10.1.09

10.1.09

This morning I finally accomplished my goal of seeing a shark in the waters of French Polynesia. We went on a shark and ray feeding excursion sponsored by the hotel. Our guide was a very funny Tahitian man who gave us a tour of Bora Bora while playing his ukulele and singing songs.

I was a little scared by the shark feeding, but I was also very excited. The guide stood in the water and fed a swarm of sharks chunks of tuna. He told us to float near the boat and watch the sharks through our snorkel masks. I was hesitant to get into the water but I just had to see those sharks. I wasn’t as scared as I thought I would be when I looked underwater and saw a huge cluster of them mere feet from me. The Japanese couple, Chinese couple, and Italian woman were too afraid to come in to the water. The guide said “Japanese, you get in now. Chinese, no be afraid!” The Canadians joked to me that they were gonna give the sharks a Canadian appetizer.

The ray feeding was fun too. After my experience with these guys earlier in the trip, I didn’t have an ounce of fear. Still, when several of them brushed their wet mushroom feeling skin up against my body it was a bit disarming. The guide tried to get me to feed the rays a chunk of tuna, but after I saw how 3 of them at a time will basically suction cupped themselves to your body to get the food I wasn’t interested.

This afternoon we took the advice of the Canadians and kayaked to a particular spot near the Sofitel. It was great snorkeling and we made some fun films of ourselves swimming through the coral gardens. Just as a storm was beginning to roll in, we had to go pick up my new pearl earrings from our Japanese jeweler at the Sofitel reception desk.

We had another interesting dinner at the hotel restaurant. The theme was BBQ but it seemed like a mish mosh of all kinds of cuisine. Everything from sushi roll style burritos, to rice pilaf in interesting little test tubes, to escargot still squirming in their shells. During dinner an elderly Frenchman in a red silk shirt got up and serenaded a couple with “La Boheme.” It was the sort of night I’ll never forget.

After one of our trips to the buffet, we encountered our canine friend from the night before. It was the oddest thing. He was just sitting next to our table as though he was waiting for us. The wait staff tried to shoo him away but he wouldn’t budge, even though high winds and rain were whipping at him. Eventually the storm got so bad we had to move our table inside. When we came back outside to take the boat back to our bungalow on the motu, he was waiting for us. He followed us through the bar all the way up the dock. He probably would have hopped on the boat with us if a security staff member hadn’t shooed him away.