Swimming with sharks and sting rays

Well, I hadn't planned on doing another update until next Friday, but we had such an incredible day yesterday, I had to share it. We motored out of Cook's Bay after breakfast and went to the next bay called Opunohu Bay, reputed to be the most photographed bay anywhere in the world. We anchored close to the outer reef, and after a lunch of home-made macaroni (one of Kylie's favourites) we took the dinghy to a small motu about a mile away.

This is where tour boats come to feed the sharks and rays, but we had the bonus of being on our own private "dinghy tour". It was incredible as we motored towards the area that the rays literally converged on us. Doug and Peter got in the water first, as we were a little leary of all the sting rays and there was noone else around us. It was clear, once they got in, that they were a friendly bunch, much accustomed to humans in the water with them.

We swam with them for about an hour. As if it couldn't get any better, we were then joined by about 10 black tipped sharks who swam around us and amongst the dozens of rays that were still there. At this point everyone was back in the dinghy but I couldn't seem to drag myself away. Reluctantly, after being water-logged, we went and checked out the old Club Med hotel site and the public beach.

We came back to the boat, had a gin and tonic and looked through our photos (unfortunately Kylie's camera has bit the dust and so has Doug's waterproof one).
We ended our "dinghy tour" with a great hamburger barbeque on QuickStar and we joked that we didn't even have to pay $70.00 a person (the retail price of the tour) plus our private excursion was even better. We will be going back out for another day with the sharks and rays this morning....Shelby was up to watch the sunrise with me and is bursting at the seams with excitement!

Until next time.....Have a great Sunday.