#34173 - 04/26/03 05:10 PM
Did you/are you bringing water shoes?
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Anonymous
Anonymous
Unregistered
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Does anyone know if this is necessary? We're going to Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora, and Huahine.
Thanks!
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#34174 - 04/26/03 06:21 PM
Re: Did you/are you bringing water shoes?
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maheanuu_tane
Member
Registered: 09/20/02
Posts: 259
Loc: Uturoa, Raiatea French Polynes...
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Are you referring to "reef walkers"? I would recommend them, if you are on the reef, you will need some protection for your feet, remember if you get a coral scrape or cut, be sure to disinfect it, and use some neosuporin to put on it, staph is rather prevelant in Tahiti (we are the tropics)
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#34175 - 04/26/03 07:08 PM
Re: Did you/are you bringing water shoes?
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Anonymous
Anonymous
Unregistered
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Thank you!
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#34176 - 04/26/03 09:10 PM
Re: Did you/are you bringing water shoes?
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Microbman
Member
Registered: 03/07/04
Posts: 44
Loc: sacramento
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Oh most definately. This is a must. Dead broken coral is everywhere and if you plan on doing any walking in shallow areas particularly near the reefs or oceanside you will need to protect your feet. If you get a live coral cut on your feet it will take weeks to heal and there is the probablilty of a rather nasty infection. On our first trip to Bora Bora my wife and I went on a shark feeding excursion. The jovial fellow who operated the excursion told us we did not need either fins nor reef shoes. We arrived at the spot were the activity took place and they told everyone to exit the boat, feet first (by climbing over the sides of this rather sturdy long local style wood boat). We were in roughly 5 to 6+ feet of water so when we exited of course we all hit the bottom. The bottom was composed of jillions of small pieces of broken dead coral. Wham...I landed on a sharp piece and promtly cut my foot in two places and my wife got a bad scrape. Now, here we are on a SHARK FEEDING excursion and I have a cut foot and my wife a bad scrape. What's wrong with this picture?! The boat captain said no prob and promtly began chumming the waters for sharks. Hmmmmmmm.......I figured if I gotta go this is gonna be one hellava story my wife will have to tell at my funeral..if I even have one considering if the sharks don't devour my entire body. Prob get some good pics tho. Well these well fed babies could have cared less about my foot that is now swelling and stopped bleeding. They made a coupla passes at the old fish heads, posed sweetly for a few shots by the paying cutomers and retreated to wherever it is those fatso sharks frolic for the remainder of that day until another excursion comes along to fatten them up again.
Moral of this story - BRING REEF SHOES ! Even if you don't use them they are cheap, lightweight and don't take up much precious room in your luggage. BTW, it took about a month for those cuts to heal up. I used copious amounts of triple antibiotic ointment I brought with us and it hurt some for a couple days at first. We unfortunately forgot bandaids and paid $10 USD for each box we bought in Vaitape. That hurt the most.
One more thing about that excursion. The rope let go (untied) at the end where my wife and I were stationed and we and another couple went drifting off in that pretty good current straight into the same area where the sharks were picking their teeth after inhaling those fish heads. The guy who was feeding them saw us comming along with the freed rope followed by a few other soles, sprinted into a crawl and did a superhuman retrieval of the rope in a flick of a sharks tail, retied the rope, grabbed our hands and helped us back to safety. The sharks got scared off (lucky me), we grabbed the rope again and time was up. If we had fins we wouldn't have been wallowing in the same water with all those leftover fish parts with Mr. Blacktip just waiting for his chance at a real meal instead of dead fishheads. I did bleed all over the bottom of that old boat on the way back to our resort. At least the seagulls left me alone while the skipper was throwing leftover fish guts to them in the air on the ride back while I had it sticking up in the air. BRING SHOES!!
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#34177 - 04/27/03 10:18 AM
Re: Did you/are you bringing water shoes?
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Karyn
Member
Registered: 03/15/03
Posts: 60
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Little Lamb,
Yes for sure the water shoes. And Microman is so right about the fins for the shark and ray feeding. That was one of our favourite excursions, but it was made so much easier having the fins. We took our own fins and masks, but most hotels have them available for you to use. I just don't like using someone elses mask. Going again I would take my own mask and snorkel, then just borrow the fins.
Don't forget to take an underwater camera, this is a must.
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#34178 - 05/01/03 12:37 PM
Re: Did you/are you bringing water shoes?
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Anonymous
Anonymous
Unregistered
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Reef shoes are a must! They can easily be bought at WalMart for $4.99 and are very lightweight and do not take up much luggage room.
Any activity in the water warrants using reef shoes. I have seen a couple of stonefish which are both dangerous and difficult to detect off Moorea shores. You do NOT want to step on one of these creatures.
Buy them - you won't regret it!
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