Tikihau, French Polynesia

July 23, 2007

Up early - Austin and Dad ventured out for a walk and knowing I couldn't sleep decided to head out with then. Austin began collecting hermit crabs and Dad and I helped him, which wasn't hard to do. Not wearing any shoes I opted to head back because the beach had a lot of shells and was not kind to my feet. They continued on and ended up walking completely around the island. Once they returned, we ate some breakfast that we had brought with us and prepared to get ready for our fist dive in Tahiti. We set off on our first Tahiti dive and met with the Dive Master who was very young and named Fannie. She spoke very good, yet broken English. Her father, also a master diver spoke "some" English and depended on his daughter for the remainder. Our first dive we went down as far as 93 feet. In fact, Austin's computer read 93 feet, mine read 90 and Dad's read 84 feet. It just goes to show you when you're diving you're in your own little world admiring theirs. On our first dive we saw lion fish and eels and a plethora of marine life. When we came up for our break we were treated to lukewarm tea. It must be the norm; I just didn't find it appetizing. Our second dive we saw our first South Pacific turtle. She was a beauty. Fanny was able to get very close, in fact, she was able to pet it on the head. It was as if the turtle really enjoyed the touch. In fact, when we surfaced so did he/she (not sure) we were told that there weren't many because the Polynesians like to eat them. We saw of couple of sharks, in fact we were admiring a small cave which a large grouper was hovering, unbeknownst to us there was a shark behind us waiting to catch his lunch, being the grouper. I'm glad I didn't know that until after I surfaced.

Austin's Entry: My Dad got me up early to go for a walk. We walked a little bit and we found a hermit crab. And we held it and we found more and more. And my dad also found a bag to put them in. We walked all the way around the island.