was at the Manta Rau cleaning station, and thought that was a "don't miss" dive. We saw approximately five or six rays on the dive, and many of them swam so close to us that I could not get the entire ray in the photo. The food and service were excellent. We would take another PG cruise in a heartbeat. The only bad thing about cruising out of Tahiti is the less than wonderful flight to/from on Tahiti Nui Airlines. But once you are there, you will have a great time, and PG is a wonderful cruise line.

 

[ColoDale]

I was on the Paul Gauguin last December. Trip report by me for ship and diving here Trip report – French Polynesia – Society Islands and Tuamotus Dec 2016

We had one diver that dove with outside ops and with the ship. He had no issues with the outside ops for timing.

Diving comments here are correct for FP in my experience. Tuomotus are better but there are interesting dives in the Society Islands with Moorea being the best especially for sharks. The Blacktip reef and lemons do show up.
Diving a zodiac is a bit different from smaller Caribbean boats (panga) or larger boats with giant strides. The diving in FP is vastly different from the Caribbean. though I have not dived Florida I have dived Bahamas on several occasion and IMO, FP is better. Be prepared for surge in FP on the outside reefs.

We used the ship air credit and instead flew Air France business which was the same section as first. Expensive though but I wanted the legroom. Excellent service.

If you use the Gauguin, get to the dive desk first thing when boarding. I printed out my last 400 or so dives for them. I had my own gear btw. The outside dive ops did not question my PADI AOW when diving with them. Vetted via the Gauguin dive staff?

 

[Wingy]

Just reading your trip report - six passengers and topdive "recognise" Padi per se - however if there is an incident - things get interesting - there is a thread here on a major payout involving Topdive.

The case heard in the US did not end the matter - the operation involved faces court in Tahiti for violating the French laws.

 

[Maxpcf]

Great, thank you all for your advice.

We are currently leaning towards a PG cruise and then staying a few days afterwards in the Tuomotos. @Wingy It seems that there is no ferry in between Fakarva & Rangiroa. Do you think it would be worth diving on both islands or are they fairly similar?

@ColoDale Thanks for your write up, I found it pretty useful. Were you pretty happy with the dive site selection and dives you had with PG? I feel it would definitely be simpler and less rushed to use PG as opposed to the island ops, but it's nice to know that they are a viable option.

@Cali_diver I would love to hear your recommendations for some of your favorite things on board, and off? My only fear is getting herded to some crowded touristy sites.

Thank you everyone whom has replied, I appreciate it.

 

[ColoDale]

The dive site choices were ok and some good. Even though they run advanced boats then later (afternoon I think), dives for beginners, there is no guarantee you will go to more advanced sites due to experience levels but they do try hard to separate the groups. I do think PG has a regular rotation of sites. I think if I did a land based trip say in Rangiroa or Fakarava I would be diving better sites or at least more advanced sites like passes. The PG has arrival and departure times that may not coincide with tides in the passes so even though we were told we would be doing passes in Rangiroa, we ended up on the outside walls.

Diving off the PG is easier as they leave directly from the back of the ship. There is no big rush on the PG but they do have a schedule to keep - advanced dives, then beginner dives and snorkelers possibly. They do have more than one zodiac. Sometimes I feel more rushed in places like Cozumel since the boat ride is maybe 5 minutes or less including boarding. On one of the Moorea dives, I signed up for the beginners dives but they assigned a DM just for me and he twiddled his thumbs while I poked around corals for whatever I could photograph. When I dove Rangiroa, Six Passengers came to the ship and returned us to the ship. Easy.

I did not do much except dive including the beginner dives but my wife due to a neck injury could not dive so she did much more on land. We did a tour of Tahaa which was good and did get to see blue eyed feshwater eels among other things. Vistas were great photo ops. I did not really feel herded and by impression neither did my wife. She did do a heilcopter tour of Bora Bora which she loved and got some great photos. It is more expensive than booking directly through the tour company but I think entirely possible. You do have the usual "out of network" tour problem to potentially deal with but she was done a bit after my morning 2 tank dives and we had the afternoon to relax. I found the stops at all islands to be liesurely and I will mention that when we went there were only 220 passengers so it was underbooked. PG seems to give people plenty of time but check with the tour desk, they can be very helpful even with non-PG tours I think.

Everyone will go to t the PG private island. Go early to get a good seat.

BTW - dives are not cheap. Have your paperwork filled out prior to boarding and booking with them. It's easier.

I recall an incident recently in FP but I can't say what the circumstances were and the use of PADI certs and it's ramifications. If I had done Padi rescue in the US with AOW then I would have had decent CMAS equivalency. I did not due to time constraints.

 

[Wingy]

Hey Max I checked the arenuie scheduke and it appears they are not doing fakarava any more - I can't remember the name of the supply ship that did go there - these are cargo ships not ferries - although confusingly the ferry between Moorea and tahiti is also an arenuie - transfer between tahiti and moorea on the ferry is lovely and quick. The supply ships are slow freighters.

Don't miss Fakarava - while both are about the passes - Fakarava is a soft coral heaven while Rangiroa in my mind has Tipuata Pass as the main reason to trek all that way. If you are a current junkie you will be in heaven. Drift diving on steroids plus

 

[PADI Travel]

Hi there,

If you are considering a liveaboard holiday in the Tuomotos rather than strictly a cruise, you should also look at the Aqua Tiki II.

This boat only has 9 beds (for a maximum of 8 divers). If you have enough people, you could charter the whole ship and create a bit of a custom itinerary that mixes shore excursions with diving.

As far as must-sees and general advice, we agree with @Wingy. The assertion that Rangiroa and Fakarava are the best diving destinations in French Polynesia is absolutely true. But like @Cali_diver said, Bora Bora can have its bright spots.

We hope you have a wonderful holiday. In the meantime, happy diving!