15 51S 146 16W
This morning we left Anse Amyot and the Tuamotus for Tahiti in prep for the family arrival next week. We leave behind some excellent friends, particularly Dave and Sherry on Soggy Paws who we have been cruising with on and off for 5 months and we will miss them sorely. As a last hurrah we packed as much activity into the last few days as possible. Thursday we had a wonderful dive just outside the entrance, tying off to a blue buoy Gaston has for spear fishing. It was a wonderful gentle wall with a nice plateau at 40-50 feet with wonderful fish and beautiful coral. We also explored shore and met our wonderful hosts Valentine and Gaston who maintain the moorings and have a restaurant. I dove on the moorings with the left over air and confirmed that most are chain wrapped around large coral heads shackled to large line with a lower bouy to keep the line and chain vertical and a second float at the painter. 
Friday was a 4+ activity day starting with a snorkel with the Manta Rays. Gaston took us through the reef to the spot the Mantas feed and found us a group of 8-10 large manta rays who were in a feeding frenzy, looping in somersaults with mouths open, scooping as much plankton as possible. We took photos and lots of video (will post here once we get WiFi in Tahitti) and it was an event we will never forget. After a quick lunch we headed 1.5km SE along the shore to a yellow bouy Gaston put out on the reef for a dive. This dive had a nice plateau at 25 feet with a 10 foot deep hole with many fish, but the real attraction was a vertical walled canyon, wrapping 250 degrees around you and going down well beyond the 150' visibility. Beautiful coral and colorful fish make this an amazing dive with deep blue below and a visible overhanging cliffs at about 150' depth that we didn't dare dive down to.
After that we finished our air by finding a lost mooring for Gaston as the harbor was getting rather full. Dave and Bill went out fishing in the dingy and then we headed ashore for an amazing dinner by Valentine of Grilled Lobster, Poison Crue, aluminum foil packets of Fish in garlic and butter, coconut bread, rice, and the most amazing coconut based chocolate frosted cake. Stupendous meal for just CFP-2000 ($22) and a box of wine.
Saturday we went back to the canyon dive for a second viewing, then went to the beach in the afternoon and had a pot-luck dinner ashore. It was an exhausting last few days, but ones we will treasure for a long time.
Off to the land of plenty. Word from Fellow Traveler is that prices are reasonable if you pick your products and we will have WiFi to upload some of our great new photos and videos. We should arrive Monday midday, so hopefully I can have a new entry and some multi-media ready by tuesday evening or so.
More Videos uploaded and on their way on Visions YouTube Channel (see link on right pane)
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