Yo bro - where's the GoPro?
- Rangiroaness
- May 10, 2016
- 5 min read
For anyone visiting Tahiti, an underwater camera/video camera is an absolute must have item. I have travelled with relatively cheap "point and shoot" cameras and captured some amazing footage, but after two trips (and much curiosity and envy over my fellow travellers' toys) I invested in a GoPro. It took me a while to search and source the right accessories, which appear to number in the trillions, before hitting on the right combination of a GoPro attached to a really dorky yellow bobber. A bobber is exactly as it sounds... it is a bright yellow plastic floaty to which your GoPro attaches. The theory is that if you become parted from your GoPro in water, it will bob to the surface and be easily recovered.
Now the waters in Tahiti and generally calm and easy to navigate, but on my most recent trip in
Sept/Oct 2015, El Nino made an early appearance, and was making its presence felt with large swells, strong winds and fast moving currents.
On 2 October 2015, I joined Leon and his crew for the fantastic Ile aux Recifs (or the Reef Tour) out of Rangiroa. But beware - the boat trip is not for the faint-hearted! Leon maintains very modern and very fast speedboats that eat up the huge distance between the main town of Avatoru and our destination across the lagoon, but the ride can be very bumpy, albeit completely safe. The highlight of the Ile aux Recifs tour is the prehistoric-looking fossilised coral reef or feo.
Like most of my three weeks in Tahiti, the weather was really unpredictable - windy and rainy one moment, calm and sunny the next. But the currents were really strong throughout the day. I had enjoyed the same tour about 18 months prior, and found the snorkeling to be absolutely pristine. The coral wasn't amazing, and there was not a lot of fish, but the clarity of the water was like nothing I had ever seen. This is a remote motu, and you are unlikely to see anyone else there, except for the tours guides and those who came with you on the boat.
And don't even get me started on the view above the water... if you are looking for that original, one-of-a-kind screen saver, Rangiroa is the place for you! It is full of picture postcard moments. You can check out more photos of Rangiroa here.
Anyway, having snorkeled this spot previously, I threw on my snorkel and fins and jumped in, keen not to waste any precious snorkeling time. What I didn't take into account was the incredibly strong current running from the ocean side through to the lagoon side - bearing in mind that the motus (or islands) that ring the atoll are very small with maybe only 100-200 metres of land between the ocean and the lagoon.
If I had not been in such a hurry, I would have walked further up the pass, jumped in at the ocean end and drifted down towards the lagoon. Instead, I swam against an incredibly strong current. The final score was Current 1, me 0. I am a fairly strong swimmer, but even with fins I struggled to stay on the ocean side and constantly drifted towards lagoon side. Just about where the palm tree is on the right, the water becomes very shallow, and the strong current has made huge ridges and sand banks in the shallows.
I hit the shallows and had trouble getting out from between the sand banks. There is a lot of very sharp coral both in the water and on the beach, and with only fins on, it was a struggle to get back to where it was deep enough to swim without cutting my feet. So I decided to come out of the water and hobble up the beach.
As I came out of the water, I realised that my GoPro was no longer in my hand!! I still had my digital camera wrapped around my wrist, but in the strong current I MANAGED TO DROP MY GOPRO. I had a quick look around, hoping that my ugly yellow bobber would do its thing and I could retrieve my camera unharmed. I had already uploaded my footage from previous outings, so I would only lose one day of vision, but I had another 10 days of my holiday and I didn't really want to part with $500+ to buy a new GoPro.
But there was no GoPro in sight :-(.
I ran into a couple who were in the cabin next door to me, and they also had a quick look to see if the GoPro had surfaced anywhere. I was starting to feel very sad and had pretty much kissed my GoPro goodbye, when our tour guides came over to see what was happening. Now these guys are young locals and are really quite adorable. They are used to stupid tourists losing stuff, and without a thought they were all running through the water towards the reef on the lagoon side. WITH NO SHOES ON! Their feet must be like leather to run across the coral like that. They were way out looking across the reef, when two of them started running back, and the other ran through the water towards the next motu (where the trees are on the photo above). The boys came back and told me their friend was going to get a boat - they had seen the yellow bobber about 30 metres past the reef!!! I was still a bit dubious, as the water was choppy and I couldn't believe they had seen it that far away.
10 mins past and there was still no sign of the tour guide. I wasn't feeling very hopeful, but the young guides seemed very confident the story would have a good ending. Next thing, I can see an outrigger in the distance. True to his word, the guide had found a boat and was paddling out past the reef into the lagoon. Below is a photo animation of what happened next...
Needless to say I was a very happy customer! The boys went out of their way to help me retrieve my GoPro, and I was extremely grateful for their efforts. it is a great example of the Tahitian hospitality I've enjoyed on my travels to French Polynesia. But all work and no play makes for a very dull tour guide, so the lads made sure they got in plenty of well-deserved fun throughout the day. Sometimes the simple pleasures are the best.
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