Tahiti recommendations: Rangiroa or Fakarava

[Travelnsj]

I did not know they had shark feeding at either location...You are pretty much correct about Rangiroa....but if you could do it for 3 or 4 days it is worth the experience...but to choose between one or the other.....Fakarava!

 

[Manuel Sam]

Thanks very much for all your inputs.
However, I watched a DVD yesterday which is a virtual trip of diving in Rangiroa and it was quite disappointing...what I saw was just occassional gray reef
sharks or Black-tip reef sharks but underwater conditiion was like a desert, almost no corals at all. That's why I am a bit worrying about the diving conditions there.
BTW, I heard that there is no shark feeding in Fakarava, is that true?

It really depends on what your expectations are for corals and where that footage was taken in Rangiroa. There is plenty of healthy corals throughout the Tuamotos but it's almost all hard corals - no beautiful and colorful soft corals as you are used to perhaps seeing in the Indo-Pacific.

If you dive the walls in Rangiroa on either side of the pass, you will see plenty of heathy hard corals. If you are at the mouth of the Tiputa pass in Rangiroa and then ride the current into the pass, it is indeed a bit barren, and the lagoon inside is probably a bit barren too except for maybe coral patches here and there (never dove inside so don't know). There are these channels that look like trenches in the pass and you can drop into them to seek shelter form the current. Sometimes the great hammerheads go hunting there.

Plus the footage on that DVD might have been taken when the tides were not right - hence not too many sharks. But if you catch the incoming tide, and with a little luck, the sharks will be there, plus dolphins and maybe a manta or two.

In Fakarava, you have the walls on the outside of the passes also with very healthy hard corals, and once inside the pass there are areas worth spending time in. In the northern pass, there is an area about halfway into the pass sometimes called The Valley. Lots of fish congregate there because there is a depression that provides shelter from the current. Sharks patrol the area as well.

The southern pass in Fakarava is, in my opinion, even better, because it is narrower and the sharks hover in a tighter formation. Plus the corals on either side of the channel leading up to the Tetamanu Resort are in great shape.

 

[Louwphotography]

If given the choice of only one, another vote for Fakarava! I thought the corals in Fakarava were much better than in Rangiroa. We didn't do any shark feeding, but there really wasn't any need to. Our trip report is fairly recent so currently on the 1st page, but linked here for your convenience.

 

[TSandM]

You know, reading the various posts, and Louw's trip report, I think it's pretty clear that what you think of the islands depends on the particular conditions you had, and your personal inclinations.

I loved the corals on Rangiroa. They aren't in the pass itself; they are on the outer wall. They're hard corals, but in a wide variety of species, shapes and colors, and they support an absolutely fabulous population of reef fish. By the time we got to Rangiroa, we had had it with the fixation on sharks. We had done shark feeding dives in several prior locations, where we sat in dead coral and looked at sharks, and it was enough. Seeing the healthy, thriving coral populations was such a relief and delight! And it wasn't that we didn't SEE sharks on Rangiroa -- it's just that there were so many other things that were more delightful.

There were no mosquitoes there when we were there, either.

The Tiputa Pass drift dive, which is what you read about when you read about Rangiroa, was kind of a disappointment. It was fast, for sure, but the pass itself isn't that interesting, and we have high currents here in Puget Sound. I'd much rather have done another dive on the outer reef, as it turns out. I could easily spend a week on the reefs.

If Fakarava's coral reefs are even better, they must be fantastic. Another place to put on my "someday" list!

I wasn't that taken with Bora Bora, although the island and the lagoon were beautiful. Too much dead coral.

 

[kkfok]

Thanks very much!!
I have finally made up my mind to go to Fakarava. Anyone has been diving with Te Ava Nui? Are they good? They offer day trip to Toau Atoll nearby.

 

[Diver Lori]

The Tiputa Pass drift dive, which is what you read about when you read about Rangiroa, was kind of a disappointment.

Funny you should say that. We spend two days diving on Rangiroa. The first day I got seasick on the first dive and had not recovered in time for the second dive. My buddy went without me on the dive. I wanted him to do so, to find out if I could handle it the next day. I really really have a bad seasick problem.

Anyway, he said it was really easy and not too rough and he thought I could handle it from a seasickness standpoint, so I went.

Well, my buddy said the difference between the two dives at the same pass were as different as night and day. Of course, the dive I didn't go on was the spectacular one!!

My buddy said both days were Tiputa Pass, but the DM dropped off in different places. The first day was Marco = spectacular; the second day was so-so, and we all got lost = goof ball DM in the speedo with the shaved head (cannot remember name).

I'm being kind when I say goof-ball too.

 

[TSandM]

Our DM on Rangiroa was a sweetheart. He was clearly so pleased and proud to show us the great diving there, that his own enjoyment added to ours. His problem was that the first day's diving (with the dolphins and the manta) was so fabulous, it was hard to top . . . but he tried! It wasn't his fault that there weren't any sharks at the bottom of the pass cut. He was also hampered by the relatively bad viz we had, which he thought might be due to the fact that it was the very first day of the current reversal.

Anyway, I'd go back and dive Rangiroa in a heartbeat, if somebody else would cover my ER shifts . . .

 

[Mike Veitch]

In the northern pass, there is an area about halfway into the pass sometimes called The Valley.

Actually, we always called it the "wrasse hole"

I worked the Tuamotus for 2 years and would def vote Faka over Rangi.
If you are offered a trip to Toau definitely take it, it has the best "wrasse hole" of any of the atolls. Filled with big eyes and grey reefs

 

[TSandM]

Wow, this is making me think that someday a trip back just to do the Tuamotos might be in order . . .

 

[Manuel Sam]

KKFok: Now that you've decided on Fakarava, I would wholeheartedly recommend that you dive with Serge and Carinne at Fakarava Diving Centre (FDC). Google it. I dove with them the two times I was in Fakarava. I also dove once with Te Ava Nui (TAN) one afternoon when Serge was all booked, and in terms of service, I like Serge a lot better.

That is not to say that TAN is bad, but diving with FDC is a lot more personalized - small boat (6-8 people max) - we never dove with more than 6 total. You drop off your gear and you never touch it again until the day you leave. And they really wash it after every day's diving. At TAN, it's a larger operation and it felt kind of crowded at the shop. Plus, you had to don your BC and tank and carry it out to the boat.

Serge gives excellent dive briefings and treats you like a responsible diver.

He also offers trips to the southern pass (it does cost more) and to me, the southern pass is better than the northern because, as I said before, it's narrower and the sharks are less scattered. It's a 2+ hour ride down and the tides have to be right but at least when I went, it was really worth it, and Serge does a really good one-day trip down there with two dives with a lunch on one of the small sandy motus.

Only other place where the grey reefs are even more densely packed is Apataki Atoll - as Mike V. can attest - but that could only be dived when the Aggressor was still in the Tuamotos.

Also, as Mike V. suggested, Toau Atoll is a great atoll to dive at, also with two separate passes. Serge does trips there if there is enough demand.

May I also suggest the bed and breakfast where I stayed: it's called Tokerau and it's about a 5 minute walk south of the Maitai Hotel. It is run by a Mme Flora and her daughter Gahina. Really nice people, decent food, and the bungalows are well maintained and, in my opinion, the nicest amongst the various bed & breakfast pensions. Carinne can make the arrangements for you.

Unless you stay at the Maitai (which, I was told, doesn't have mosquitoes but will still make you bleed from the price), I strongly recommend that you bring a mosquito net. You can hang it by tying a strand of dental floss from window to window.

Mike V.: you are absolutely right. Wrasse Hole is the name that the Aggressor crew used for that area in the northern pass, altho the rationale behind "wrasse" eludes me. The place is loaded with clouds of Humpback Snappers, Bigeyes (the red fish in Mike V's pic), bannerfish, squirrelfish.....just about everything except large number of wrasses. Unless they were referring to the Napoleons.

In any case, "The Valley" or La Vallee is what Serge called it, and being the senile old fart that I am, that's what came to mind first.