Daily Archives: August 7, 2015

Behind EV at our day anchorage near the reef we noticed a white marker buoy that seemed randomly placed. When we got back from Stingray City, Jack pointed out that occasionally a small snorkel boat or a line of jetskis would tie off to the buoy and jump in the water. What’s up with that?  

I remembered reading about some sunken tikis hereabouts and we thought this might be the place. When Enki II dinghied by after a stingray snorkel we told them about it, climbed into their dinghy and Diana went in to check it out. She swam over to what looked like a coral bommie, then popped her head out and gave the thumbs up. With that, the rest of us donned our masks and fins and jumped in to explore. The water was a little murkier than we’d have liked, and the sun kept disappearing, but here you have it. Mystery tikis on the reef at the mouth of Opunohu Bay, Moorea.   

    
 Edited to add: just got enough internet to learn this from the Moon Guide:

“… “Le Monde de Mu,” an underwater sculpture garden in the lagoon off Papetoai with 10 large tikis created in 1998 by the renowned Tahitian stone carver Tihoti.”

Hats off to Tihoti and I wish we’d known there were ten. I don’t think we saw them all. 

Its actually called that. The day after the shrimp feast we moved Escape Velocity from deep in the bay up to the reef. We picked a waypoint from the crowd-sourced recommendations on our chart and Jack gritted his teeth as we conned our way through coral heads. We dropped the hook at our mark and launched the dinghy for the circuitous trip even further into shallow water to Stingray City. We were advised to get there early before the tour boats arrived but we inserted ourselves right in the middle of the melee with excursion boats, jet skis and kayaks all around us. We dropped the hook and just hung out to watch. We’d left the boat so quickly that we didn’t have swimsuits or snorkel gear but it was fun just the same and we got a good show as the tour guides fed the stingrays and the tourists shrieked whenever the sharks swam by.  

    
    
   
One of the tour guides waded over to our dinghy so we could touch the rays clinging to him waiting for a piece of fish from his stash. They feel soft and mushy, like Jell-O instant pudding just before it sets.