Wonders in the water

By Diane Daniel, Globe Correspondent, 08/23/02

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Elizabeth Dupre's grandfather had a thing for Tahiti. He would play Tahitian and Polynesian music, and reminisce about the land and beaches he had visited several times. So when it came time to pick a honeymoon spot in July, Dupre and her husband, Dave, chose the Tahitian island of Bora Bora.

The couple love water and had become certified scuba divers before their trip. Elizabeth, 32, recently received an MBA from Babson College, and Dave, 37, is a development manager at Navimedix. They live in Brookline Village.

The first leg of their three-week trip was a rest from the wedding blitz.

They first stayed at a Le Meridien bungalow set on stilts in the water. "We spent a couple days just basically doing nothing. We just parked on the beach. It was a nice resort, it's beautiful, and everyone's attentive," Elizabeth said. A special inside feature was a small glass panel in the floor, giving them the impression of walking over the water.

"Everything is focused around water and water sports," Dave said. "The sidewalks roll up at 5, and the sun is down at 6."

"We did some great dives," Elizabeth said. "We saw eagle rays and sharks and amazing fish."

The second part of their travels also involved water — five days on a 40-foot sailboat, which they found through the Moorings, a boat charter company. With their own captain, they "found that personal touch," Elizabeth said. He took them to snorkeling and diving sites, including Raiatea, where they descended 90 feet to see the wreckage of a 20th-century three-masted schooner.

"We actually went inside the hull. It was a little eerie," Dave said.

Elizabeth added, "It went down only five feet from the beach. There's trapped air, and you can take the regulator out and talk."

At night they'd dock at different islands. "It was like, wow, we've got our own little private island, and then the stars would come out," Dave said. "It was very romantic."

Their captain took them to a farm that harvested pearls and vanilla. Elizabeth was more interested in the former.

"She had to do `research' on the black pearls, and I had to sponsor it," Dave said, laughing. They bought a loose pearl, "one third of the price at home, and I'll probably put it on a necklace," she said.

At the end of the sail, Dave caught a barracuda and the captain cooked it for dinner.

Their final destination was the big island and capital of Papeete, where they stayed at a resort, the Inter-Continental Beachcomber of Tahiti. "It was a good way to end the trip after being on the boat for five days," Elizabeth said.

"We went to the island of Moorea, which was just absolutely gorgeous," Dave said. "That's when we did a shark dive. It was pretty intense."

"The water is so clear, you can see the sharks on the bottom congregating, about 15 or 30 just swarming down below. You're descending into that," Elizabeth said. "They're reef sharks, not great whites, but some of the lemon sharks get to be 12 feet."

The dive master pointed out a group of sharks at a "cleaning station." One at a time, "they'd go into a nook, stop, and open their mouths for little fish to go in," drawn to the food particles in the sharks' mouths, Dave said.

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