The diving here is phenomenal. There are a few boats here we know so we've been able to find people to either keep Jake or snorkel with him while we dive. We take the dinghy out into the pass and then we all jump in and drift through (Truth be told, I've only dove once, but have snorkeled several times...and it's all my own choice). There are hundreds of sharks here. All kinds... black tips, white tips, grey sharks, silver tips... there is talk of tiger and hammerheads on the north pass but we haven't been there yet. As we finish the snorkel through the pass we go by a bunch of piers ("pensions"...aka bungalows, and a restaurant) and there are tons of sharks there as well. With all of my bellyaching in one of my previous posts about worry, I realized that maybe I do inflict a little of that on myself, eh?
Yesterday we decided the half hour dinghy ride around the coral to the pass was just too much so we jumped on the only mooring here right at the edge of the pass in the middle of the "aquarium." It's free if you eat at the restaurant so we happily obliged last night...the first night out in over a month! The food was decent, but even better was that I didn't have to cook it. They eat family style and in another country that would be great, but we were the only English speaking people there (well, only willing English speaking...I have a sneaking suspicion more than one person understood English...they knew exactly what I was saying when I asked them to please pass the soy sauce). So after a relatively short dinner (we needed to get Jake home to bed anyway), we enjoyed a nice night on the mooring to wake up to more sharks around the boat.
Annabelle, our gracious host at dinner, told us about the marbled grouper and how on the full moon (the 15th of this month), they will all lay their eggs in the pass and it's a massive sight to see. They have people from all over coming to see it (marine biologists, photographers, etc.). We are dangerously close to being out of food (and we're way past being out of beer and diet coke) so we're going to leave tomorrow, go to the northern end of Fakarava and stock up and then come back. The opportunity for pictures is just too good to pass up. As much as I would love to head to Tahiti (I'm actually looking forward to a "big city.") I can't see Andy not getting the opportunity to dive and take pictures of this once a year event. So, that's the plan.... then we high tail it to Tahiti in time for the sailing raundevous at the end of June (I CANNOT BELIEVE IT IS JUNE). Our visas are up in early July and we'll be having to head somewhere else....
We've had a great time with our friends on Merkava and Yolo and Lardo while we've been here (another great bonfire the other night) and are a little sad as we all head in different directions, but as always with cruising, we'll meet up again soon...military life sure gave us a head start with this goodbye stuff...
Off the subject, but too funny to leave out... as I was sitting on the bow attempting to read a book tonight, I told Andy, "wow, this book makes me feel so normal" (it was all about crazy chicks and their issues...my favorite kind of book) and then I heard (and witnessed) my son standing over the bow and yelling.. "Mommy, look! I'm peeing on Blacky! Look! I'm peeing on a shark!" And indeed he was... maybe we're not that normal.
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1 comment:
Great post, I read it to our children and we all giggled when I read about your son peeing on a shark!! Know how you feel about "feeling" not normal sometimes!!
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