The Blue Lagoon

0800 Position 14-58S 147-38W. At anchor in the lee of Reporepo Motu, Rangiroa

A couple of days ago I mentioned the "Askari", a large power boat that I have seen down here in French Polynesia on each of my last three trips. One of our blog readers did some research and found out that Askari is a charter boat out of Papeete. She could be yours too for the paltry sum of $75,000 per week. That explains why we've been seeing her so often.

Rob, Renee, and Bill wanted to see what village life was like in the Tuamotus when there aren't any tourist around, so after breakfast they dinghied in and caught the ferry across Tiputa Pass to the motu on the east side. They wandered around for a while, watched some kind of a kid's sporting event, and came back about 10AM.

Both of our cruising guides talked about "The Blue Lagoon", a large hole in the reef at the western end of Rangiroa. Still trying to kill time and stay entertained, we decided to go have a look. Our anchor became hopelessly entangled with a submerged mooring that we hadn't noticed previously while we were trying to pull it up. I ended up having to jump overboard with a dive mask to sort it out. When we were done entertaining the other boats in the anchorage, we headed off for the Blue Lagoon, twenty miles away.

On the way we sailed by Paio Motu, also called Bird Island, a circular fifty yard wide patch of forest in the middle of the Rangiroa lagoon. Further along we were visited by some dolphin. The chart recommended anchoring to the east of the Blue Lagoon, and showed the lagoon to be impassable to the west, but when we arrived it looked like we could get around to the west side and a more protected anchorage. As we picked our way along it became clear why the chart said not to go there. It was a mine field of coral heads that came to within about five feet of the surface – too shallow for Van Diemen but too deep to see clearly until we were nearly on top of them. Yikes! But Rob managed to thread his way through them to a fair anchorage. It wasn't as protected as we had hoped but it would do.

Bill and Renee elected to stay aboard, so Rob, Mike, and I hopped in the dinghy and headed over toward the Blue Lagoon with our snorkel gear. We had hoped to dinghy right in and do some diving, but we found the water over the reef to be too shallow for the dinghy's outboard. An even bigger problem was the six or so black tip sharks that circled the dinghy continuously. We tried paddling the dinghy, but it didn't want to go straight in the strong wind. Poor Mike was the only one who brought shoes, so he got to get out and walk the dingy along. He didn't get bit, but that doesn't mean he wasn't thinking about it.

It became apparent to us that there was no way we could get into the Blue Lagoon without walking on the sharp coral, and diving had lost its appeal with so many sharks around. We decided to head back for the boat, found a deeper way than we came in, and made it back safely. The sharks followed us out, and Van Diemen was surrounded by a dozen or so sharks until we got organized and departed.

The trip back out through the maze of coral heads was just as sketchy as the trip in. Once through into deeper water Rob said "I think we're out of the shallow stuff. It should be clear sailing for the rest of the way."

Mike pointed and said, "What about that reef over there?" We all looked over at what appeared to be another shallow spot, but then it moved.

"That's not a reef, it's Manta Rays!" I yelled. We had stumbled on a school of four gigantic manta rays feeding in the lagoon. They each had to have at least a ten foot wing span. We did a circle around them, shot videos and took some pictures, and continued on.

We arrived back at our anchorage off of Reporepo motu just as the sun was setting, and finished off the day with rum drinks and a viewing of the feature film "Captain Ron" in Van Diemen's Saloon. Another great day in paradise.

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