Friday, May 7, 2010

Hello Fishes!

Makemo, Tuamotus, French Polynesia

This morning we left our idylic beach anchorage and headed towards the north pass in prep for a departure tomorrow morning. We found a great little anchorage just off the charted region to the north-west of the pass tucked amongst 4 or 5 reefs, just in front of the part time village (only inhabited durring copra harvesting season). From there we went on a very nice drift snorkel amongst the reefs around the boat, towing the dingy around with us as we drifted in the currents. The big news is that as it is now day 11 of my finger injury I could finally spend extended time in the water so I finally got to snorkel in the Tuamotus. The fish where cool, the sharks were generally cool, though I liked the "generally non-agressive" 3-5 foot white and black tip reef sharks we saw much more than the "sometimes aggressive" 4 foot grey shark that came by at the end. Best of all where some very cool drip castle like coral formations on the reef off our stbd quarter.

Tomorrow we leave the pass at 8:00 am so we get to Katiu around noon when we expect that pass will begin to get decent. The anchorage at Katiu is actually on the side of the pass, halfway in so there is a bit of current there, though it is supposed to be in a bit of an eddie, so it hopefully won't be too bad. If it is we will move on, but hopefully we can spend a few days there and see this small atoll.

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