Blue Water, Pink Sand & Grey Sharks!

Bamboozle
Jamie and Lucy Telfer
Fri 11 Jun 2010 16:27
16:30.364S 145:27.448W

We are now settled at the stunning southern end of the Atoll of Fakarava
which is acknowledged, by the few lucky people who get to visit, as some
truly great diving. I know I promised not to bang on too much about the
diving but you would not believe the sights here underwater unless you have
witnessed them yourself. We have been in the water every day surrounded not
only by beautiful coral and fish but also hundreds and hundreds of sharks.
The almost constant flow of clean ocean water through the pass and the
abundance of fish provides the most perfect environment for these awesome
predators and as a result the water is full of them. There is a particular
spot where lots of them hang out on the incoming tide....and I mean LOTS and
LOTS of them. The second time we drift-dived through this spot I tried
counting them but gave up after the first 200+. You probably don't believe
me..... and I'm not sure I could believe what I was seeing myself first time
we saw them but it was not a one off and now, day after day, we are seeing
the same sort of thing along with manta rays, spotted eagle rays, giant
Napoleon fish, countless groupers and many less well known . The only
limit to our diving is getting our dive tanks filled as we do not have a
compressor on board and at the moment none of our friends with compressors
are in the area. One of the dive operations from the village (nearly 30
miles north of here) is visiting on Friday and we are hoping to beg, borrow
or steal some compressed air from them.

Apart from that we have managed to get ourselves involved in a small
building project. Manahi, a Tahitian who has built a small "pension" on the
otherwise deserted motu we are anchored by, is in the process of
constructing (and you may not believe this either!) a pizza oven. Along
with another yacht anchored in the bay we have been helping him make and lay
a concrete base for it. As he can't exactly drop into his local Homebase
store, this is quite a major job as making the concrete means collecting the
sand and gravel by boat from beaches on the adjacent islands. We have just
got back from a trip this afternoon to collect about a tonne and a half of
perfect fine pink sand.... quite a job when it all needs to be shovelled
into buckets and then in to a boat (and back out again) but Manahi is the
most charming and generous man and it is hard to say no when he asks for an
hour or two's assistance. Yesterday we were rewarded with a beautiful
parrot fish lunch (including a cucumber and carrot salad.... we are now
almost entirely out of anything fresh) and today he has given us a lovely
big fresh lobster (straight off the reef) so we will be firing up the BBQ
tonight.