Hey everyone! Lauren here to tell you about our Scuba adventures in Mo’orea. The diving here was incredible! As I mentioned in a previous post, we booked with a company called Mo’orea Blue Diving. The dive shop is based at Hotel Manava Beach Resort & Spa Moorea, which was about a 30-40 minute bike ride from our Airbnb.
Diving Day One
Wet Bike Ride
On the day of our first dive trip, Gerrod and I Woke up at 5:30am to have breakfast and get ready to bike to the dive shop. We were supposed to be to the Mo’orea Blue Diving shop by 7:30, and Gerrod and I had not used the shortcut route through the Sofitel resort that we had heard about so we weren’t sure how long the bike ride to the shop would be.
The shortcut was really easy to find, and made the ride much easier. Until it started absolutely downpouring rain to the point we could barely see. Despite the rain, the ride only took us about 35 minutes.
Getting Ready
After we arrived at the shop, we got fitted with wetsuits and fins and boarded our dive boat. The plan was to do two dives! There were three other people diving with us this day: a man from Minnesota, a man from Denmark, and a woman who spoke French, so probably from France, or Canada.
Our first dive is what the dive master called the “shark dive”. Our group was split into two based on experience. It was me, Gerrod, and the man from Minnesota in one group, and the others in a second group.
First Dive
As soon as we dropped in the water we could see lemon sharks! The visibility was fairly good, with small reef covered hills in view in every direction. We spent some time near the boat just watching the various lemon sharks swimming around us. The man from Minnesota was having a little bit of trouble keeping buoyancy, so the dive masters motioned for us to go with the other group.
We began exploring around, stumbling upon a few sleeping green sea turtles. Our dive master found a clown fish egg nest on an anemone! It was so cool to see the pair of clownfish defending the eggs. We also saw a black tip reef shark swimming across the reef.
Surface Interval
Following our first dive, we boated closer to shore for our surface interval. For those of you that don’t dive, a surface interval is time that a diver stays out of the water between dives. During this time we had some hot tea, cookies, and dried ginger and papaya. We chatted with our fellow divers about travels and good things to do around the island.
Second Dive
On our second dive, there were coral canyons that we explored. There were TONS of sleepy sea turtles. The coral was beautiful. I was enjoying taking underwater photos, when all of a sudden my camera shut off and wouldn’t turn back on! We were a little below the depth rating, but I was still a little worried and had trouble enjoying the rest of my dive.
Back to the Dive Shop
After our dive, we headed back to the shop. Gerrod and I filled out our dive logs and had them stamped, and then talked to them about potentially diving more. Gerrod felt the pressure a little in his sinuses, and thought it would be better to wait a few days just in case he was getting sick. We booked our next dives for three days later, and said our goodbyes!
Poop is ALWAYS Funny
After leaving the dive shop, Gerrod and I decided to pretend to be fancy and relax on the resort beach. We were laying out in lounge chairs enjoying the sun when all of a sudden a sea bird flew overhead and pooped ALL OVER Gerrod. I had a few splatters, but he definitely took the majority of the “blast”. It probably pooped on us because it knew we didn’t belong there!
Diving Day Two
A few days later, we were ready to dive again! We woke up around 5:30 am again to get ready for diving. After taking our time getting ready, we again hopped on our bikes to head to the shop. Melody even gave us bananas for the road before we left! This time, it didn’t rain at all on our bike ride! Apparently bananas are good luck.
At the Dive Shop
When we got to the dive shop, we found out it was just us diving this day so we essentially had a private tour! Gerrod and I enjoyed some espresso while we waited for our dive masters to get ready!
We had different guides than our first day diving. Our guides, Fred and Stephan had just got back from vacation and were asking us about visibility on our prior dives and checked which sites we already did to make sure we didn’t go to the same ones
Dive One
The first dive was yet again a shark dive. The visibility wasn’t quite as good as our first diving day, but we still still saw so much! We saw three white tip sharks, including one very small one. We also saw three lemon sharks! There were two female and one male lemon shark. Towards the end of the dive, one of the large sharks (nearly 3 meters long) kept circling the area so we had plenty of time to watch it. We also saw a hawksbill sea turtle, and several more sleepy green sea turtles. One of our guides was even an underwater photographer, and he was snapping photos with his big camera the entire time.
When we were done with the dive, we headed back to the boat. I surfaced first, and when Gerrod finally surfaced I noticed he had a TON of blood in his mask. His nose has started bleeding as he surfaced! He said he felt the pressure as he was surfacing, and then as soon as he was above the water it all released into a large nose bleed!
Dive Two
On the way to our second dive site, we spotted dolphins swimming in the water! I was really hoping we would see them underwater, but the dive master said you don’t usually see them diving.
Despite not seeing any dolphins, the second dive was also amazing. There was a fair amount of current pulling us with the waves, which was something I hadn’t experienced too much with past dives I have done. On our dive we saw a black tip reef shark, and more sleepy turtles including both a hawksbill sea turtle and a few green sea turtles. There was SOO much coral everywhere, and the sun even popped out so we could see how colorful the reef was. Both dives had so many fish, it was truly incredible.
Time to Pay
After we got back to the dive shop, it was time to pay for our dives. I also wanted to see our photographer’s pictures. They were incredible! I have never had a professional photographer dive with me, and Fred offered us all of his photos for a reasonable price. Since I recently had broken my underwater camera, and since the pictures were so good, we bought them. (Photo credit for our Diving Day Two photos: Scubeyes Underwater Photography)
We then paid for our dives. I had originally read about Mo’orea Blue Diving on a blog called X Days in Y, which offered a 10% discount on dives with Mo’orea Blue Diving. It ended up costing us 50,000 Francs for a total of 8 dives (4 each). Totally worth it!
Until next time!
Lauren (and Gerrod)
