Scuba Jim
Contributor
Edpisode III
ITS A TOUGH LIFE, JIM, BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT
or
HELLO, YOU WANT OM E LET?
The story so far. In Episode I of this saga I snuggled up to a baby humpback whale in Rurutu/. In Episode II I went to Rangiroa and sailed on the inaugural trip of the Tahiti Aggressor, and created the new sport of Underwater Boulder Dragging. At the end of Episode II I had returned to Papeete and spent the night at the Sheraton. Well I say the night. At 2.00am I did the decent thing and went to the airport and picked up my wife (her real name is Suzie, but I call her the Gruppenfurher, or Sir for short), who had flown out from London on Friday afternoon. What a nice hubbie I am! Well, once we got back to the hotel the first thing we had to do was phone England because Suzies mobile had been stolen in Heathrow Airport and she did not realise until she was on the plane and so for 24 hours the phone was in the hands of someone else. Oh my Gawd! So we had to get the account cancelled. (Luckily when we returned to England is seemed that whoever had nicked it hadnt used it, so that was a relief.)
Anyway, after a kip we got up and enjoyed the feast that I a buffet breakfast at the Sheraton in Papeete. Burp! We then packed our things and went to the airport, and flew to Raiatea, about 40 minutes north west of Papeete. We flew past Moorea, so for both of this was actually our first true experience of the high Society Islands (3 nights in Papeete doesnt count!). We landed at Raiatea and then took the shuttle boat to the brand new Tahaa Pearl Beach Resort. Tahaa & Raiatea share the same lagoon and reef system, and Raiatea is where the airport is.
Now, the Tahaa Pearl Beach Resort is the most luxurious resort in French Polyfilla. It only opened in August and is built on a private coral motu (island) on the western reef of Tahaa.
Taha'a Pearl Beach Resort
It is not finished yet, though all the actual construction is. They have to finish decorating some of the beach suites and overwater bungalows. When the boat arrived at the dock we had our own private check-in! We were taken directly to our room where it took about 2 minutes to fill in the registration card. And that was it! (It took me 45 minutes to check into the Sheraton on my 2nd stay there.) There are 4 categories of room at the resort. Beach Suites, and 3 overwater bungalow categories. All the o/w bungalows are the same in size, facilities etc, but they are priced according to their view. The best are the Bora Bora overwater bungalows as from the deck you can look past the motu and see Bora Bora in the background. We had Bora Bora o/w bungalow #5. 4 & 5 are the best, as they have the best view!
As you can see, the suites are capacious to say the least!
Taha'a overwater bungalow - cramped and with poor facilities.
A huge raised bonking platform with a glass viewing thingy wotsit that had a lid that opened so you could feed the fishes. We had a TV that we never watched, a hifi system, mini bar, IDD phone & internet connection, blah blah. Behind the bed was a desking set-up and beyond that a bathroom with 2 basins, separate shower and loo (toilet for those who are wondering). The room had a ceiling fan & a/c but we found that we just left the sliding doors onto the sun deck open and got a great cooling breeze at night. The sun deck had 2 loungers, a covered table and benches and a lower deck level with ladder down to the sea. A fresh water shower and daily deck towels meant you did not have to traipse through the room top wash off seawater.
Not much of a view, really. All I can see is water and islands.
After unpacking we went for a stroll around the resort. Its got 3 restaurants, though only 2 were functioning when we were there. A nice eating hole by the infinity swimming pool, plus a bar there that basically did lunch and snacks all day long, and then the main restaurant in the main hotel block where breakfast & dinner were served. It is elevated and has nice views through the tree tops to the lagoon & Tahaa beyond.
View from the restaurant. I prefer Benidorm, myself.
The other, yet to open restaurant is a smaller air-conditioned thing that serves haut cuisine (thats food thats reet posh for anyone from oop north!). Not that the food at the big restaurant was bad it was amazing! There is also a bar next to the restaurant. The main reception also has an activities centre, a gift shop and a pearl shop.
We also had a look round one of the beach suites. Taha'a beach bungalow. Not very big is it?
They have their own walled garden, swimming pool, outside bathtub, sitting room, lobby, huge deck and all the other things that the o/w bungalows have. Each one is 1000sqft in area. For those who dont want an o/w bungalow these rooms are awesome!
See, I told you that they had their own pools!
The resort also has a dive centre (If you have been patient enough to read through this report from the beginning, well done, were at the diving bit at last! Almost!) Well, we relaxed and vegetated on the beach for the rest of that day, as Suzie was a little jet-lagged and I needed to work on my tan (it looked good by the time I got to Bora Bora, didnt it, Scott & Robin!?).
So the next day we had breakfast. (Why would we be interested in Jims breakfast in Tahaa? I hear you ask.) Well, this is where the legend of the Om e Let comes from. Breakfast was basically a buffet, with just about anything you could image to eat lots of cereal for those who like to keep themselves regular, fruit, yoghurts, all sorts of breads & pastries, bacon, eggs, sausages, fried bread, French toast. (Thats a misnomer the French of no such thing like English muffins. Its eggy bread, innit!) Oh, and grilled fish, fried fish, pancakes, waffles,you name it they had it. Well, the only thing they did not have in the buffet, but could make to order, was omelettes. We had this sooooooooooooper waiter called Maurice who would mince over as we sat down and say You want tea? You want coffee? to which we would reply one of each thanks. And then it would be You want om e let? in a very sort of camp Liberace kind of way, with much pouting of lips and limpwristedness. Every morning the same: You want om e let? Ooooooh, he was a nice boy!
So after breakfast we went diving with Stefan, who used to run the dive operation in Manihi (or was it Tikehau?) for Blue Nui in Bora Bora. (This is a Blue Nui dive centre also). Currently they have one boat but there are plans for a high speed cat that will take just 45 minutes to get to Bora Bora, so they can dive there also!
So, we went diving! Suzie had not dived for 5 years and has always had problems going down (I mean clearing her ears), and so being the selfish bastard that I am I let Stefan look after her on the first dive, as she doesnt really like diving with me, to be honest, as I am too busy taking pictures to worry about her (I am a keen advocate of solo diving, if anyone wants to know!). The first dive was at a site Stefan had named Napoleon, after the nappy fish that frequented the site. (I didnt see them, and my belief is that he named the site Napoleon after N Bonaparte Esq. The reef structure looked like haemorrhoids (For the full story on the Napoleon/haemorrhoids thing click here. Actually, they didnt look like haemorrhoids at all, I just made that up to keep you on your toes!
Anyway, Napoleon was a section of the outside of the western reef midway between Raiatea & Tahaa. After a 20 minute ride south in the Tahaa portion of the lagoon, out of the channel into the open sea, we came to this gently sloping section of the reef with a few coral heads floating about. Stefan jumped in and waited for Suzie, and I jumped in after. Looking down through ther crystal clear water (150ft viz no problems) I could see small schools of snapper and stuff floating about, and perhaps 20 black tips. Stefan had some fish in his BC, so they immediately popped up the water column to meet us!
Pssssssst. Look, there's divers up there. Let's go and eat them.
Now, my dear wife not only has a problem with her ears, she also had a problem with sharks until now, that is! In the past she was nervous about them, but it must have been Stefans Gallic charm that put her at ease. While it took her 10 minutes to get down to about 40ft and the reef top, the sharks were circling her & Stefan. At the bottom we went for a gentle swim along the reef, down to about 70ft. Suzies ears were no problem and we had sharks all over the shop. Every time you looked round there they were, following like little puppies. Ahhhhhh.
If we follow them, do you think they'll notice us?
Towards the end of the dive Stefan got the fish out and we had a little feed. The sharks got so close they were bumping of my dome port. It was a great dive excellent viz, no current, and some great shark photo opportunities.
Where's me dinner?
No, where's MY dinner?
Hey, you, yes, you with the silly mask on. Where's OUR food?
Here, sharky sharky, have some nosh
Oi! Who you lookin at?
I'm full. I'm going home now.
After a surface interval of perhaps 1 hour we did a gentle drift dive along the channel. This channel was much deeper than the ones I had dived in the Tuamotus. Nearly 200ft according to Stefan. The sides were covered in millions of yellow stylaster corals and there were dozens of species of fish. Coral was not that brilliant, but the variety of fish was excellent. Viz was poor 50ft or so, and we did not see the great swirling schools of jacks & snapper I had seen elsewhere, nor any sharks, but it was an interesting dive all the same. It was certainly the only place I dived in Tahiti that I could have used a macro lens!I've been chasing my dorsal fin for years, but just can't catch it
Butterflies flutter by
We then returned to the resort for lunch. As we only had 3 nights and 2 full days in Tahaa we only dived that one day. We went for a trip round Tahaa the next day and looked at some vanilla plantations (Tahaa is known as The Vanilla Island as it is one of the worlds largest vanilla producers.), and enjoyed the scenery. Vanilla seemed one of the view good value from money products in French Polyfilla, so we bought some as gifts for the family back home. Something I had not noticed before which is very quaint & Tahitians is that by every house on the sdie of thr road is what looks like a mail box, similar in many respects to a US mail box, but longer. I assumed it was for the mail, but in fact its for the baker to put your baguettes in every morning! (The French bread in Tahiti is superb, by the way, because the flour is imported from France!)
No, it's not for your mail, it's for your bread.
The last night we were at Tahaa I had a long chat with Stefan about what else he has seen. He has a shallow spot in the lagoon with lots of stingrays and he has also seen mantas. He is currently looking for the manta cleaning station that presumably is the reason they come into the lagoon. He has also got some other good wall dives and shark encounters. I cannot for a million years believe that the diving in Tahaa will not be excellent. I am sure he will discover new sites, and he also has the ability to dive Raiatea (see below), as it is only 30 minutes away by boat. And with the new cat on order, and weather permitting, he can get to Bora Bora also. That same evening Paul Sloan from the Aggressor trip came to visit the resort as well. He and I drank our way through lots of pink and yellow cocktails (what girlies we are!) and we then had an excellent meal and drank a few bottles of Sancerre to wash it down! A splendid finish to a splendid 3 days in Tahaa.
Now, before we leave Ttahaa, I must say that the Tahaa Pearl Beach Resort is without a doubt one of the most beautiful hotels I have ever stayed in. The service is impeccable, the food fabulous and the staff were very nice indeed. Once the gardens have established themselves it will be the best resort in FP. Though it does, of course come with a price! (I wont frighten you with the details!)
So, on the last morning we took the shuttle boat back to Raiatea, and went to the Raiatea Pearl Beach Resort. Though only recently nought by the Pearl Group it has been around for a while. It has a rather groovy baby 1960s/70s feel to it. Pierre, the manager, who was a thoroughly good egg, told us that some minor updating was to be done before the resort closed completely for a total make-over. The resort did not have a beach, but it had a splendid reef for snorkelling, a the piece de la resistance, the wreck of the Nordby, a 3-master schooner that sits on the seafloor at 90ft right in front of the overwater bungalows. We were not able to dive in Raiatea as we were flying that afternoon, but it is, apparently, the best wreck in FP (and there arent that many of them!)
At the bottom of this drop-off is a 3-masted schooner.
We had a fantastic lunch at the hotel. All the other hotels in FP are apparently jealous of the Raiatea PBR, because the chef was superb. Then we went for a tour round Raiatea, which is very beautiful. It is the second largest island in FP, but very under-inhabited except for the far northern part. The scenery was very dramatic, and the mountains were very rugged and beautiful. We stopped off at a botanical garden where we saw all sorts of exotic flowers being grown. Many of the flowers that they have in hotel rooms and on the leis are grown there commercially.
For the ladies amongst you, they make Chanel No. 5 out of this flower!
We also went to see the ruins of the marae, sort of temple/assembly areas as used by the ancient kings. It certainly added a nice cultural flavour to the scenery.
Is that my mother in law? No, it's just another ancient relic.
That evening we went back to the airport and flew on to Bora Bora.
Dont miss the next thrilling instalment of Jim & Suzies Excellent Adventure
ITS A TOUGH LIFE, JIM, BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT
or
HELLO, YOU WANT OM E LET?
The story so far. In Episode I of this saga I snuggled up to a baby humpback whale in Rurutu/. In Episode II I went to Rangiroa and sailed on the inaugural trip of the Tahiti Aggressor, and created the new sport of Underwater Boulder Dragging. At the end of Episode II I had returned to Papeete and spent the night at the Sheraton. Well I say the night. At 2.00am I did the decent thing and went to the airport and picked up my wife (her real name is Suzie, but I call her the Gruppenfurher, or Sir for short), who had flown out from London on Friday afternoon. What a nice hubbie I am! Well, once we got back to the hotel the first thing we had to do was phone England because Suzies mobile had been stolen in Heathrow Airport and she did not realise until she was on the plane and so for 24 hours the phone was in the hands of someone else. Oh my Gawd! So we had to get the account cancelled. (Luckily when we returned to England is seemed that whoever had nicked it hadnt used it, so that was a relief.)
Anyway, after a kip we got up and enjoyed the feast that I a buffet breakfast at the Sheraton in Papeete. Burp! We then packed our things and went to the airport, and flew to Raiatea, about 40 minutes north west of Papeete. We flew past Moorea, so for both of this was actually our first true experience of the high Society Islands (3 nights in Papeete doesnt count!). We landed at Raiatea and then took the shuttle boat to the brand new Tahaa Pearl Beach Resort. Tahaa & Raiatea share the same lagoon and reef system, and Raiatea is where the airport is.
Now, the Tahaa Pearl Beach Resort is the most luxurious resort in French Polyfilla. It only opened in August and is built on a private coral motu (island) on the western reef of Tahaa.
Taha'a Pearl Beach Resort
It is not finished yet, though all the actual construction is. They have to finish decorating some of the beach suites and overwater bungalows. When the boat arrived at the dock we had our own private check-in! We were taken directly to our room where it took about 2 minutes to fill in the registration card. And that was it! (It took me 45 minutes to check into the Sheraton on my 2nd stay there.) There are 4 categories of room at the resort. Beach Suites, and 3 overwater bungalow categories. All the o/w bungalows are the same in size, facilities etc, but they are priced according to their view. The best are the Bora Bora overwater bungalows as from the deck you can look past the motu and see Bora Bora in the background. We had Bora Bora o/w bungalow #5. 4 & 5 are the best, as they have the best view!
As you can see, the suites are capacious to say the least!
Taha'a overwater bungalow - cramped and with poor facilities.
A huge raised bonking platform with a glass viewing thingy wotsit that had a lid that opened so you could feed the fishes. We had a TV that we never watched, a hifi system, mini bar, IDD phone & internet connection, blah blah. Behind the bed was a desking set-up and beyond that a bathroom with 2 basins, separate shower and loo (toilet for those who are wondering). The room had a ceiling fan & a/c but we found that we just left the sliding doors onto the sun deck open and got a great cooling breeze at night. The sun deck had 2 loungers, a covered table and benches and a lower deck level with ladder down to the sea. A fresh water shower and daily deck towels meant you did not have to traipse through the room top wash off seawater.
Not much of a view, really. All I can see is water and islands.
After unpacking we went for a stroll around the resort. Its got 3 restaurants, though only 2 were functioning when we were there. A nice eating hole by the infinity swimming pool, plus a bar there that basically did lunch and snacks all day long, and then the main restaurant in the main hotel block where breakfast & dinner were served. It is elevated and has nice views through the tree tops to the lagoon & Tahaa beyond.
View from the restaurant. I prefer Benidorm, myself.
The other, yet to open restaurant is a smaller air-conditioned thing that serves haut cuisine (thats food thats reet posh for anyone from oop north!). Not that the food at the big restaurant was bad it was amazing! There is also a bar next to the restaurant. The main reception also has an activities centre, a gift shop and a pearl shop.
We also had a look round one of the beach suites. Taha'a beach bungalow. Not very big is it?
They have their own walled garden, swimming pool, outside bathtub, sitting room, lobby, huge deck and all the other things that the o/w bungalows have. Each one is 1000sqft in area. For those who dont want an o/w bungalow these rooms are awesome!
See, I told you that they had their own pools!
The resort also has a dive centre (If you have been patient enough to read through this report from the beginning, well done, were at the diving bit at last! Almost!) Well, we relaxed and vegetated on the beach for the rest of that day, as Suzie was a little jet-lagged and I needed to work on my tan (it looked good by the time I got to Bora Bora, didnt it, Scott & Robin!?).
So the next day we had breakfast. (Why would we be interested in Jims breakfast in Tahaa? I hear you ask.) Well, this is where the legend of the Om e Let comes from. Breakfast was basically a buffet, with just about anything you could image to eat lots of cereal for those who like to keep themselves regular, fruit, yoghurts, all sorts of breads & pastries, bacon, eggs, sausages, fried bread, French toast. (Thats a misnomer the French of no such thing like English muffins. Its eggy bread, innit!) Oh, and grilled fish, fried fish, pancakes, waffles,you name it they had it. Well, the only thing they did not have in the buffet, but could make to order, was omelettes. We had this sooooooooooooper waiter called Maurice who would mince over as we sat down and say You want tea? You want coffee? to which we would reply one of each thanks. And then it would be You want om e let? in a very sort of camp Liberace kind of way, with much pouting of lips and limpwristedness. Every morning the same: You want om e let? Ooooooh, he was a nice boy!
So after breakfast we went diving with Stefan, who used to run the dive operation in Manihi (or was it Tikehau?) for Blue Nui in Bora Bora. (This is a Blue Nui dive centre also). Currently they have one boat but there are plans for a high speed cat that will take just 45 minutes to get to Bora Bora, so they can dive there also!
So, we went diving! Suzie had not dived for 5 years and has always had problems going down (I mean clearing her ears), and so being the selfish bastard that I am I let Stefan look after her on the first dive, as she doesnt really like diving with me, to be honest, as I am too busy taking pictures to worry about her (I am a keen advocate of solo diving, if anyone wants to know!). The first dive was at a site Stefan had named Napoleon, after the nappy fish that frequented the site. (I didnt see them, and my belief is that he named the site Napoleon after N Bonaparte Esq. The reef structure looked like haemorrhoids (For the full story on the Napoleon/haemorrhoids thing click here. Actually, they didnt look like haemorrhoids at all, I just made that up to keep you on your toes!
Anyway, Napoleon was a section of the outside of the western reef midway between Raiatea & Tahaa. After a 20 minute ride south in the Tahaa portion of the lagoon, out of the channel into the open sea, we came to this gently sloping section of the reef with a few coral heads floating about. Stefan jumped in and waited for Suzie, and I jumped in after. Looking down through ther crystal clear water (150ft viz no problems) I could see small schools of snapper and stuff floating about, and perhaps 20 black tips. Stefan had some fish in his BC, so they immediately popped up the water column to meet us!
Pssssssst. Look, there's divers up there. Let's go and eat them.
Now, my dear wife not only has a problem with her ears, she also had a problem with sharks until now, that is! In the past she was nervous about them, but it must have been Stefans Gallic charm that put her at ease. While it took her 10 minutes to get down to about 40ft and the reef top, the sharks were circling her & Stefan. At the bottom we went for a gentle swim along the reef, down to about 70ft. Suzies ears were no problem and we had sharks all over the shop. Every time you looked round there they were, following like little puppies. Ahhhhhh.
If we follow them, do you think they'll notice us?
Towards the end of the dive Stefan got the fish out and we had a little feed. The sharks got so close they were bumping of my dome port. It was a great dive excellent viz, no current, and some great shark photo opportunities.
Where's me dinner?
No, where's MY dinner?
Hey, you, yes, you with the silly mask on. Where's OUR food?
Here, sharky sharky, have some nosh
Oi! Who you lookin at?
I'm full. I'm going home now.
After a surface interval of perhaps 1 hour we did a gentle drift dive along the channel. This channel was much deeper than the ones I had dived in the Tuamotus. Nearly 200ft according to Stefan. The sides were covered in millions of yellow stylaster corals and there were dozens of species of fish. Coral was not that brilliant, but the variety of fish was excellent. Viz was poor 50ft or so, and we did not see the great swirling schools of jacks & snapper I had seen elsewhere, nor any sharks, but it was an interesting dive all the same. It was certainly the only place I dived in Tahiti that I could have used a macro lens!I've been chasing my dorsal fin for years, but just can't catch it
Butterflies flutter by
We then returned to the resort for lunch. As we only had 3 nights and 2 full days in Tahaa we only dived that one day. We went for a trip round Tahaa the next day and looked at some vanilla plantations (Tahaa is known as The Vanilla Island as it is one of the worlds largest vanilla producers.), and enjoyed the scenery. Vanilla seemed one of the view good value from money products in French Polyfilla, so we bought some as gifts for the family back home. Something I had not noticed before which is very quaint & Tahitians is that by every house on the sdie of thr road is what looks like a mail box, similar in many respects to a US mail box, but longer. I assumed it was for the mail, but in fact its for the baker to put your baguettes in every morning! (The French bread in Tahiti is superb, by the way, because the flour is imported from France!)
No, it's not for your mail, it's for your bread.
The last night we were at Tahaa I had a long chat with Stefan about what else he has seen. He has a shallow spot in the lagoon with lots of stingrays and he has also seen mantas. He is currently looking for the manta cleaning station that presumably is the reason they come into the lagoon. He has also got some other good wall dives and shark encounters. I cannot for a million years believe that the diving in Tahaa will not be excellent. I am sure he will discover new sites, and he also has the ability to dive Raiatea (see below), as it is only 30 minutes away by boat. And with the new cat on order, and weather permitting, he can get to Bora Bora also. That same evening Paul Sloan from the Aggressor trip came to visit the resort as well. He and I drank our way through lots of pink and yellow cocktails (what girlies we are!) and we then had an excellent meal and drank a few bottles of Sancerre to wash it down! A splendid finish to a splendid 3 days in Tahaa.
Now, before we leave Ttahaa, I must say that the Tahaa Pearl Beach Resort is without a doubt one of the most beautiful hotels I have ever stayed in. The service is impeccable, the food fabulous and the staff were very nice indeed. Once the gardens have established themselves it will be the best resort in FP. Though it does, of course come with a price! (I wont frighten you with the details!)
So, on the last morning we took the shuttle boat back to Raiatea, and went to the Raiatea Pearl Beach Resort. Though only recently nought by the Pearl Group it has been around for a while. It has a rather groovy baby 1960s/70s feel to it. Pierre, the manager, who was a thoroughly good egg, told us that some minor updating was to be done before the resort closed completely for a total make-over. The resort did not have a beach, but it had a splendid reef for snorkelling, a the piece de la resistance, the wreck of the Nordby, a 3-master schooner that sits on the seafloor at 90ft right in front of the overwater bungalows. We were not able to dive in Raiatea as we were flying that afternoon, but it is, apparently, the best wreck in FP (and there arent that many of them!)
At the bottom of this drop-off is a 3-masted schooner.
We had a fantastic lunch at the hotel. All the other hotels in FP are apparently jealous of the Raiatea PBR, because the chef was superb. Then we went for a tour round Raiatea, which is very beautiful. It is the second largest island in FP, but very under-inhabited except for the far northern part. The scenery was very dramatic, and the mountains were very rugged and beautiful. We stopped off at a botanical garden where we saw all sorts of exotic flowers being grown. Many of the flowers that they have in hotel rooms and on the leis are grown there commercially.
For the ladies amongst you, they make Chanel No. 5 out of this flower!
We also went to see the ruins of the marae, sort of temple/assembly areas as used by the ancient kings. It certainly added a nice cultural flavour to the scenery.
Is that my mother in law? No, it's just another ancient relic.
That evening we went back to the airport and flew on to Bora Bora.
Dont miss the next thrilling instalment of Jim & Suzies Excellent Adventure
