Cyndi and Rich aboard Legacy
August 14, 2012
This is a beautiful snorkeling experience. It is important to wear gloves as it can get shallow and you don’t want to put your bare hand on coral (especially the fire coral!). Today we could feel the current, but it wasn’t very strong and we moved at a slow, easy pace. It took us about 20 minutes to go over the gardens. Once we finished, we went and did it one more time. -Cyndi
Below is a little video we took as we drifted through the coral gardens.
August 14, 2012
Once you make a landing here, there is a path to the other side of the motu, about a five-minute walk. When you get in the water there, you can ride the current back over the “gardens.” Sometimes it moves pretty fast, and sometimes it’s hardly there at all and you have to propel yourself.
I noticed other people here seem so determined to get to the snorkeling action that they hardly notice the view above the water. I think that view is part of the attraction! -Cyndi
August 14, 2012
From the Coral Gardens on Tautau, there’s a beautiful view of Bora Bora in the distance. Soon, we’d be headed that way, but for now we appreciated this amazing view of it. – Cyndi
August 14, 2012
Just heading to shore at the coral gardens at Tautau, we were treated to some of the prettiest water we’ve seen. It’s so pretty I decided to give it its own little section here. After a lovely ride to shore we made a beach landing. -Cyndi
August 14, 2012
The second place we wanted to stay on Taha’a was actually a motu just off the island called Tautau. Tautau is the first in a string of about 3 motus, one right next to the other. Between Tautau and the next motu is a shallow area filled with fish and coral called the Coral Gardens. Tautau is also the site of Le Taha’a Resort, one of the most beautiful resorts in French Polynesia. I’ve always wanted to stay there, but for now I’d be happy to just stay next to it!
Anchoring here turned out to be a challenge. The anchorage is on a rather narrow shelf of land about 15 feet deep. On one side of this shelf it’s very deep, and on the other side it is way too shallow. The bottom is sand (good) and coral “bombies” (bad). The trick is to get the anchor into the sand and to make sure there is enough space between the tallest bombie and the bottom of the boat’s keel. Complicating the matter further was the presence of lots of boats here; we didn’t have much choice on where to anchor.
It took 3 tries, but we finally got the anchor set in a pretty good spot. The first thing we had to do was jump in the water and measure a couple of the tallest bombies near the boat. We do this by diving straight down and reaching out our hand to touch the top of it, then looking to see if our dive fins are sticking out of the water. In my case, if I am completely underwater from the tips of my fingers to the tips of my fins, the water over the bombie is deep enough. -Cyndi
