Tahiti Dive Festival web album

If you're interested in ways to help preserve coral reefs and ocean ecosystems, you can Donate to the Project AWARE Foundation, the dive industry's leading nonprofit environmental organization that works to conserve underwater environments through education, advocacy and action... and you don't even have to be a diver to contribute or take action! If you're a shark lover like me, you may even be interested in adopting a shark.

Ia orana! Are you ready for a tastey slice of Bora Bora? Once again I found myself on this amazing island but this time for the Tahiti Dive festival... every year PADI puts on a dive festival and this year the chosen destination was the "Pearl of the South Pacific", Bora Bora. Here's a map of Tahiti. As some of you may know, it's my favorite place on earth and diving it was even more spectacular than I imagined it would be. The Festival was kind of a blur, to tell you the truth, as most of the time my head was underwater doing what it does best, taking an almost perpetual 'drink of beauty' and shooting as much of it as my camera could stand. As Bora Bora has so much beauty, I drank in so much beauty I think I actually got drunk. Alot of my best photos came from snorkeling around the Bora Bora Pearl Beach Resort and from the two shark and ray excursions I went on (pictured at left). And man, what a thrill!! The sharks and rays were the main thing that I was dying to get on my memory cards, and the colorful fish, too, of course. Here's my best video on sharks and rays. There's footage from both inside the lagoon and outside in the deep water, too. It was such a high being right there in the middle of them, literally inches away. I've always loved sharks ever since I was a teeny kid, especially the rubber toy ones I could use to bite the heads off Barbie dolls. Yeah, I had issues. But the sharks understood me.

Here's my Tahiti Dive Festival mini-documentary... I've got dive footage, sharks, fish, stingrays, snorkel footage, resort footage, Polynesian dance, and all kinds of oceanic beauty. And hey, here's another video! I got so much video footage of the trip it's just insane. Unfortunately, my videos don't contain sex or violence, but there's plenty of unbridled ecstacy! So turn your speakers on and soak it up.

The Pearl Beach Resort has a really beautiful coral nursery packed with hundreds of colorful, cute fish ranging dozens of species. The nursery is open to the lagoon and fish can come and go as they please. I also saw little moray eels in the nursery corals and even a small octopus! To me, it's just the most perfect place on earth. I stayed in an overwater bungalow (pictured below left)... you can plunge into the shallow, warm water off your private deck and swim right into schools of tropical fish, even stingrays and small sharks on occasion. I saw a few sharks and rays around the bungalows. It's the prettiest yard a diver or eco-enthusiast could hope for. Here's a quick, fun video of the lagoon. My bungalow had a section of glass floor. Here's a swim below it... the intrigue of it is wild! Bora Bora Pearl Beach Resort is my new favorite resort. It sits on beautiful Motu Tevairoa which is about a 2 minute boat ride to the main island where there's shops, restaurants, homes, mountain views, and a cute circumference drive. I went with a group of divers to go shopping our last day and ended up taking the bus back to the boat dock which was fun, actually. The island has lots of beautiful vegetation and people, too. I wanted to do a Mt. Otemanu excursion to get some arial photos of the island but didn't end up doing it... next time for sure. I hear it's amazing!

The people were terrific, and I met lots of great divers including the competent, funny, professional, and exceptional diving staff at Bora Bora's Top Dive Resort. They really made it fun for us and they were very well organized. They had our gear all ready for us every day and took us to some fantastic dive sites... not that there are any bad ones. The PADI travel network people were also very cool and they have the coolest jobs!!! It was good to get around professional divers and photographers... You certainly get access to some fascinating dialogue in the diving community... and I'm all about that.

And then there were the dives... very fascinating. I remember seeing several big lemon sharks slithering their way along the coral gardens. The ones we saw were anywhere from 10-12 feet in length, I think. They were the biggest sharks I'd ever swam with and very graceful, too. We also saw a few black-tipped reef sharks down there. I didn't see any swarms of eagle rays like I'd hoped but some other divers did. Bastards! On one of my last dives we found ourselves in the midst of a huge school of longfin bannerfish and that was a lovely spectacle... kinda felt like being in a underwater ticker-tape parade. We saw tons of different species of triggerfish, blowfish, surgeonfish, squirrelfish, wrasse, parrotfish, butterflyfish, sergeant majors, jacks, those cute 'clownfish' or anemone fish, morays, different species of black fish, and chromis to name a few. Lots of strikingly colorful giant clams, too.

I never saw such a huge variety of fish in my life. It was amazing! I even got bit by a big titan triggerfish. Luckily it didn't really break my skin, just left a funny fish-smile-shaped bruise. They have these dull, rounded, almost human-like teeth. It was kinda hilarious in retrospect but it also pissed me off at first. Not sure why it bit me... maybe I was near her egg sack. It happens. I saw another diver, big guy, get bit on the arm by the same fish. I felt better after that. He he he!

Seeing the sharks is always my favorite thing, though. Concerned about shark conservation? You can even adopt a shark. Bora Bora's biodiversity was great to see. The coral gardens were breathtaking splash of color! What a spectacle: purples, blues, pinks, oranges, turquoise, yellows, magentas... wow. I did see lots of dead and dying corals on our dives but then I also saw lots of healthy ones. Unfortunaly, I've seen dead and dying corals every place we've been diving and snorkeling. It's just a fact of undersea life these days. Still, I try to keep a positive attitude, and I just keep doing what we all should do: give butt loads of cash to Project AWARE every month, stop using plastic bags, do beach cleanups, and keep garbage, chemicals, and stupid people away from the oceans.

I saw a couple of Polynesian dance shows which are always fun. I got pulled into the dance by a big, sweaty Polynesian who smelled like coconuts. I thought, "Wow. I wish my sweat smelled like coconuts." Actually, they wear coconut oil I was to later discover when the enthusiastic fire juggler pictured at right got me to rub some on his chest. I guess they really want you to 'feel like your part of it.' It was hilarious. Then they had me light the fire batons. Come on baby light my fire. I had to wonder how flamable that coconut oil was. Not to worry... nobody caught on fire. I'm surprised they don't have more burn marks, though. It's pretty amazing how agile they are with the fire batons. Maybe fire dancing is an ancient Polynesian art or maybe it's just a great way to get chicks. Who knows? It's probably a little bit of both. In fact, it probably started out as a way to get women and sort of 'evolved' into an ancient art form over time. Whatever the case may be, it was a terrific visual feast and I really liked the Polynesians I met. They were warm, funny, patient, honest, bold, generous, and personable. It was the first time I'd traveled overseas alone... my sweetie couldn't make it on this trip, unfortunately. I sure missed him. But we've got lots of trips to French Polynesia in our future. It truly is a photographer and videographer's dream. I hope this has been fun! Mauruuru!

Photos are below. Just click on any image to make it larger.