Coral Gardens

After our tour of the French Polynesian island of Taha'a, we moved Sea Turtle once more away from the mosquitoes to beside a pearl farm (S16°35.258' W151°31.597') where the anchorage was a little deeper than we normally like at almost 17 metres, but it had a great view!

A magic motu (islet) with Bora Bora in background

The next morning, we dinghied over to the pearl farm that presented their product very well in their gift shop but found their prices to be exorbitant - very high retail!

We then moved to anchor by the Coral Gardens (S16°36.314' W151°33.457'). The Coral Gardens are exactly as their name suggests. It looked just like a garden that someone had planted, but with coral, and then filled with a grand selection of tropical aquatic inhabitants.

The Gardens are in a pass between 2 motus (islets) on the outer reef of the lagoon. Most people walk along the shore towards the outer reef and drift snorkel with the current back through, but we doubled our pleasure by snorkelling up and all around and then drifted back. Jordan had an 18-inch stick that he used occasionally to dig out a sea urchin and feed it to a frantic hoard of hungry tropical fish. Consequently it was funny to watch as we were then followed pied-piper-style by the aquatic mass, craving more. Each feeding brought more. Parrot fish, trigger fish, and many more. The Coral Gardens and fish were beautiful, colourful, and fascinating - another first!

Later in the evening, we moved across the bay (S16°36.958' W151°32.661') to an anchorage less windy as the wind had come up.