Day 460: January 3, 2025 – Fakarava, French Polynesia

Well ok, that was click bait. I didn’t actually SWIM with sharks, I’m not much of a swimmer. It was more like, the sharks swam circles around me. But close enough.

There were at least 4 of these beautiful nurse sharks swimming fairly close to the beach. Continuing with my goal to reduce my fear of the water, I waded out deeper than I had before, thanks to Eddie who allowed me to hold his hand so I wouldn’t freak out about falling in the water. And no, they are not a threat to humans. Here is what Mr. Google has to say about nurse sharks:

Nurse sharks are generally docile, curious creatures. They rarely bite humans, and even when they do, it’s usually just a “test bite” out of curiosity.

Fortunately, there was no “test biting” on this excursion.

These two were sleeping when we approached. We moved quietly to not disturb them

Continuing our meandering through French Polynesia, today we are on the obscure little island of Fakarava. (Yes, we all get a kick out of saying the name.) It’s long and skinny, with 37 miles of flatness, so it seemed like a good place to go biking. My biking buddies Alicia, Eddie and I rented bikes for $10 for a morning meander around the island, stopping to admire sharks, birds, turquoise waters, and coral.

We couldn’t quite figure out what these were; we concluded they must be some kind of coral colonies. (If any of my shipmates who saw them have more info, feel free to chime in!)

We rented our bikes from a local family, where this woman was grinding coconut to be made into coconut bread. They let us try some of the bread; it tasted very similar to banana bread.