Kaueh to Fakaravai; Taumotus

Yesterday we went snorkelling on one of the many reefs. There were plenty of fish with stunning colours and shapes that came in all sizes. The corals were beautiful with not as much colour, but with the fish sitting between the fingers of coral you had the contrasts that would have been great to photograph should we have had a camera for the task. The one coral had a school of very light blue fish between the fingers that were a cream colour and the whole coral was no bigger than a football, but wow did it look lovely. The other striking colours that we saw were the clams. They all sit on the reef with their zigzag shells open and their mantels form a colourful lip along the inside of the shell. Over one area of coral there were five of the clams next to each other and not one had the same colouring. Some had specks or stripes of metallic blue, silver, gold or green with bright orange and other colours. Again that would have made a spectacular photo.

Today we changed anchorages as well as atolls. We were planning to go to Papeete but the winds are very light and Papeete lies 280nm away. Rather than stay at Kauehi for a few more days we decided to head off to Fakarava. The lagoon was like a mirror today and we motored across to the pass and left with the tide. For most of the pass the water was still with a 3kn current. On the seaward side there were big swirls that pushed us around a little, but the sea was calm as there was no wind and therefore no waves. From pass to pass it was 32nm and we motored all the way. The pass into Fakarava is really wide and with some dolphins to escort us in it was very easy. The water was calm and we had a 2-3kn current with us. This atoll is so big that you cannot see the other side. It does pose a problem for coming in if there are strong winds from the SE to SW as you can be faced with considerably large waves on the inside. It is around 21miles wide on the inside and very deep with coral bombies that make it to the surface. This makes navigation around it interesting and best done with Polaroid glasses on and the sun behind you in the middle of the day. We are not that adventurous so we will stick to the main channels. The anchorage is good and we popped ashore to the shop, but everything is so expensive. We got some milk as our supply had finally run out and some brie to have with our sun downers/dinner. We only had a snack for dinner as it was so calm out at sea that Sandy was able to cook up a feast for lunch.... Curry stew. Colin the lazy ol' bugger sat with his foot on the helm steering, but gave up on that and put on the auto helm and he did not even catch a fish... needs to be fired!! Well before we do too much firing we will say bye for now and will chat again later.

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