Diving in Bora Bora

Today, we woke up early, had breakfast and then waited for our ride to Top Dive Bathys for a two-tank dive. We suited up and got on the boat with our dive leader Alec and headed out to our first stop near Motu Tapu.

This would be the deeper of the two dives at about 60 feet. There were already many reef sharks in the area and as we descended, we also saw lemon sharks at deeper depths. At the bottom, we saw a yellow trumpet fish, a beautiful fish that looks somewhat like a flute fish, but bigger with a completely yellow body. We also saw flounder, plecos, parrot fish and an eel. After about a half hour, we headed back up and went to our second destination at Motu Toopua.

It was shallower here, we only went down to about 40 feet, and this was a drift dive - the boat moved while we were under and we followed the dive leader to where the boat had gone. Almost immediately, we saw a massive eagle ray gracefully swimming near the bottom. We also saw clownfish, anemones, and many other beautiful tropical fish before finishing our dive. We headed back to the hotel, got our snorkeling gear and headed to the Sofitel Motu Private Island to snorkel at the Coral Garden at the eastern end of the island.

The water was shallow, but full of beautiful reefs and many fish. I was particularly surprised by the diverse colors of the clams embedded in the reefs. We also went up to the overlook to see a great view over the lagoon and the main island.