Polynesia: Maupiti + Rangiroa + Moorea - October 2012
Dear English-speaking readers, this page is an automatic translation made from a post originally written in French. My apologies for any strange sentences and funny mistakes that may have been generated during the process. If you are reading French, click on the French flag below to access the original and correct text:
In Rangiroa, Polynesia, dolphins love to play underwater with divers! Video demonstration in the Tiputa pass.
Immersion in the Tiputa pass
Too bad for the timeline, I tell you this little Relaxed stay-diving in French Polynesia in no particular order... I just put together a nice underwater video that I'm dying to share!
It's happening at Rangiroain the archipelago of Tuamotu. It is a huge atoll, whose lagoon forms a real inland sea: 80 km long, 32 km wide. You can never see the end of it!
The Motu (small coral island), where the tourist activity is concentrated, is surrounded by two passes, Avatoru and Tiputa, famous in the small world of divers... And for good reason. I can't resist the pleasure of showing you what happens, under the surface, when you "innocently" get into the water to blow bubbles in Tiputa:
Dolphins players
If the dolphins are in a playful mood, they immediately come and twirl around the divers... We hear them announce themselves by whistling. We widen our eyes behind the mask, to distinguish something in the blue. And suddenly, they are there!
They dance and whirl around, passing from one diver to another, not shy at all, not hesitating to brush you. We can see, in my little video, how I have difficulties to follow and to keep in the lens one of these dolphins which turns around me... I end up filming my fins!
Of course, it is recommended not to touch the dolphins. But they are so familiar and they come so close, almost in contact, that many divers find it difficult to resist the reflex of reaching out to caress them in passing ...
Katy, from the excellent center Y Aka DivingIn Rangiroa, he explains that there is no point in paddling behind them or trying to approach them. They are the ones who decide and come to us. If they choose to do so, we avoid direct contact, but we can make gestures underwater and imitate their swimming, to stimulate them, to show them that we are in a playful mood too, and to encourage them to stay...
It is her, with the yellow flippers, in the video, who performs a whole aquatic ballet with the dolphins!

Thank you, Katy, for these incredible moments !!!
Another video to (re) discover ...
If you like this kind of encounter with dolphins, I invite you to watch another small video, which I made in Egypt, in October 2011. It was during a snorkeling trip in the Red Sea, in the Sataya Bay: