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Top Diving Bora Bora Island

Posted on February 28, 2009 by: Traveler

Closest City: Vaitape, Bora Bora
State:
Country: French Polynesia

Top Diving Bora Bora Island

My Tropigal and I would eventually like to experience a live aboard dive boat adventure (the Great Barrier Reefs of Australia or Belize are two prime locations) where the charter travels to each dive location (three to four a day) while guests are either sleeping or lounging. Staying for four nights at the TopDive Resort of Bora Bora was as close as Danielle and I had come to the live aboard experience. This is figuratively speaking as we stayed in one of the over-water bungalows at the resort. The dive boats at TopDive Resort were anchored just yards from the deck though and we only had to walk 40 feet to hop aboard so it didn’t get much easier.

TopDive has an excellent operation set up throughout French Polynesia with knowledgeable staff all of who are certified scuba dive masters. What we liked about the diving throughout “Tahiti and Her Islands” was the dive masters coming down with and pointing out all the neat nooks and crannies they have already seen. I personally don’t need to discover the underwater world on my own because it’s a big ocean and I only get 45 minutes of bottom time on each dive. Prior to the start of our 23-day, seven island-hop of French Polynesia, I had booked a 10-dive package through this resort. Since TopDive operated on three islands we would be visiting (Rangiroa, here, and our last island; Moorea) we kept it simple by using the same outfitter. We planned to use four dives to experience the underwater splendors of this island.

The following is a list of supplies and a description of their dive vessels from the TopDive website at: http://www.topdive.com/topd/borabora.php

Equipment : Aqualung

50 Jackets-40 regulators with octopus ,ds & bottom timer.

100 Aluminium tanks for AIR

50 Aluminium tanks for NITROX

60 Wetsuits 3mm Shorty.

35 Masks -fins –snorkels.

3 Boats : Atea & Naurie

aluminium boats designed for diving.

TOPdive one : Catamaran 44 feet- 2 x 425 cv Inboard-Jet

34 divers+crew.

TOPdive 3 : 30 feet- 2 x 225 cv Outbord 4 strokes Yamaha .

16 divers+crew.

TOPdive 4 : 30 feet- 2 x 225 cv Outbord 4 strokes Yamaha .

16 divers+crew.

Training:

PADI . ANMP .

Pick up:

By air conditionned minibus to all hotels & ‘pensions’

Speciality:

Nitrox-Private Tours-PADI training.

So, as you can see, they are well established here on Bora Bora and just as efficient on the other islands they operate out of.

Muri Muri & Tapu dive sites: On our second morning, Danielle and I loaded onto TopDive-1 (TD-1) and headed out to our first site called Muri Muri. Divers from other resorts also joined in on the adventure and all told, there were 19 divers heading out. Now this was just on our boat, the smaller TD-3 boat was also full but heading to another site on the outer reef of Bora Bora. It was a little organized chaos figuring out who was who in the zoo but being resort guest meant we were guaranteed spots on TD-1. There were pretty good swells outside of the protected waters of Bora Bora’s reef but that didn’t affect the water’s visibility.

The Muri Muri dive site is along the northeastern portion (just east of Motu Mute, where the airport is located). As soon as we jumped in the open water at Muri Muri, we could see the reef bottom (Bora Bora is actually an acient volcano) about 80 feet below. We all dropped down to the slope of the reef and slowly worked back up. All the while, black tip reef sharks were swarming around us divers. We had gotten used to sharks by now and knew reef sharks are tame by comparison to their toothy brethren. After being exposed to numerous sharks at the Blue Lagoon and Tiputa Pass on Rangiroa and then Tumakohua Pass at Tetamanu Village on the island of Fakarava. We could see their fins piercing the water and even more seeing them as soon as we submerged had become expected. The Muri Muri dive site had schools of barracuda and nice coral outcrops. After this first dive, we returned to drop off some guest and pick up others but quickly loaded back onto TD-1 to head out to a dive site called Tapu or “Shark Point”.

Tapu was almost directly west of the resort so it was a quick ride out to the ocean side through Te Ava Nui Pass. At Tapu, we dropped down to about 70 feet and were told to hang onto a piece of the coral for a shark feeding experience. With all the divers in a circle facing into the “arena” our dive master, Benjamin, pulled out fish pieces to lay underneath some coral for the lemon sharks to compete over. Up to four of these large sharks would take turns trying to nudge the coral away to get a piece of the prize. Before the dive began, Danielle asked Benjamin how we would be able to identify the Lemmon Sharks from the others and she was told, “You’ll know when you see it!” He was right and we immediately noticed how much longer and bulkier the Lemmon Sharks were than Black Tips and even Grey Shar ks. Lemmons have two dorsal fins on their backs but for easy identification and they swim with their mouths wide open… YIKES! Not to worry though as we soon discovered they couldn’t have cared less about us with the fish carcasses buried underneath the coral. While Benjamin removed all the fish from his bag we just held onto the coral and enjoyed the show. Live entertainment at it’s best. After about ten minutes at “Shark Point” we continued on with the rest of the dive at Tapu. My thought now was if the Lemmon Sharks would simply go on about their business or would they follow us around. We obviously weren’t the first set of divers to experience this so as soon as we left, so did the Lemmons. The Tapu dive site ranges from 30 to 120 feet but we were just cruising along at around 40 feet after sitting at being at a deeper depth at the arena. The tropical fish were on steroids at this part of the outer reef. Cruising along we came across some anemones surrounded by Clown Fish. I immediately thought about my father’s saltwater aquarium he had maintained while I was growing up. He paid money for clown fish like the ones I was seeing swim through the anemones small tentacles in their natural habitat. We also saw large triggerfish and a very large napoleon wrasse. The videographer captured an irate moray eel to show us all back at the TopDive shop.

After surfacing at this second dive of Tapu, Danielle and I were thrilled at what we had just seen. Each dive lasted about 45 minutes and I actually had 40 bars left in my tank (about 400 psi). Don’t worry about the fact that I had a 15 liter tank while every other diver had 12 liters. I’m just saying my breathing was getting under control. It’s not like I am nervous under water, I just was taking a deep breath every single time and was finally realizing (after getting pointers from all the TopDive Masters) I didn’t need to breath so deep. NOTE: The pictures accompanying this write-up begin with the trip out to the Tapu dive site. I don’t know if we even had our underwater camera with us on that first trip to Muri Muri.

Muri Muri and Ome “The Imps”: On our third day at the TopDive Resort, Danielle and I again boarded TD-1 for another two-tank dive. The same organized chaos ensued at the deck area of the resort and again we were promptly shown our seat aboard TD-1. To our dismay we learned we would again be starting out at Muri Muri (and there are pictures from this dive to the left J). Don’t get the wrong idea because the site is beautiful, we just wanted to visit four different dive sites at Bora Bora. Our second dive would be hitting a new location called Ome. Danielle copied down the description of Ome from a message board at the shop. It read something like- Ome (ocean) “The Imps”- Oceanic slopes with sandy bottom, coral outcrops & pinnacles. Garden eels, barracuda, white tip sharks.

Muri Muri was nice the second time but already seemed familiar and we couldn’t wait to get over to new territory at Ome (I know, we were already getting spoiled by this spectacular diving here in French Polynesia). We were actually scheduled to dive Ome the day prior but the TopDive operators knew the five-foot swells we experienced usually were larger at that site. Heading out to Muri Muri on this day though had a calm and glassy lagoon. For diving along the outer edge of Bora Bora’s reef, we didn’t have any lines to lower down. It was an awesome sight to jump in to the open water and look down to the sloping reef edge 80-100 feet below. There were less sharks on this day but we got to see a sea-turtle chilling out on a small coral ledge. Instead of traveling back to the shop, TD-1 headed straight for Ome, about twenty minutes away. NOTE: I can’t say for sure where the Ome dive site is because it is not depicted on the TopDive website, but trust me I’m calling it what they were and we both saw what they had written on the shop’s message board. Two dolphins started to follow at the bow of TD-1. They were playing with the boat always seeming to stay just ahead and know which direction we would turn. Just before stopping at Ome the sky let loose with a heavy tropical downpour. I figured hell, we are about to get completely submerged so I enjoyed standing at the back edge of the boat for a minute. Pretty neat above the surface but even cooler was looking up at the rain splashing onto the ocean’s surface from 30 feet under. Each drop spread out making it’s own little radiating circle before disappearing into the surrounding little circles. We saw a lot more anemones here and Danielle liked touching their velvety underside and sticky tentacles. Of course, the tiny clown fish would try to shoo us away. One anemone had a burgundy underside and the other had a white velvety underside. In about 40 feet I had my first experience of nitrogen narcosis. This is a feeling divers sometimes experience at around 75 feet of water so I was surprised when I realized I was feeling light headed. I simply ascended 5 feet and the feeling disappeared.

Diving Bora Bora was an experience Danielle and I will remember from our time at the TopDive Resort. The staff was outstanding and very knowledgeable of their craft. We did not plan to dive at our next island destination of Raiatea and Tahaa (one reef circles both islands) but were definitely looking forward to diving again with these world-class operators on the island of Moorea.

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