Dive Review of Blue Nui/Pearl Beach Resort in
French Polynesia/Manihi

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Blue Nui/Pearl Beach Resort, May, 2002, by Bob Woods, CA, USA . Report 113.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity	N/A
Dive Operation		Shore Diving
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$	N/A
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	Blue Nui Manihi, as run by shop manager Stèphane Hamon, is absolutely top of the line. They tried hard to please, we never had to touch our gear, and we were treated as friends rather than just customers. This is one of the few times on any trip that when we left the dive shop for the last time it was hugs & kisses all around—Marina for me and Stèphane and Julien for my wife Léone. The routine here is a morning dive at about 8:30 (or 10:30 if no one wanted to dive early; they bent over backwards to be accommodating), back in for lunch, and another dive around 2:00 or so. You do a back roll in, fairly easy exit on a detachable ladder. They were flexible about how you got out—i.e. whether you want to take off your fins, BC, etc. in the water or not. Restrictions depended on what the dive staff perceived your experience level to be; we could pretty much do whatever we wanted, while some others were closely shadowed and held under a tight rein. The diving is varied, ranging from calm, quiet wall & reef dives to flying “drift” dives through the lagoon entry (“The Break”) at tide change. On the wall and reef inside and outside the lagoon, there are coral-covered canyons, channels, and the undersides of ledges to swim through. There is plenty of healthy hard coral (for reasons I don’t fully understand there seems to be no soft coral in French Polynesia). Fish life includes lionfish, white tips, black tips, eagle rays, Napoleonfish, clouds of pyramid butterflies, unicornfish, flame angelfish, ringtail wrasse, and unique to the Tuamotu islands, the beautiful bird wrasse. The dives in the channel at full current were wild rides and great fun. You would either drop into the channel, or start in still water at one end. If you didn’t drop into the channel itself you would be in fairly calm water for a few minutes with a moderate (1-3 knots) current, then accelerate as you go through the shallow break. When you again hit the deeper water at the other end it’s like hitting a wall of still water, with everyone tumbling head over heels as the currents meet. Then it’s nice and calm again until you’re ready for the boat to pick up survivors.
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	251-500 dives
Where else diving	Most of Caribbean, Fiji, Tonga, Maldives, Indonesia (N. Sulawesi), eastern Pacific (Panama, Costa Rica)
Closest Airport		Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny	Seas	calm, currents
Water Temp	85-85°F / 29-29°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	15-100 Ft/ 5-30 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	Dive your computer
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	N/A
What I Saw
Sharks	None	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	1 or 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter	N/A	Boat Facilities	N/A
Overall rating for UWP's	N/A	Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	[None]

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Dive Review of Blue Nui/Pearl Beach Resort in French Polynesia/Manihi

Blue Nui/Pearl Beach Resort, May, 2002,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Blue Nui/Pearl Beach Resort in
French Polynesia/Manihi