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Matilda - Rangiroa - ARC Socials and Diving Passes



Greetings from matilda.

We arrived safely in Rangiroa after some great sailing but a challenging pass entry - we went in way too soon but it made it nice and exciting. Gunvor wisely left it for a few hours afterwards. Sad to have missed Zoe who were leaving in as we were coming in.

Almost immediately invited to an evening of Polynesian delights at the nearby ultra luxurious Kia Ora Resort with the crews from Gunvor, Anastasia, Peat Smoke, Southern Cross, Sapphire and Serendipity - a lovely evening with some curious interpretations of hoola dancing. Last night we organised another ARC 'do' at Josephines place, a lovely elderly French lady who can cook up a storm which helped make for another very special night. Jonathan fell in love with yet another kitten but just managed to stop him from smuggling it back on board.

However this mad social whirl wasn't getting any diving done so rectified this today by diving the eastern pass. What a dive - up there in my personal top 10. Challenging initially as there is a lot of current and have to be very aware of buoyancy and trenches to duck into etc. However this was made less formidable by a very skilled and lovely dive guide. The clarity of the water was excellent (much to our surprise as there have been strong winds and choppy seas for the last few days) and I lost count of the number of sharks, albeit in the distance, some quite big but very shy. What else, where to start. A Napoleon fish, a flock of eagle rays, a distant dolphin who didn't want to play today, a myriad of the usual reef fishes, a stone fish (that I nearly put my hand on) morays etc etc. Stefan from 12 moons had done this dive yesterday but didn't rate it as highly as the pass dive in Fakarava, so really regretting not getting to dive there. Tomorrow we do an outer reef dive where the dolphins are supposed to be very friendly and love to play. In the afternoon we are going to the Western pass - hopefully that will be as interesting.

Most of the ARC boats have now gone on to Papeete, mainly to get various maintenance issues sorted. For once there is nothing ultra pressing for us (touch a lot of wood) so will head off probably on Monday, perhaps we will challenge Gunvor to a race (ho ho).


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