It was an early wakeup today to get ready for two morning dives. Beautiful weather and a calm sea invited us to go to the nearby passage between Raiatea and Taha’a, a place known for its patrolling blacktip sharks and schools of barracudas, jacks and blue trigger fishes.
Instantly we were observed and encircled by one black tip. Floating with the current we passed several schools of fishes, which we drifting through the partially murky water, a result of the heavy rain of the past days, which carried a lot of soil into the sea.
The second dive to us to the wreck of the Nordby, a Danish sailboat, which shipwrecked in 1900, when drifting away from its anchor place and hit the reef. It is located in about 30 meters depth just in front of an abandoned over-the-water-bungalow resort.
We descended into the water and soon spotted the silhouette of the sunken ship. All deck planks were gone over the time and we could easily dive into the open hull. Out again, we slowly ascended along the ships outer skin, looking for nudibranches and other critters. We eventually spotted the ghost pipefish and the frogfish that Axel meantioned to us during the dive briefing before finished the dive and returned to the boat.