The formation of an atoll is nothing less than amazing.... here is a bit of info from the NOAA website.

"Corals begin to settle and grow around an oceanic island forming a fringing reef. It can take as long as 10,000 years for a fringing reef to form. Over the next 100,000 years, if conditions are favorable, the reef will continue to expand. As the reef expands, the interior island usually begins to subside and the fringing reef turns into a barrier reef. When the island completely subsides beneath the water leaving a ring of growing coral with an open lagoon in its center, it is called an atoll. The process of atoll formation may take as long as 30,000,000 years to occur."

This is what the atoll looks like on the chart plotter. Some of the coral has eroded away leaving gaps & passes through to the lagoon. We motored through the pass easily.



We are on our way to town!



The view looking back from shore.



The road to town - is this the "main drag" of the village?



Or maybe this?



They've had cell phones in the South Pacific for a decade or two, but the mighty phone booth lives on. There are at least two on this motu (a motu is what the small reef islands that make up the atoll are called) of the atoll.





We also noticed directional signs in case we all got lost!