{"id":3134,"date":"2015-08-23T20:20:42","date_gmt":"2015-08-23T20:20:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/?p=3134"},"modified":"2015-08-25T20:21:07","modified_gmt":"2015-08-25T20:21:07","slug":"the-coral-island-tahaa-french-polynesia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/?p=3134","title":{"rendered":"The Coral Island – Taha’a, French Polynesia"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"DCIM100MEDIA\"<\/a>
The coral gardens at Taha’a<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Next on our tour of the Society Islands is Taha’a, a small island between Huahine and Bora Bora, reknowned for its coral gardens on the west side.<\/p>\n

\"one<\/a>
one of the many motus on the eastern side of Taha’a<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You can enter the eastern pass and then sail round the island inside the fringing reef. Nostalgic for some more motu-action, we were hoping to anchor off one of the many motus on the eastern side but the depths went from 0.5 metres to 40 metres with nothing in between.\u00a0Impossible!<\/p>\n

So we kept motoring until we reached the western side of the island, anchoring off the hotel complex on the private motu near the coral gardens.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The private island and hotel complex, Taha’a<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Bora<\/a>
Bora Bora from the anchorage at Taha’a<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The views to Bora Bora were spectacular, although with the weather remaining unsettled and squally it was difficult to get the longed-for sunset pictures. This was the best we could do:<\/p>\n

\"Bora<\/a>
Bora Bora in the late afternoon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Bora<\/a>
Bora Bora sunset on a squally day<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The coral gardens are definitely worth a visit, although much better early in the day before all the tourists arrive, and when the sun is shining. It\u2019s best done as a drift snorkel, walking to the outer reef end of the small motu adjoining the private island, and then drifting down through the pass between the islands. A very pretty snorkel with lots to see and so many fish.<\/p>\n

\"DCIM100MEDIA\"<\/a>
colourful coral and fish abound<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"We<\/a>
We found Nemo!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A<\/a>
A friendly moray eel popped out to say hello<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"This<\/a>
This guy takes the prize for the best colour scheme!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Coral-Garden-Tahaa.m4v<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

Lovely as it was, we stayed only two nights here as we were keen to spend our remaining time in French Polynesia exploring the legendary Bora Bora – just a short daysail away.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Next on our tour of the Society Islands is Taha’a, a small island between Huahine and Bora Bora, reknowned for its coral gardens on the west side.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-svtoucan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6B46t-Oy","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3135,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3134\/revisions\/3135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}