Diving and Research on Moorea

On Tuesday and Wednesday we went scuba diving. Our son, Kalan, went both days: I accompanied him on Tuesday and my wife went on Wednesday. (Kalan is really passionate about diving, which goes along with his desire to become a marine biologist when he’s older.) Kalan has cut his teeth diving in Lake Neuchatel – where visibility on a good day is a few metres – so this was a great opportunity for him.

I’m personally not such a huge fan of diving: I do enjoy it, but I’m really a landlubber at heart. This was a really enjoyable dive, though: we started out seeing a sea turtle (never a bad start) and then travelled around a ravine of coral, appreciating the various reef fish for 47 minutes. Not a deep dive – Kalan has his junior Open Water, but as he’s 13 he’s limited to around 18m – but really beautiful.

Our divemaster, Stephane, (from the excellent Moorea Blue Diving Center) mentioned that UC Berkeley has a research station on the island, the Richard B. Gump South…

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