23 Jul 2025
A fantastic experience all around! Thank you, Pierrick, Sophia, and Captain Iotua.
My wife and I were fortunate to book the tour based on all the amazing reviews and selected the option with the Pelagic Ocean tour. We didn’t really know what that meant at the time but it ended up being one of the most amazing days of my life.
We started by swimming with stingrays and black tips. The rays were like giant Labrador puppies climbing all over us with smiles on their faces. Sophia was snapping photos on her awesome underwater camera while Pierrick educated us on the sea life.
Then we went to a nearby location to swim with the turtles and the eagle rays. Sophia had my wife and I free dive down to them while Captain Iotua protected us from other nearby boats above our heads.
We then motored off to another part of the island and the outer edge of the lagoon. In this area there were a ton of surfers riding the waves and spear fisherman hunting their dinners. Pierrick explained that this area had a lot of the local grey sharks. So we hopped in and Pierrick attracted them to us by crunching a plastic bottle in his hand. The grey sharks were really beautiful but were more interested in the spear fisherman than us. So we packed up and motored off 5 miles out to sea.
Stage 4 of our adventure was by far the most intense and awesome part of the day. Way out to sea we came to a buoy which attracts a lot of large tuna and other fish. Including oceanic white tips. Pierrick and Sophia explained that these sharks can be dangerous (Google USS Indianapolis for more on that) and that we had a number of rules that needed to be followed to stay safe together.
They both then hopped in the water to make sure that the sharks were not in a bad mood that day. We followed shortly after that and then had a thrilling time as seven oceanic white tips circled and came up to us. Pierrick and Sophia kept them at a safe distance as we watched them in awe.
After about 10-15 minutes that felt like hours, we got back on the boat and headed back into the lagoon. We then went snorkeling one more time with black tips and a few rays. By this time we had lost any fear of these beautiful animals.
Thank you the amazing team for providing this incredible experience to my wife and me. When we return we will definitely book this tour again and will enjoy following them from afar via Instagram.
Special thank to Sophia for snapping these incredible photos!