Nuku'alofa and on to New Zealand.

David even managed to catch two Tuna en route!

Once we arrived in Nuku'alofa, we tied Puddytat up in the small boat harbour, med moored to the breakwater, David climbed into the dinghy and went ashore to clear us in, and to tell them that we were here to apply for the NZ visa and that we'd be leaving soon.

One of the fish we caught.

Brilliant sunset and great sailing weather! for a change.

We found the NZ immigration office and filled in forms, got photo's taken and finally they said all was in order but they had to send it to NZ for processing. We should wait for an email. This was a Friday. On Tuesday I walked into town to an internet cafe and checked my emails...oh oh I saw that the immigration dept. had sent me an email on Friday afternoon requesting that I please come in, they needed some more paperwork to be filled in. We went around straight away and filled them in. Two working days wasted! :-( They were really nice people and they promised that they'd push it through as fast as they could. I checked my emails every day... On the following Friday we were still waiting so we planned on some sightseeing and decided to check my emails first, nothing.. sigh... I dropped them a line enquiring on the progress of it all and lo and behold a few minutes later I had a reply... Come in later today and collect your passport, the visa was approved! YAY! I went in straight away and asked what time I could collect it as we still had to clear out of Tonga, they said between 12 and 1 p.m.. Needless to say I was not late, I sat and waited patiently. After a few last minute questions I was called in to collect my Passport. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Main street with the huge rain tree on the left, near the post office.

Under  the Rain Tree.

This mat skirt is worn by men and women. This one is elaborate though.

Young Ladies.

School uniforms.

A local sight seeing boat..

The Kings Palace.. garden needs work.

We caught a bus and went to see the flying foxes... they're about 12 inches long. 

Tau'olunga Komipiuta. Fast Internet $1 for 15 mins.
On Salote Rd before Tupoulahi  Rd. Almost at the T of Fasi-moe-afi Rd.

Inside the place.

Ros and David paying for their internet usage.

The Owner. Always with a smile.

During the week my Parents on Kudana had passed by Nuku'alofa, we'd chatted on the VHF when they'd been in range and since then they'd been waiting for us at Minerva reef North. On the Wednesday they decided not to wait for us and to head on out to NZ.

Ros, getting some air and a lot of water.. ha ha the rogue
waves keep breaking over her, she's soaked!

Later on Wednesday when we got back from town, Evi, our friend on the boat next door, told us that they'd heard from my Dad and the news wasn't good. She said they'd hit Minerva reef south. Landed right on top of it at the top of the tide and were stuck there. This was a disaster! How were they, how badly was the boat damaged, were they taking on water? These thoughts tumbled from my mouth at top speed. Evi said they were okay, just shook up, one rudder was badly bent and as yet they were still dry. The plan, she said was to wait for high tide and try and motor off the reef. Now I haven't seen Minerva reef south, but if it's like the North reef it would be wide and flat. I wondered how far in they had landed, if they'd make it off without damaging the boat further. Next morning the news wasn't good. The keels were both destroyed so there wouldn't be much in the way of steerage from them. They'd slide sideways and lose direction whilst sailing. During the night the waves had constantly smashed them and this had caused the keels to deteriorate even more. BUT they'd managed to get off. It had further cost them both the props and half the remaining rudder. Heck, so now they had hardly any steering, no keels, no props, so the engines could only be used to charge the batteries and nothing else, AND they were taking on water! Apparently one of the engines had dislodged it's seal and the water was coming in there. David and I had made sure to fit the yacht out with extra powerful pumps and thank goodness we had because now the boat remained dry and the pump on that side worked like a charm.
They'd decided to carry on towards New Zealand 800 nautical miles away. They asked us to follow them as soon as possible.
As you know I had to wait for my passport. Nothing we could do about it, so we filled in the time as best we could.

Once I got my passport back and cleared out with customs and immigration, we spent a quick Saturday morning shopping for fresh fruit and veg, also filling up with fuel and water. At 11am we left the fuel dock did a motor-by Evi and some other yachts and headed on out towards NZ and Minerva Reef.

Sunset.

When we were getting near to Minerva North reef, our initial plan was to stop there, as there was really bad weather forecast and we didn't want to chance it, and clean our hull, but we had 30 knot winds and 15 ft seas. David was hesitant to attempt the entrance into a reef we'd never visited before and it was directly downwind, so he decided we'd pass it by and continue on, maybe look at Minerva reef South and stop there. But the wind had other ideas and it headed us, forcing Puddytat to head directly for the reef. Then it suddenly dropped to 13 knots. We could clearly see the entrance to the lagoon shaped reef. It was nice and wide. David changed his mind and said ''we're going in.... under sail''. We swooped through the entrance into lovely calmer water, and just then, the wind turned from beam on to head on.. what timing! We dropped the sails, turned on the engines and motored to a spot at the north end to drop the anchor. It was Monday afternoon. I was worried sick about my parents. We didn't have a SSB transmitter on board. We had a receiver and Evi had promised to relay their position at 4.30 every afternoon. We'd heard two positions and plotted them on the chart, then when we got a third we discovered it was exactly the same as the second, which was very weird, two plots 24 hours apart cannot be the same we thought... Later we found out what had happened. At the time though, we were not sure whether my Dad had made a mistake and plotted East instead of West so now we weren't sure where he was. Very very worrying. There were a group of Ham radio bods in New Zealand where were trying to keep in contact with Dad and sometimes we'd hear them wondering why they hadn't heard from him. One chap said that it was obvious, that they had gone down and were dead. It shocked me to the core, my blood ran cold. David looked at me and told me not to worry, they were fine, just out of radio contact for some reason.

In the reef it was the weirdest feeling, to be anchored out in the middle of the ocean, no land or trees in sight, just some waves breaking all around us showing us that there was something there. Ros and I jumped into the water and cleaned the hulls. David was working on something inside the boat, I can't remember what now, but it was a far hotter messier job than we had. The next day, after he'd completed some other work on Puddytat, David had his turn, he wanted to give the props a good clean so in he went. It was late afternoon when he finally finished and the wind was still too southerly and still very strong. Soooo frustrating, it was hard for me to relax.  We stayed another night and early on Wednesday morning we left Minerva reef North. We were almost a full week behind them.

We had a totally uneventful sail to New Zealand, the winds were alternatively stronger and then lighter as the sailing goes on long trips. So some days we had all the sail up and others we reefed down sometimes to two reefs. I must say that I do prefer to sail on the Atlantic ocean as against the Pacific. The Atlantic is a much smoother sail, much more comfortable and has many more dolphin that come and play around the bows of our boat. Puddytat flew over that water, we made the best use of the wind and clocked an average of 9 knots. We sailed, listened to the radio and after two days got another position, I plotted it and couldn't find the x. So I plotted it again, still no x. I'm standing there looking at the chart plotter thinking, what am I doing wrong? Then something made me zoom in, or out, I can't remember now and there it was a beautiful red x right under us.. YAY!!!! We were exactly where Kudana had been 14 hours before. Now to try and find them, a tiny yacht on a HUGE ocean. David said that logically my Dad would be trying to make as straight a line to Opua as possible, so we'd do the same. It's what we'd been doing the whole time and it had paid off so far. He instructed Ros and I to call Kudana on the radio every hour. So we did this through the night on our watches. Morning came and we hadn't heard anything. A tad worrying as we knew they were only doing about 3 knots at most, we should have caught up with them by now. After breakfast David got up and went to the radio, he'd decided to call again. Oh Joy of joys my Mom answered the radio and we started to cry. I hadn't realised how tense with worry I'd been. It wasn't much later when we spotted her and we sailed up to say hi. We were 400 nautical miles from Opua. Still a way to go, but we'd found them and that was all I cared about.

We asked about the two positions, how'd they been the same. Dad said that during that storm, we'd been sitting out in Minerva reef, they couldn't steer and had sailed in a huge circle and ended up where they'd been before. A very strange thing to happen, but it did. We also asked why we hadn't heard regular position reports. He told us that his SSB had gone on the fritz and he worked on it trying to repair it and managed to get it working long enough to hit send on an email to my brother, Kevin who lives in NZ, and then Kev sent it on to the radio ham guys to transmit to us. At the time he didn't know if it had gone through. He just had to hope that it had.

Kudana, 1.5 miles away.. even though she's on top of a wave she's hard to see.

Down in the trough and she's almost impossible to see.

Ros and I were ultra busy, what with keeping the skipper fed with hot meals, (and us too,) we were also involved in making a courtesy flag for New Zealand. This proved to be an entertaining and interesting pastime. It was also fun to be in constant contact with Kudana. We spent Christmas day playing Christmassy music to each other and chatting, it would have been fun if the seas were nice and calm that we could raft up together and have a huge lunch.... as it was I'd cooked up the last of our fresh meat, a roast chicken, for our main meal that day. Boy did we ever pig out.. YUM.. ;-)
We don't ever buddy boat with anyone so this was a new experience for us. It was now only 105 NM to go till Opua, we thought we'd get there on the 27th Dec.

Making our New Zealand courtesy flag...

Dad insisted that he wanted to sail Kudana all the way to Opua. We wanted to take them under tow. So we sailed as slowly as we could with a tiny bit of sail up so that we didn't leave them behind. But now Dad said that the wind wasn't playing nice and he just couldn't control the boat anymore. We sailed up and started the long process of passing tow ropes etc. It took 2 hours to get the boats tied properly. My Dad was exhausted. We set our genoa and started to sail, pulling them behind us and our speed was already up to 5 knots. Dad radioed and asked what they should do, we told them to get some sleep, leave the radio on and if there was a problem we'd wake them up. They were so exhausted they slept for 12 hours solid. Shame.

Under Tow for the next 100 nautical miles.

A few days later we were almost there. I started to cook up a huge meal, kind of like a Lasagne, with the layered lasagne pasta, white sauce and corned beef out of cans.. I've never done it that way before, but I didn't have any fresh meat left and I needed to be able to feed all of us. I used dried crumbed Parmesan Cheese, the stuff in a shake out bottle, and the last of our cheese and it turned out rather well.

When we  came into the sheltered waters of the Bay of Islands, we dropped the tow and came alongside Kudana and rafted up with her. From then on we had to motor. Customs and Immigration were well aware that we were on our way in. All the sailors in the area were aware as well. When we arrived at the Q dock, where all newcomers to NZ have to go to clear customs and immigration, there were loads of people at the yacht club watching our progress.

The space between the fuel dock and the Q dock isn't large and David had to maneuver both yachts in and dock us. I was in charge of tying us up he said... He first turned us around so that it would be easier to get out and then docked. As simple as that. He made it look so easy. Many of the sailors came to us afterward and said that they hadn't seen seamanship like that in years. Made me so proud of him.

The Customs guys were great. We couldn't have asked for nicer treatment, even though they had to relieve us of some fresh veg and such, it was all done with a smile and a joke. They came down and attended to us even though we'd have been happy to spend the night on the customs dock. They told us there was bad weather coming and they thought that we'd need to get out into the anchorage and get our anchors in well and good and this was the time to do it. How nice is that! Thank you guys.

Once we were done with them, I slipped the lines and we went off to find a spot to drop the anchors. First we dropped Dads anchor and pulled back on it hard with both engines at 1800 rpm, to dig it in nice and deep, then we went and dropped ours, did the same, switched off the engines and looked at each other... Time for a drink we all said at once.. LOL what a relief to be safe and sound, to have my folks safe and sound. I slept really well that night.

Sailing from Palmerston to Tonga and our visit there.

We set off towards Tonga, mid day I think it was. In no time at all disaster struck. The hydraulic pump for the Auto pilot decided to quit on us. We would have to hand steer the next 600 odd miles. This is a tiring job especially if there are heavy winds and sail changes have to be made, because it means that the person who is trying to get some shuteye will be woken up to do the work. We also didn't know if our new crew member could steer. She'd told us that she'd done a sailing course, but as we all know this does not mean much till you can actually test the person out. To top it all Ros was feeling the effects of seasickness and had been feeling really awful. Shame I felt so sorry for her, but we assured her that day three would have her feeling normal again. Even though she was so ill, Ros took the wheel for her 4 hour stint and David quickly saw that she was well capable of steering puddytat.
So for the next 5 days we did 6, 10, 2 watches, taking turns at the wheel and with one of us sleeping in the salon to be able to assist whoever was steering if needed.

We saw something in the water. It looked like little tiny critters, millions of them.

We had winds that made Puddytat sail at 11 to 13 knots, but then there were more times when we were moseying along at 3 to 4 knots. We wanted to come into Neiafu in daylight and so had to sit off the island, hove-to for almost two hours till the sun came up. We also lost an entire day on this trip because the international dateline goes right over Tonga. Our log book goes from Friday the 25th to Sunday the 27th in an instant. :-) We sailed into the bay at Neiafu looking for a certain yacht called Kudana. On board this yacht are my parents who're doing the sailing thing as well. Even more exciting was that I hadn't seen them since August 2008 AND today was my Mom's birthday.

Coming around the corner and heading for the bay.

David spotted their yacht and we turned towards them. Soon we were alongside and I yelled "Mangwanani Kudana", which means Good morning Kudana. Then I sang Happy Birthday toooooo yoouuuuuu! to my Mom while she stood on deck and cried with happiness... at least I hope it was happiness. :-) It was soooo great to see them again. My Mom sure got a huge surprise for her birthday.

As soon as we had our anchor set, they came across in their dinghy. Huge hugs and tears all around and lots and lots of catching up. I'd made a pearl bracelet and a small pin cushion for her. I'd also made a 4 link chain mail copper bracelet for her to wear all the time. It would help her arthritis. We spent the morning and some of the afternoon with them, but then tiredness caught up with us and we just had to have a nap.

My Mom on Kudana when we arrived.. she was really surprised to see us.

The week in Neiafu passed in a blur. We were cleared in with Immigration, Customs, Health and Quarantine, then we were allowed ashore to explore the town. It's a sweet town with the Fruit and veg. market dominating the center alongside a craft market filled with some really well and beautifully made things. The post office is situated in an old colonial type building that doesn't need air-conditioning as it is so well ventilated. We ate out at a super little restaurant called the Coconet, where the food is excellent and the service top notch. My folks showed us around and soon we were at home.

The entrance of  Swallows Cave.

David dragging the dinghy and swimming out.

Friday came and we realised that we'd better make a move to get out of there if we wanted to be in New Zealand for Christmas. David went a cleared out of the Vava'U group of islands then we made a quick visit to the Swallow cave. We dinghied in and fell into the water.. WOW the place is teaming with fish, and the stalactites are quite spectacular. We then snorkeled back to the boat dragging Limo behind us.

Huge 5 ft coral.

These are from the snorkel back to Puddytat from the cave.

A Beautiful Bun Starfish.

A sea urchin trying to hide.

Puddytat from on high, David took a photo of us...

We also did a quick a visit to Bay 27 to see some friends of ours who we'd last seen in Mexico. What a great reunion we had that night. They told us of a spectacular snorkeling spot in bay 16, so Sunday morning we motor-sailed over to this bay and enjoyed a quiet snorkel. We were the only ones there. So restful and peaceful.

The snorkel was not a simple one. we had to swim over the top of a reef to get to the outside. There was only about 3 feet of water clearing the reef and the waves were breaking over it, so it was quite a swim to get out there. We were a tad worried that when we went back we might get tumbled and then be badly scratched on the corals. But as it was we had a delightful swim and saw a veritable garden of corals and fish, all shapes sizes and colours, then pretty much body surfed our way back over the top, into calm waters and had an energetic swim back to Puddytat. Whew my legs were a tad tired after that, but I felt so great from the exercise.

The next morning, Monday we lifted our anchor and set sail towards Nuku'alofa on the island of Tongatapu. We had a good 10 knot wind to start off with and as the day drew on the wind got stronger to about 15 knots. Poor Ros was not feeling good when the weather picked up, she went to sleep in the saloon, she'd already done her watch so all was good. We decided to anchor every night at a different island, and this we did. The first was called Moungaone. The next night was stopped at Nomuka iki and now we are approaching Nuku'alofa on the Tonagtapu Island.

Here we will be clearing out of Tonga and also applying for my visitors visa for New Zealand at their consulate. We will also stock up with fresh fruit and veg for the 10 day trip to NZ. We plan to stop at a reef called Minerva Reef for a day or two to have our last snorkel in warm water and maybe meet up with Kudana who are also on their way to NZ.

I have to go and supervise Ros at the wheel now, we are nearing the harbour and there are many reefs to negotiate before we can drop the anchor. By the way, Ros soon found her sea legs again and is feeling great.... :-)

cheers for now.

Aitutaki Island, trying to get in.

We arrived at the island at about 08:00 and were very pleased that we'd managed to get there during the daylight hours. We knew that navigating up the small channel they had was not going to be easy as it was very shallow in places and not very wide. We have a beam width of 23 feet so we have to be careful about where we go. :-)

A reef all around the island.. where is the entrance?

We motored around trying to find the channel by eye. We could not see any marker buoys or posts anywhere, so we decided to follow the chart plotter.

As we neared the entrance marked on the plotter I got more and more jittery. David was standing on the bow and i was following his directions. First he told me to drive to starboard and then to port. The plotter showed no reason to be taking these deviations. I got more worried. The surf was pounding on the reef around us and sounded ominous. we could see a dark stretch of straight water ahead, indicating a long deepish channel, but just before that the water looked really shallow. It was hard to tell the depth because the water was so crystal clear. I don't know if you've ever experienced that. you can be in 40 ft of water yet the bottom looks as close as 1 or 2 feet, very disorientating. Just then I noticed that the depth sounder was not reading a bottom.. great I thought just what we need right now... I wanted to get out of there but David said to go on, and then it happened. We hit the reef. An loud awful grinding and bashing, bumping sound. I started to shake, oh Shit I thought. David yelled at me to get us out of there, I yelled back that he should come and take the wheel and I'd guide him out. He is way better at the helm than I am. So we swapped places.

It was just as well. I was showing him the direction he needed to go when he yelled that he had no steering.. Oh Shit I thought again. He worked the engines and propellers hard and managed to swing us around and out of danger. As soon as we were clear and in 30 feet of water we dropped the anchor. We needed to assess the damage and figure out what to do.

David donned his fins and snorkel and jumped into the water. He took a look at the rudders. The port one had bent it's shaft a tad and was jammed up against the hull. What to do. He came up on deck and we discussed our options. One was to disengage the rudder from the system and try and go in with only one rudder, the other was to drop it out, dinghy ashore and get it straightened there. There was another option and we thought we'd give it a go.

David went into the water with a long line that we'd draped over the bow roller where the anchor chain normally goes, he swam it back to the rudder and tied it around the blade. I attached the other end to the windlass, ( the machine we use to pull the anchor up), and then I slowly tensioned the line. I had to release it a couple of times while David did some adjusting but eventually we managed to pull the rudder straight again. What a huge and profound relief. We sat in the cockpit marveling at our narrow escape for a lot of extra work and inconvenience.

While sitting there David decided to go through the information we had for these islands. We have several cruising guides, and in one of them we found a note to say that the Chart plotted entrance for this island was false... well we knew that now ;-p ...  anyway this chap gave us some way points to follow to get into the anchorage. David plotted them and they were quite far from where the plotter had told us to go.

The marked channel and then the triangles where we actually ended up going.

We decided to take another chance. I'd calmed down now and was determined not to let this place beat me. So there I was once again at the helm with David standing at the bows directing me a little left and then a little right.... Before I knew it we were in the channel, which by the way was marked with thin maybe 10 mm black sticks that you could hardly see till you were almost upon them. I was still nervous but I didn't feel the foreboding that I'd felt before, even when the depth got down to 2.5  feet. :-)

It didn't take long and soon I was turning us around, dropping the anchor and backing Puddytat towards the shore so that David could tie our stern to a tree. This was the way that these folks liked our boats to be anchored apparently.

We sat back and relaxed, taking in our surroundings. Whew what an ordeal. It was 12:33.

Tied up and looking at our new back yard.

Tahiti and the Tuamotu's.

I've been really busy doing all sorts of things and so have neglected my writing here. I'm so sorry. I'm about to rectify that right now.
We've been sitting in Tahiti for just over a month now. Shortly after we arrived we were told that the weather was going to be quite rough out in the ocean and the waves would be high enough to climb over the reef and make life pretty uncomfortable for us. David decided to wait it out and see how bad it was. In the mean time he'd check over the boat at all the rigging and such to decide if he wanted to do any work on the boat here or if we could wait to get to New Zealand. Everything checked out okay..except of course for those two plates on the mast and the two plates supporting the seagull striker loads on the crossbeam that were broken on the crossing to the Marquises Islands. He knew about those and had taken appropriate measures to ensure that the mast was still sturdily held in place.




The day arrived when we were expecting this bad weather and wow, it sure got bumpy in here. We could not go ashore. The huge mega yachts left the marina because the waves were so destructive that one actually damaged their stern. The restaurants were closed due to the fact that the water was cascading over the top of the wharf. In fact the water was at least 3 feet higher than normal here. Many sections of the walkways in the marina got rather beaten up and broken. We swung and jerked around on the anchor but it held and we just waited. By the next day everything calmed down and we went ashore to see the damage.

A couple of boats having a meeting...the Cat was dragging her anchor..no-one on board either boat..note the rough water.

 The water doesn't look so bad in the photo's..but it was really rough.
 Oh yes....This yacht, (below), dragged it's anchor and came right down the side of Puddytat, David had to lean over our rails and push her off so she wouldn't hit us...we then gave lines to some chaps in a dinghy and they tied them to this boat and we tied off on Puddytat...I had the engines on very slowly forward, David was pulling up our anchor....We had to try and keep that boat off the reef that was just behind us. The owner was not on board, but the Port Captain gave some other sailors permission to get on board and try and get her motor started....They eventually did and were able to let our lines go and relay the anchor. Whew what a relief. There was a dog on board and he was very scared. He seemed to know that something was wrong..the boat's not supposed to move when the boss isn't on board...shame poor thing.

This boat literally swept down on us, David was fending it off as it  dragged it's anchor. 

The yacht we visited before the weather turned bad...notice the calm waters.

There was another Catana Catamaran anchored here. David said it was of the same vintage as ours and so we went over to chat with the owner. His was a year older than Puddytat. He told us he'd been dis-masted out at sea and then told us why it had happened. He took us around the deck to see the new rig and the changes he'd made. We went back to Puddytat with David in a thoughtful mood. The next morning he checked over Puddytat again to see if there had been any damage to her during that bumpy spat and there was. He was really surprised. If he hadn't checked he told me, it's probable we would have lost the rig between here and NZ. Gulp...There were a few more key structural rigging items broken! not just one but several...Oh heck, now we knew we'd have to get the mast taken off here, it couldn't wait for NZ...and we didn't have enough time. My visa was expiring at the end of September..what to do.

He went to our agent and explained the situation..she went to the powers that be and they said sorry no, no extension, you'll have to fly her out to Fiji where she can apply for another visa and then fly her back again. WHAT! Now that's what I call real friendly. I'm not the only one with this problem. There is a Captain, from Grenada in the Caribbean, of a charter yacht and he is experiencing the same problems. His Seaman's passport is also being ignored.

David had a more pressing problem in that he had to go to court in Trinidad, and therefore needed to know where he was going to be to arrange flight tickets. The obvious solution was to stay in Tahiti and get the rigging repaired while he went to Trini. But I had to stay on Puddytat to look after it.

He then spoke to our agent again..she told us..sorry they aren't listening to her, he was going to have to go and see them himself. Okay David thought, I'll do that.
He dressed himself nice and smart and went in to see the authorities. He was advised to write a letter stating that urgent work was required on the boat to make it seaworthy and that I was the only crew member and was required in order to look after the boat whilst he was away in Trini, and to crew the boat when we eventually left French Polynesia. It would also be necessary to have local confirmation that the work had to be carried out. The letter had to be in French of course ...... Google Translate to the rescue.

David hired a rigging surveyor to come and inspect the rig. He confirmed David's findings that the mast that the tangs for the cap shrouds and the front beam need work before going to sea. He wrote a letter to the high commissioner to confirm that urgent work needed to be done and that it would take 8 weeks to complete. This letter, plus David's did convinced the authorities to grant an extension.

They very reluctantly extended my visa by one month..BUT..I'm not allowed to leave the Marina area....so basically I'm boat bound. Now if we'd not really been getting work done and were trying to pull a fast one on these bods and had planned an extensive exploration of the island I'd understand their reasoning, but as it stands, I really don't.

They wouldn't even accept my seaman's passport because, they said, I wasn't on a mega yacht! first they said..If I had been the Captain of the yacht then it would have been fine, then they said, its not acceptable because it's Zimbabwean, Zim is landlocked it can't issue seaman's passports, so that's irritatingly stupid....it's in fact a South African seaman's passport, then they came up with the Mega yacht story!

So now we sit here, no mast as it has been taken off and David has taken the front cross beam off and examined it. he's having new plates made up to make it safer for our next leg to NZ. The cap shrouds and their mast tangs are being replaced. Our Genoa sail is being re-stitched, and as I write this David is flying back from Trinidad where he went to go and try and sort out the mess that involves a boat yard that destroyed his previous yacht..that's a whole other story....and so I'm all alone, with the CD player blasting out music, me painting, writing or swimming and having a great time...:-D

Before we got here we spent about a month traveling around the Tuamotus. There are an unbelievable number of these places poking their tiny strips of land out of the ocean and on some of them there are a surprisingly large number people living and working. A lot of them work on their own pearl farms. This is a full time occupation it seems, as it takes a pearl 5 years to grow to a decent size and they have to cultivate the spore, nurse them till they are large enough to insert a small piece of shell, that they have cut and shaped into a ball, along with a small piece of the mantle that gives the pearl it's colours, then they string them up in an area where there is no surf, a calm area with good clean water, and they watch them, scrub their shells clean so that barnacles and such don't take root on them. The shells have to be absolutely clean because when the pearl is harvested, the shells are sold to the Chinese who make jewelry out of them. They have to have a new batch every year so that after 5 years they still have more coming up ...to start they have to wait 5 years before they can harvest their first pearl...and...not all of the pearls are 1st class...so it's a lot of hard work.

The snorkeling on these places is fabulous!!! There are clams that are from a few cms to 15 or 20 cm in length with the most beautiful mantles of emerald green or brilliant peacock blue..I wish I'd had a camera to take a few underwater photo's.

Crystal Clear Waters in Paradise :-D

We went to one place, dropped the anchor and jumped into the water. We swam towards the little knoll that was reaching up out of the depths..we swam towards the ridge. The water seemed a dark blue on the other side and we were curious as to as to how deep it was there. Holy Toledo! an incredible sight met our startled eyes. The ridge was the top of a very steep drop. almost a wall...dropping away into oblivion it seemed... we raised our eyes and looked out and saw the hugest groupers and other fish that we'd ever seen on a reef. These guys were about 50 feet away from us and looked to be about 3 feet in length..wow! Just then we caught a movement out of the corner of our eyes and there was a shark..really interested in us..really scary...we swiveled around..we were holding hands so as to be able to call attention to things we saw and also it makes us look big and menacing to any interested sharks..I hoped....we hung in the water almost motionless and faced him.. he swam back and forth in front of us..like he was pacing and deciding just what to do with us....I'd never seen David so wary, he normally just shrugs and continues swimming, but I couldn't see a black tip or a white tip of the normal reef shark, this one was all grey..what was it and why was David so wary of it? It seemed to pace up and down for ages, I was rather scared I must say, I was trying to remember what I'd been told about how to defend myself against an attack...but I tried to tell myself..he's only about 5 ft long and maybe our combined size will make him think twice.... then he made up his mind, turned, and swam leisurely off back down over the ridge..whew...It sure hadn't taken him long to spot us, we'd only just poked our heads over for a few seconds when he came to see what we wanted...David later told me he thought it was a Mako....but later we realised it wasn't.
Well we had a wonderful snorkel after that, that shark didn't come back again, though we both kept a very sharp eye out for him or any of his mates. We did see others though, the black tip and the white tip, I spotted a cousin of the seahorse a tiny little thing, I forget what it's called, it looks pretty much like a seahorse :-D we also saw fully grown spider conch...they were easily 15 inches 36cm from tip to tip..absolutely beautiful. It was a really busy shelf with all sorts of life...

The next day we went ashore....by the way there was not another human to be seen for as far as the eye could see....we walked on the beach and around a knoll that seemed to have two different species of Terns breeding. They got really upset when we walked anywhere near to them so we stayed off a way. We saw, in two of the little rock pools, a Moray eel trapped by the fallen tide. Both of them were trying in vain to hide under a rock. What a glorious day we had.

We pulled Limo up onto the beach..it was tiny shells instead of sand..

Tiny shells.

The little island where the Terns were breeding..and Limo on the beach.

A brittle Starfish..in one of the rock pools.

Moray eel hiding ..caught in a rock pool at low tide.

A hermit crab in a super smart home.

There's a crab in here too..

Black Terns nesting ...

They were nesting here too..

Billy his wife, cat and dog visiting us.

One day we sailed into Katui and tied up to the dock there..it's free and sits in an eddy of the entrance, so the water a few feet away is racing by at 10 knots but it's really calm right by the dock. At the turn of the tide we went snorkeling with a local guy called Billy...we would never had tried this if he hadn't been with us..Absolute shock as we dropped into the water and took in our surroundings!.. Wall to wall corals..I cannot even begin to describe it...all shapes sizes and colours, white, yellow, greens, reds, brilliant blues, purples, pinks...and then there are the fish...yeah I was talking about the corals...astoundingly stunning. Billy was going fishing for his dinner. He had a spear gun. Now I don't like spearing reef fish, but he was going for Wahoo and other game fish that were cruising the area. He did shoot a beautiful parrot fish and I felt so sad...and at the end of the snorkel he presented it to us for our dinner...ugh...We couldn't say no thanks, it would have been rude so we took it and David filleted it. It was a huge fish and we barely got enough meat off it to eat..what a waste of a beautiful life... :-( During the swim, David had the privilege of keeping the speared fish on a line. He had to drag these behind him as he swam around..consequently about 5 reef sharks were rather interested in him :-) I didn't swim too close to him...they made me really nervous, but he didn't seem to be very perturbed. :-D

All in All if anyone wants to experience the South Pacific Islands then these are the places to go. The folks are friendly, there's not much in the way of what we think of as luxuries, but they would just spoil the whole area. The charm of these places lie in the absolute remoteness of them all, the peace and quiet, the turquoise waters and tranquil evenings...I hope they stay that way for a long time to come. One thing we noticed was that when we had some locals aboard and offered them drinks, they were horrified when they thought we were offering them alcohol, they'd only accept soft drinks, they didn't drink tea or coffee either..hee hee ;-)

Of course I haven't been to Bora Bora or any of the islands around Tahiti..so I can't say anything about them ...yet. :-D