July 3-4, 2000.  Papeete, Tahiti, pronounced Pa-pee-et-tey.

The first (and only) lesson I learned from the Cruise Director was
that for NAMES in the French Polynesia, you pronounce EVERY vowel.

Getting there was easy enough -- started from home at 4 a.m. EST on
July 2, and flew most of the 30-hour day to arrive at Papeete 10 p.m.
local time July 2, which was 4 a.m. EST, July 3, ready to go to bed
about the time we normally would have gotten up the next day.


Tahiti is part of the Society Islands, one of five archipelagos that
comprise French Polynesia.  Papeete is a town in Tahiti Nui (Nui means
Grande or Big;  the other Tahiti is Iti, Little) and is the capital of
French Polynesia.

I brought my January 2000 issue of Skin Diver (Cover with "Tahiti")
which listed dive shops in all our ports of call EXCEPT Tahiti.  That,
together with the fact there was no scuba scheduled in the "shore
excursions" here, and Huw's Tahiti trip report which included the
recommendation "get out there as quickly as possible" :-) left me with
as low an expectation about diving here as I could have had.

So, on the first day, we signed up for the "shore excursion" of
"Papeete Lagoon Discovery" which included the words "snorkeling and
swimming" as the least of all evils we could choose to do that day.
We were two of the 39 Suckers (out of 700+ passengers) who fell for
that event which cost $50 per person, for about an hour of snorkeling.

Suitably motivated by the LACK of worthwhile "shore excursions" for
the next day, I found a dive shop brochure at the Tourist Information
Center and booked us a two-tank dive for $74, with the Aquatica shop,
one of several listed in the Plan Map for Tahiti/Papeete, but the only
one with a flyer at the Tourist Information Center.

I specifically asked for a wall dive on the first dive followed by
whatever dive they have for the second. As I later learned after
diving all five islands -- all dives are booked as single-tank dives
since the shops are usually only 5-10 minutes from the shop, so that
anyone wishing to do a second dive simply add on another single-tank
dive after the first (with little or no difference in the price of the
second tank).  BTW, unaccustomed to having to show my "C" card, I
forgot to bring it for my dives.  But the operator let me dive anyway
on my good looks.  :-)   Because of the absence of LAND SHARKS in
French Polynesia, most of the operators there were pretty slack about
check diving experience of C cards.

While there was no "wall" as such in Tahiti, the sloping drop-off of
rock, sand, and hard corals at the Punaauia site far exceeded my
expectation in visibility, marine life, and the overall quality of a
DIVE.  Our second dive was at a site called the Aquarium. On the first
dive, anemonies with colorful clownfishes were EVERYWHERE, in addition
to a few roaming black tip sharks.  On both dives we saw bumphead
parrotfish, Moorish idols, clown triggerfish, and numerous other
Pacific fishes abound.

It was a very pleasant surprise, to say the least.  The HyperAqualand
watch logged:

Punaauia 113 fsw max; BT 45 minutes.

Aquarium  42 fsw mex: BT 54 minutes.


I promptly booked two dives for the next day at Moorea, our next port
of call.  Based on these two dives in Papeete, I would rate Tahiti
diving 8 (surprise!) on a scale of 0 to 10, on par with Cozumel and
the Cayman Islands on just a couple of dives, but definitely not as
varied as the sites in Cozumel or the Cayman Islands.

-- Bob.