Diving Raiatea, French Polynesia

Raiatea (Ray-ah-tay-ah) is one of the more tranquil of the Society
Islands of French Polynesia.

Today was the third time we dived here, since June 2003.

In June 2003, the site we dived was called Napoleon's Miri Miri, because
of the presence of a very friendly Napoleon Wrasse the size of a small
Volkswagon. Napoleon was gone by November 2003, though we saw a miniature
copy of it on the reef. Alas, there wasn't a trace of any Napoleon Wrassee.

The dive boat was tied to a fixxed mooring, on a sloping wall of about
60 fsw at the mooring, to a sandy botom of about 200 fsw.

On descent, we were greeted by roving blacktips. They ranged in size
from about 3 to 5 feet. On previous occasions we had seen other species
of sharks, but not this time. Nor were there any free-roaming ramoras.

The fishes there were mostly colorful wrasses, butterflyfish, a few
moorish idols, and other assorted reef fish.

As we swam off shore, the visibility was good enough that we could see
some blacktips sleeping at the bottom that looked about 180-200 fsw.

My dive registered 101 fsw max for 59 minutes. When I surfaced, with
plenty of unused air, all the other divers and DMs had already surfaced.
It was a good dive, though not nearly as good as the previous two at
the same location.

-- Bob.