Monday September 10^th, 2001.  5:30pm
Sitting in bed once again…

            I have found it amazing that we run into the same couples and people time and time again.  We have run into Oscar and his wife like five times today alone.  We crossed paths with several others from past dives… like one couple from Le Meridien that we dove with on Moorea, and another couple staying here that we met at the Tiki Show on Moorea.  We are all sharing not only adventures together, but also a lot of the time we even have the same wedding day.  Several of the couples were either married on September 1^st or August 31^st… it is kind of neat.  With all but a few we have had the same annoying type of generic conversations that people share when they don’t know what else to say.  Where are you from?  How long have you been here?  What islands have you been to?  What islands are you going to?  Most of the time you even forget to ask names, and then they only have names like, “The Indian girl and white guy from the Tiki show”… or “The Asian guy and annoying smoking girl”.  Even if we exchange names, they are forgotten almost as soon as they are said.  It is done more out of politeness than anything.  I am sure that we will do it again tomorrow.

            The weather here has been as fickle as it gets.  This morning was more beautiful than anyone could possible ask for.  The sun was out early… dancing across the gently tossing water.  The lagoon was the calmest since we had arrived, and it was a perfect day for diving.  We fed the fish from our deck and got a pretty good gathering going.  I saw a white bird sweep down and grab a fish from the ocean… then a big black bird grabbed that bird’s tail in mid-air and whipped it back and forth until it dropped the fish.  The black one swooped down and caught the fish before it even hit the water!  Pretty impressive stuff.  We went across the lagoon to Nemo Dive Center just before 8am… and prepped for our early morning dives.  We were doing a two-tank dive for the first time ever.  All that means is that we take two tanks out with us and do two dives without returning to shore between.  It is tricky because of the safety rules pertaining to nitrogen levels within our bodies… there is residual nitrogen left within us after dives, and it gradually goes down with time.  It takes 12 hours to completely return to a normal level.  You can only physically dive so much a day without taking serious health risks.  One other thing of note – you can’t dive for 24 hours before a flight that goes above a certain height.  We have been tracking both of these things… they seem a little more laxed here about the nitrogen stuff, and we have gone a bit over the recommended limits. 

            After we hooked up and checked all of our gear, the boat zipped though the lagoon to the Le Meridien resort for the rest of the divers.  12 divers in all – plus two instructors.  This is the largest group that we have gone out with and I am still not sure if I like it better or worse.  For one, it is nice to feel that someone is watching out for you individually.  On the other hand, it is nice to feel a little more freedom to stray a little more.  Anyway, the boat trekked a path to Tapu (The original form of the word, “Taboo”)… one of the few dives here outside the surrounding reef.  It is located outside the only opening to the lagoon surrounding Bora Bora.  We did a boat dive -- meaning that we tumble backwards into the water with gear already on.  Immediately upon entering the water, we could see straight down to the bottom – about 30 feet down or more.  Black-tip reef sharks were circling below.  Several of them.  I cannot believe how nonchalant we have become about their presence – not that it isn’t exciting to see them, but I am not constantly looking around for them in fear.  They are just there.  We start heading down the gorgeous reef – immediately coming upon a pair of moray eels.  One of them is as big as my leg!  There are a lot of them here… in the distance, we see two new things.  First, two patrolling LEMON SHARKS.  These guys can get pretty big (10 ft plus), and are known to be fiercely territorial.  They look preoccupied today… and circle us for the next 10-15 minutes or so.  We see about four of them total.  (You can I.D. them by their twin dorsal fins)  Next, we see a Napoleon wrasse.  It doesn’t come too close, and disappears as quickly as it had appeared.  Darn – these guys are cool… BIG, and quite friendly.  We drift around the coral spying so many types of fish that I can’t even begin to describe them.  Tami looks wonderful – she has been so eager to dive… and excited about doing daring things.  She constantly amazes me.  On the way back to the dive line, I spotted my very own eel.  I am not sure what kind it was, but it was smaller, had spots and a serious-sized mouth.  I motioned for Tam to look and took a few shots.  We were the only two people to see it.  We surfaced with the rest of the people and prepared for the cold ride over to our next site.

Toopua.  A spot where we were supposed to see Eagle Rays.  Perhaps even more stingrays.  However, it looked like they were all on vacation… it was an absolutely fascinating dive because of the terrain, but other than the standard fish groups there was nothing of note.  Besides giant clams.  They were everywhere… neon blue, light blue, red, neon green, brown… everywhere.  Some of the rocks even looked like they were made of them!  At first it was a rather shallow dive… then we came upon a cliff with nothing but deep blue lying beyond.  It was really neat to see the contrast – all rocky where we were, then a drop off to nothing.  We went over the side and floated down about 40 feet to the sandy bottom.  I guess this is where the rays were supposed to be and weren’t.  It was kind of disorienting… the sand bottom sloped heavily one way, while the rocks went straight up.  It created a sort of valley.  It was a gorgeous dive, but was disappointing not to see what we were hoping to.  The weather was cloudy again when we surfaced.  The great weather ended with our dive.  We have two more dives tomorrow – I don’t want to leave without seeing manta rays… they are absolutely huge, and the chances of us seeing them anywhere else is pretty slim.  We decided this: If we don’t see mantas tomorrow we are doing one extra dive specifically to a manta site on Wednesday.  If we do see them tomorrow, then we are going to do a night dive tomorrow night.  Yes, I said a NIGHT dive.  Imagine that – pitch black outside and diving with sharks and whatever else in the dark.  Hmmm… never thought I would do that either.  Tami and I are both nervous and excited about the thought. 

            After diving, our day slowed dramatically.  Without a car we were a little stranded.  We ate a much-needed lunch at the hotel and then walked over to the grocery store again.  We bought enough stuff for dinner.  We came back to the room, relaxed, fell asleep, felt great, and then I started writing.  We were going to go kayaking, but we never made it back out.  Oh well, this is a vacation.  The sleep felt great.  We are going to watch another movie before going to bed… Tami has a sore throat right now – we are hoping that she feels better again in the morning.  So far we have both held together pretty good.  My stomach has been a little upset a couple times, but that isn’t too unusual.  Two and a half days left on Bora Bora… it is winding down quickly.  I really wish that we had added an extra day on this island instead of Tahiti at the end… I would rather end our honeymoon on an “up” note like this hotel rather than the dirtiness of Papeete and the so-so hotel we have there.  I believe that we actually saw everything there that we wanted to when we visited our first day.  The other islands are so much more interesting and exotic.  I originally added the day there because we were worried that one day wouldn’t be enough to see everything.  I am sure that we will find something to do…