Atoll Blues
Miss Molly 4
Bob & Peggy Wilkerson/Geoff & Merel Pettifer
Thu 24 Jul 2008 11:26
Our visit to Fakarava went according to plan. After anchoring we got the dinghy ready to go ashore, rented some bicycles, bought some lunch and went on our way. We knew that about 10 km further down the road there was a pearl farm, one we visited when we were here last year. This year Merel found some nice pearls to make a set from: one for a necklace and two for matching earrings. Very pretty and well-earned, since it is a long sail to get them and then a butt-aching bike ride on top of that!
Both that mission and the early morning arrival made that we spent most of the afternoon back on board for a siesta. The anchorage was lovely and calm and we had a very beautiful neighbour - Shenandoah, a 3-masted schooner, about whose captain we had just read in the Yachting World.
Geoff cooked us up an Indian Wahoo curry - very tasty!
Unfortunately we had to leave the next morning again, so we could not have another swim in the beautiful clear and cool water of the lagoon. We were saying to each other with a bit of regret how you could easily spend months here visiting several of the atolls in the widespread Tuamotus Archipelago. Life on the atolls is so relaxed and the people are all so friendly. However, it is a pleasant morning to be out here at sea. We can see some of the other atolls around us. The wind is from the NW, just forward of the starboard beam and we are cruising at between 8,5 and 9 kts. There are some clouds, but there is still plenty of blue sky to call it a sunny day. We will not be fishing on this trip, since there is quite some bulk of that on board now, like we've just been to Costco.
Bye for now,
Geoff & Merel