The Motus

[The internet was down last night, so consider this yesterday's update.]

Today we went to the motus to do some snorkeling and walking and baking in the sun. A motu is a very small island built of ancient coral reefs that have since solidified into calcium carbonate rock. Trees and other plants have since grown up on it, adding to what little soil got blown over from the big island of Moorea. There is a small channel between the two motus filled with living coral and other organisms. Observe:


On the way to the motus, our boats stopped at a sandbar where local tour boats feed the stingrays. Since the stingrays have begun to associate motorboats with free handouts, they came over in huge swarms. Although this picture does have some panicky-looking legs in it, I only included that for scale - the rays were huge (well fed!) and actually quite friendly. On the way back to the boats, I also saw a black-tipped reef shark, but it was a little too far away to take a good picture.



The channel seemed to be some sort of nursery for young fish, as there were many coral heads full of juveniles. The fish would use the crevices for protection and shelter if anyone got too close.

After swimming around in the channel for a while, my snorkel buddy and I decided to head out to the ocean edge of the reef to explore a bit. When we got there, we were suddenly surrounded by literally thousands and thousands of convict tangs (their striped pattern looks like prison jumpsuits). We were surrounded by walls of fish.

Very cool.