An autonomous dive, and a farewell to Moorea

We have the itch to move on; but we need our boom fixed. 

We are waiting on a guy called Paco to pull it all together. He looks and sounds like Eli Wallach in the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. He had a great understanding of the engineering issues but it was a bit slow to get going.  Ultimately though, how could you not have confidence in a guy that looks like Eli. 

So while we wait for that, we are saying goodbye to Moorea before we head to Fiji.

After our circuitous path to open water SSI certification, we needed to break the seal on our first autonomous dive. We worked our way through the new gear, hooned out in the dinghy through the Opunohu Bay pass to the buoys outside the reef, and made fast.

Once we dived in, there were all sorts of strange underwater sounds. We quickly realised it was the whales talking, maybe the mother and calf that had shared Cooks bay with us a few days before. They'd been leaping out of the water not that far offshore as we headed in to Opunohu. Or it could have been some of the other whales we'd seen offshore just before we headed out. 

I spent the whole dive hopefully peering into the depths. 

Of course on the way back in through the pass we saw the whales. The Mother and Calf had jinked past us to get into the bay. We kept a respectful and sensible distance.

The dive was good but a bit sketchy on my part. Easso was more disciplined than me and maintained his depth pretty well. I was up and down a lot. This came home to roost with a good dose of inner ear barotrauma, leaving me disoriented and feeling terrible. Fortunately a dose of Aquaear relieved the pressure. 

Next we headed around to Haapiti for a farewell visit. The gloomy weather continued; but then there was a late break in the clouds. The Full Moon lit up the lagoon like a sunrise.  

The moonshadow of the the mast falling on the sand beneath the boat.  

The next day it was a glass off... Amazing. 

There's cloud reflections, bubbles and a shark in Easso's surreal photo. See if you can spot them. 

I got out for a couple of surfs at both the local breaks. Again I was taken aback by the friendliness of the surfers, such a contrast to Sydney. On my way back to the boat I saw  Easso out for his late arvo SUP. The imagery was so extraordinary I had to head back with the camera.  

Easso Supping at sundown.

It was a sunny and glassy afternoon, and then there was a lightshow after dark. 

Sunset in the glass

Evenstar in the evening glass-off, Moorea in the background. 

Electrical storm storm after dinner. 

Tomorrow we head back to the floating shanty town at Papeete to pick up our crew and hopefully get our boom before heading to the Lewward Islands and then Fiji. 

Bring on the next chapter.