Tidal Turmoil

Tidal Turmoil
Rangiroa, French Polynesia

Rangiroa, French Polynesia

Rangiroa was one of the first Islands that we visited where we needed to get the tenders to the shore as there was no pier big enough for the ship. This was a bit of a new experience as hundreds of guests all gathered in the theatre and began queuing for magic coloured tickets to get a seat in one of the life boats to get ashore. I sure hope that in an emergency this is not the procedure?!

As there were not too many passengers wanting to leave the ship it all went relatively smoothly and we were on dry land before we knew it. We didn’t have a tour booked for Rangiroa as it had been difficult to arrange anything in advance, but we knew that we wanted to snorkel the infamous Tiputa Pass, where a lagoon on the atoll meets the open ocean and it is a famous location where giant rays, dolphins and hammerhead sharks gather.

We made our way to one of the dive shops on the island full of excitement and very quickly received the worst news possible. The tides were all wrong and none of the operators would be snorkelling the Tiputa Pass that day. Bugger.

Not ones to let a wrong tide ruin our day, we still decided to book onto a snorkel tour which went to a reef in the front of the island where there was still a chance of seeing some of the magnificent creatures that live in the area. Sadly it was not to be, whilst the sea was clear and lovely and we had a few black tip reef sharks circling around us, the giant mantas, dolphins and hammerheads all kept their distance. Looks like we are going to have to leave this one on our bucket list.