Swimming with the Sharks

After a great time in Tahiti we sailed about 20 miles from Papeete to the north side of Moorea. Patsy and Steve were lucky to enjoy almost perfect sailing conditions with bright blue skies and about 15 to 20 knot easterlies on the beam.

Rounding the northeast corner of Moorea we anchored on the north side of Opunohu Bay just inside the reef. A beautiful spot, but it seemed we were in a wind tunnel as the strong easterly trade winds bent around the northeast point of Moorea and ripped along the shoreline.  With our big 15 hp Yamaha outboard in the shop for repairs, we were limited to our little 2 hp kicker engine with a bad carb who could barely get us to shore at times.  Steve and I had to disassemble the fuel system to try and figure out why were weren’t getting full power, but had no luck fixing the problem.

The bottom line was we weren’t going any distance in the dingy (with the 20-25 knot winds) so we had to come up with Plan B for visiting Stingray City, about 5 miles west along the coast. Patsy and Steve were nice enough to treat us to a wonderful dinner at the Hilton Hotel, chock a block full of young honeymooners. It was so weird seeing couples actually talking with each other at dinner rather than playing with their smart phones.  We checked with the Concierge and signed up with a tour boat to Stingray City the next morning.

If you read South Pacific sail blogs you will inevitably come across everyone’s experiences at Stingray City, so we had a good idea of what to expect. In the Tuamotus we usually had sharks swimming around the boat (waiting for handouts of food) and we’d seen numerous sharks while snorkeling, but usually just one or two at a time.  Stingray City is a little different that that.

We met our young Tahitian boat driver, Alma, the next morning at the Hilton. Along with two honeymooning Japanese couples (still talking with each other) we headed north west past Flying Cloud, across the pass at Opunohu Bay, and sped just feet away from white cement markers across a very shallow reef section. A little unnerving to see the bommies passing that close to our keel. Just past the Intercontinental Hotel we could clearly see Stingray City by the large flotilla of tour boats, dinghies, and so on circling the area.

Patsy gets a stingray "drive-by."

Our guide massages the stingrays that crowd around him.

Eyeball to eyeball with a big ray.

Once we arrived our guide didn’t give us much of a briefing so we put on our masks (no need for fins as it’s only about five feet deep) and jumped in. We were soon surrounded by a school of hungry Sargent Majors, and at a distance, large stingrays. Alma jumped in the water and was immediately swarmed by the stingrays. What we didn’t see was that he had chunks of fresh fish with him to feed the stingrays. It seemed he knew them all on a first name basis as they arched up and rubbed their white undersides along his body (while he put small pieces of fish in their mouths). He said we didn’t need to worry about the stinging barbs on their tails as these were “family friendly” stingrays.

I got close to shoot some GoPro video and immediately felt myself pushed forward as a large ray body-blocked me from behind (trying to get to Alma, I imagine). Once you got used to all the rays in close proximity, you could actually run your hands along their baby-butt smooth topsides; they seemed like they actually liked to be rubbed and petted. I have to admit there is a certain pucker factor until you get used to be body rubbed by huge stingrays and watching that stinger on their tail pass just inches from your favorite body parts.

Rush hour at Stingray City.

In the distance a pack of black-tipped sharks slowly circled watching the circus, just in case an errant piece of fish the rays might have missed floated by. At times they would do a drive-by and come right through the group. The black-tips were in the four to five foot range, essentially teen agers with a high level of curiosity.  We found you had to constantly have 360-degree awareness of what was around you. Granted, any shark worth his razor- sharp teeth can swim faster than a speeding bullet and rip your leg off, but you still didn’t want to let your fingers or toes dangle out in their space.

One lean, mean eating machine.

This is about as close as I'm comfortable with. Just what is that eye looking at . . . lunch?

We eventually moved more out to the fringes of the area so we could watch the sharks; they are truly the most amazing fish in the ocean. Little changed since prehistoric times, their bodies are designed for one purpose: lightning fast speed in pursuit of food. As long as you don’t look like food to them, or haven’t pissed them off in some other manner, you are fairly safe. But I pity the poor tourist who goes up and tries to pet them or get a close-up portrait; they are still wild animals.

Back in the tour boat we all agreed this was at the top of our list of cool life experiences (until we get to swim with the whales in Tonga) and we all had stories to tell during sundowners and certainly back home.