A life changing experience in Bora Bora - SCUBA diving for the first time

The previous post in this series is here..

When we booked the Snorkeling experience the family discussion was “okay, what activities are there in Bora Bora for us to do?” The answer was “Snorkeling, 4 spots avaiable..”, then Jet ski - 2 spots the day after, ATV tours only 2 spots on last day and Introductory Scuba diving - 2 spots.

I decided to try Scuba diving. Was thinking of my friend E back in college who would talk non stop about getting ready for her diving experience and how one need not be an expert swimmer to dive. The family rolled its collective eyes. Jr. said worse case, she will come with me. That is when San decided “I am going to try this. It says you don’t need to know swimming”. Wasn’t going to discourage her and said “great!” and 4 eyes rolled back almost completely. Meanwhile the kids wanted to Jet ski and they signed up for it. The times had an overlap. So it was the two of us for diving. San called them to confirm that it was okay that she was not a swimmer and they said “okay”!

When we were snorkeling earlier, the kids pulled me aside and gave me an earful for encouraging San to come diving. They said “we are not happy with you going but look at her. She is having difficulty snorkeling, how is she going to survive diving? please stop this madness appa!”. Told them that she is scared but wants to try. She will watch me and come along. Worse case we waste the money if she bails out last minute.

Day 3 morning was rained out. We had an early light lunch and waited. The Jet ski people showed up at the hotel and said the tour was cancelled due to bad weather. The kids were really disappointed. So they decided to just go to the pool in the hotel and then go to their room. We waited to see if the diving would be cancelled.

The dive tour folks showed up and said “We are good! it is not bad weather for diving!” So off we went. Once there the lady at the counter said “it is okay. if you follow instructions, you will do fine!” and introduced us to Mr. David, our instructor. There were two David’s on the boat who were instructors. one spoke French and the other both French and English. We went with a family of 6 from France who were all in their twenties. A guy with his girlfried, his two sisters and their husbands. They were really nice and only the guy spoke English. It was first dive for most of them as well but they were good swimmers. I did not know we could get our phone on the boat. Left it in the lockers! They were kind enough to take our picture and airdrop it!

While we were on the boat we got a lot of instructions. Most importantly the sign for okay was the “pramaadham” sign, thumbs up meant “take me back up”. Someone in our house watches movies causally and asks “who is this guy?” 5 minutes before the climax comes and the guy happens to be a key part of the plot. Guess that person listened to the instructions like they watched movies.

There is an instructor with two people max at one time. So first 30 minutes we sat on the boat with 2 folks from the other family. Instructors took the other 4 down and came back up. Then the French David took the French couple with him. Anglo-French David was waiting in the water for us. We got into all the gear with the oxygen cylinder on our back and the fins on our feet and he asked us to take a leap of faith and jump off the boat. We both did to our surprise. The fear was visible in San’s eyes when she came back up to the surface after jumping in but once she got used to the bubbles she was all smiles.

Mr. David told me to stay on the surface and snorkel while he took San down first. He made her go to the bottom, grab the sand with her hands, try to touch the fishes and they looked up at me. She was doing fine. Then something happened and she showed the thumbs up sign. Later I found that he was asking her if she was okay and she said yes with the wrong sign.. So he took her back up. Then it was my turn!

We went down and he saw I was doing fine and took me deeper. Still get a rush thinking about the view and the silence with the occasional sound of the bubbles coming from my breathing. Was totally calmed out just slowly breathing through my mouth and watching a wall of a few hundred fishes in front of me. Then we moved past corals and this time got to see them from ground level and the view and fishes were just mesmerizing. Looking up at the sunlight coming from the water surface and dancing around was just amazing!

It was a life changing experience! When I finally came back up, had no words to describe it. Just an adrenaline rush. Took me a few minutes to compose myself and talk to folks. San was thrilled that she went through this. It was about to rain again and we made our way back to the dive office.

Mr. David told me on the way back “your wife was doing great. Don’t know why she suddenly asked me to take her to the surface?!”. I asked San and she says “I gave him a thumbs up to say I was doing great!”.. Couldn’t stop laughing.

Should have bought at least an iPhone cover or rented the gopro at the center (it was 70 bucks and they hand you the SD card). Wasn’t confident of holding a gopro and the gear on a first dive, so skipped it. There are no photos from the bottom of the lagoon to share.. but there will be soon. A video highlights reel..

We were given certificates for our first dive and took pictures. After coming back to the hotel, both of us were silent. We decided to go back into the water for some time at our hotel and were still processing what we had done. The last time I remembered both of us being silent and looking at each other like this was after one line turned into two on a pregnancy test 23+ years ago. Maybe this was my way of thinking “now there is no going back.. might be hooked to this diving thing”.

We had taken a big chance with diving and it is by far the most outrageous thing we have tried and were happy at the end of the experience.

Was extremely proud of my wife for going with this and doing what she did. Told the kids to never underestimate their mom, ever!

It was time for a shower and come back to the restaurant for dinner!

Snorkeling with Sharks and Stingrays and a Coral garden - Bora Bora

The previous post from this trip is here..

The plan was to have a nice nights sleep. I had set an alarm for 5:15AM to catch a sunrise while the rest of the family slept till 7AM. However, the roosters started crowing at 3:45! There was no chance of sleep.

So I missed the sunrise.. Later I learned that we don’t actually get to see the sun through the clouds in Bora Bora in December with the clouds.. only a slight increase in purple hues and brightness increase. So I did not miss anything!

When we went for breakfast the place was calm. We did some Yogagraphy. Then I decided to get in the water for an hour. It was great! Then we went back to the room and got ready for an early lunch.

We had booked a snorkeling adventure trip for the afternoon. It is not easy to just look at each other and stay in hotel rooms. The kids were okay with this plan. We had found just 4 spots for the afternoon with Moana Adventure Tours. Will definitely recommend this company if you are looking for a great snorkeling experience.

They picked us up from the hotel and after a 15 minute drive we got introduced to the captain and guides and were off to the reef. First we were in a shallow area with 4-6 feet water where we could snorkel. There were a lot of sharks and one big stingray that went past us.

After this we got back on the boat and went to a place where the water was 6-7 feet deep. This was tricky and some swimming knowledge was necessary to snorkel and not step on the corals in the coral garden. We were told that this is the only company that is allowed access to this garden as they help maintain it.

They did give us inflatable vests to help float. I did get some help from the guide Mr. Tema to maneuver around the corals and not step on them. One of the other tourists on our boat, a couple from San Diego were nice enough to give me a space iPhone waterproof case so I could take videos and photos under the water while snorkeling. That proved to be a challenge but you can see it in the video. Two of the 8 people still managed to get scratches on their legs and bleed. One of them was Jr. who is an expert swimmer. Mr. Tema quickly sprayed them with something that would dissolve any stuck coral and an instant bandage. He was Mr. Ice cool. He also kept telling us “do not pick any shells no matter how pretty they look”.. later he told us about a neurotoxin on the shells and death in 15 minutes if you get stung.. nearest hospital is 45 minutes away. Thought he was kidding. Later I came home and googled it and sure enough, it is called the “cigarette snail” because if you get stung, you may get to smoke one cigarette before you die!

The photos from this amazing experience.

Here is the video highlights. Have edited more than 30 minutes of video clips to this shorter clip… iPhone goes in and out of focus when underwater.. maybe it is my phone that is getting old.. maybe I should have changed some settings before taking it underwater.. best edit I could do in a rush.

Restricting this post just to the morning dip in the lagoon and snorkeling.. The photo shoots of us with Yoga poses and in the evening light at golden hour (no gold colors though) will be in a separate post!

Note to self and others. Remove Rudhraksha beads before you get into salt water. I usually do. For some reason in the excitement forgot. Some of them almost cracked. Now they are going to have to go through some conditioning to save them.