Yesterday we moved from Cook's Bay to Opunohu Bay, about a one hour slow motor boat ride from anchorage to anchorage. This morning Fay and Caitlin took the dinghy up to the end of the bay and bought fresh shrimp at the shrimp farm; only open on Wednesdays from 10-2. They had cleaned about half the shrimp before we departed for the NW corner of the island to snorkel with the stingrays.We offered the shrimp heads to the stingrays and they were a hit, the rays were practically climbing up into the boat to claim them! We enjoyed petting the rays but stopped short of feeding them by hand as they have very strong jaws for crushing crustaceans and didn't want our fingers confused with shrimp heads! And of course the feeding stingrays also attracted a few black tip reef sharks. After we had distributed all the shrimp heads we had to wait a few minutes for the stingrays to disperse a bit so we could enter the water without landing on top of one of them.
We then kicked out towards the reef and spent an hour snorkeling. While everyone seems to come for the stingrays, the snorkeling is excellent among the coral bommies with a good collection of reef fish, including bat fish, moorish idols, box fish and the usual collection of trigger fish. We were a little surprised to see a few reef sharks weaving in and out of the coral, far away from their usual spot near the stingrays. Coming back to the dinghy we saw a large (roughly 2') titan triggerfish whipping through the coral at high speed; a rare sight.
Tonight's dinner is shrimp scampi on a bed of tagliatelle with a bottle of Taft St. Sauvignon Blanc; a real treat!
