Where the dolphins, sharks and sunsets reign
RANGIROA, French Polynesia — Even though there is no nightlife or much shopping on remote Rangiroa, we found plenty of things to do.
On our first night, we took a 15-minute walk from our hotel to a point on the Tiputa Pass known as Cité des Dauphins.
Twice a day when the current is strong, you can see bottlenose dolphins here, jumping and frolicking in the waves. Some dolphins leaped so high and so gracefully that people cheered.
Also on our wish list was a visit to the Blue Lagoon, a natural pool on the edge of the main reef formed by a string of motu, sand banks and coral reefs. It offers the vistas that people expect when they imagine paradise, and its shallow turquoise waters are thick with small fish and blacktip reef sharks.
The experience was certainly worth the hour-long boat ride through choppy lagoon waters, although we were disappointed to see our guides feed the sharks and hoist one out of the water by its dorsal fin.
Rangiroa has two deep passes, or straits, that connect the lagoon at the atoll’s center to the ocean. Sea life congregates in these passes; stingrays and various species of sharks are mainstays, and it’s not uncommon to see manta rays. The current in the passes changes direction as the tide rises and falls, and drift snorkeling can be done safely when the current flows from the ocean into the lagoon. Snorkelers and fish are propelled through the water — sort of like flying underwater — along the walls of coral.
We did a mini drift snorkel through the Avatoru Pass at the end of our outing to the Blue Lagoon and had scheduled a two-hour drift-snorkeling excursion through Tiputa Pass on our last day in Rangiroa.
Because of a miscommunication about the departure time, we missed the boat. I was heartbroken.
A spectacular sunset that evening was a small consolation prize from Mother Nature, as was a sighting the next morning of the first eagle ray I had ever seen, gliding past our over-water bungalow just as we were closing the door behind us.
As we sat waiting for the transfer to the airport, Fisher, one of Hotel Kia Ora’s activity directors, motioned me to follow him. He had heard about our missed excursion and said he had something for me.
He grabbed a folded-up napkin from his desk and gave it to me. Inside the crumpled paper were two Tahitian black pearls. It was such a sweet gesture that I started to cry.
And so, as was the case during our Bora-Bora honeymoon two years ago, we left the island with me in tears and my husband, Jeff, promising that we’d come back.