Today the park warden took nine of us cruisers across the lagoon to Gull Island so that we could observe and photograph the thousands of seabirds nesting there. They were mostly sooty terns, white tropic birds and some frigate birds. There were many young chicks and hundreds of eggs placed haphazardly on the coral rocks, sometimes supported by a small branch to keep them from rolling into the water. The frigate birds are especially interesting as they cannot walk on the ground nor land on water and they make their living usually by robbing other birds of their prey.

Back at Anchorage Island in the evening we had a barbecue/birthday party for one of the sailors, an Australian fellow. The warden had caught a nice dogtooth tuna in the lagoon so we ate like kings. Four boats left today for Samoa and two more new boats arrived, both with Swedish flags.

The weather has become much more settled and the forecast calls for light winds for the next couple of days. This will give us an opportunity to explore some of the outlying motus (small perimeter islands) of the atoll.