Hand feeding stingrays
15 June 2012 | Moorea
Hugh
We've had beautiful week in Moorea, a world away from the hustle and bustle of Papeete. We spent our time in Opunohu Bay which is one of two main bays in Moorea, the other being Cooks bay named after Captain Cook though Cook himself actually stayed in Opunohu Bay. Opunohu is the prettier of the two and has a lovely white sand beach, we anchored in 10M and could easily see our anchor on the bottom the water is so clear. There's not much live coral in Moorea Lagoon but we saw stingrays, leopard rays, dolphins and reef sharks.
A famous attraction in Moorea is feeding the stingrays in the lagoon. We guess the tourist boats have been feeding them for years because the stingrays were very tame and eagerly approached us. We got some great video from our camera (I've just uploaded it to our gallery), feeding them was hilarious, they're such unusual creatures! They would shimmy themselves right out of the water to get at the food (tuna sashimi we prepared for them). They're incredibly soft to touch but it's hard not to feel anxious around the sharp barbs on their tails, we were told they only really attack if you stand directly on top of them but Mike's been stung before (in Sydney) and talking around a couple other cruisers have been stung too, all claim it's the most excruciating pain and with memories of Steve Irwin we took great care not to step on any!