I owe a lot of emails right now and sat down to write them, got overwhelmed so decided to write a blog update instead- it seems more manageable. Hope you don't mind.
We're still in north Fakarava, waiting for weather to leave. There's a growing collection of boats here doing the same. This is the first front we've seen since leaving Florida so we're not complaining. It's been mild with a gentle wind clocking the opposite way that it would in the northern hemisphere which I hadn't considered until this front. So I checked the toilet bowl and the water swirls counterclockwise also. There was a short shower today that cleaned the salt off the boat but now there hasn't been any more to allow us to catch free water. Once the wind stabilizes we plan to head to a neighboring atoll just a few miles away called Toau, then hopefully on to Rangiroa which will be an overnight trip. I'm very excited for Rangiroa since I hear the diving in that pass is great too and there are resident dolphin there that you can scuba with. Supposedly they like to play in the waves on the tide. I've never gotten to swim really close to a dolphin.
Two days ago, we did a dive of the north pass with Fakarava Diving Center- a Swiss cruising couple who stopped here in need of money and opened a dive shop. They live on their boat in the anchorage. They are very professional, friendly and we had a great time. It was 70-100 feet for the whole dive so our pictures are a little bluer than we like but we did some different things on this dive other than what we're used to. We started in the open blue where it's hard to get a reference but you look at your depth gauge as you descend, then swim over to the edge of the pass where you start to see the reef. As the current begins to flow, you soar through canyons that are PACKED with fish, hold on to rocks periodically just to look around and take it all in and then swim into little gulleys out of the current to hang out with the fish. The grouper are getting ready to spawn at the full moon so there's so many lurking that you could step on them if you were walking. The visibility was great and the reef looked really healthy and full. When we surfaced, it was quite rough and wavy which shocked us out of our underwater dream. We had to board the boat in all that commotion and crash back to town which wasn't fun. I ended up with a splitting headache. That's one thing about all this pass diving that we're not too fond of. It's so much nicer to be able to go whenever you want regardless of current, to take your time descending, spent a whole hour or more down there and then come up gently to the topside world at peace with everything. Well this is not like that! Fakarava is one of those biosphere reserves. We decided that since all the fish within the lagoon have ciguatera, it's a little easier to have a reserve!
We plan to do another dive of the pass tomorrow since we know this is some of the best we'll be able to do and it's too far to do on our own in the dinghy. I'm really excited about Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora, etc. but I heard that the reef isn't in as good of shape due to overuse. We'll see. I know we can't keep using dive shops since we don't have a tourist budget, even though diving is something we really enjoy about cruising. I was reading a friend's blog- the boat's name is Ardea and he quoted another cruiser he met in Mexico. He said "tourists have more money than time; travelers have more time than money." Very true!
One of the definitions of Tuomotu is "many islands". Compared to the Marquesas which are geologically much younger and thus have no barrier reef or the Society Islands which are in between since they have both a volcano and a barrier reef, the Tuomotu are very old because they once had a central volcano that sank or otherwise disappeared and all that remains is the barrier reef. We're quite surprised at how deep the central lagoon is of these atolls. We'd actually like it better if they were more shallow since you would have many patch reefs to explore. On the other hand, the French government has marked inter-lagoon channels well which makes for easy passage inside the lagoon with all the wind but none of the waves- now this can be sailing at its best!
Yesterday we rented bikes again and went to the north end of the island, then did the south end again too for the mileage since we didn't have our "slower friend" Tim. We needed some exercise and it was actually really beautiful on that end. The foliage is scrubby as you'd expect but very green and pretty. The shelling on the windwardside beach is fantastic and while we'll probably need a whole suitcase just to truck these shells back to the US, we see great potential in them and can't resist picking them up.
There may be a lot of shells here but you can't say the same for the produce. I won't bore anyone with my complaining but let me just say that I'm down to onions, potatoes and garlic and it isn't looking good for more anytime soon! We're definitely getting a good dose of can-tastic meals although we are still eating healthy, except for more salt than usual.
Some people have asked if we're going to visit Pitcairn, Easter or Christmas islands and the answer is no. If you look at an atlas and consider the brisk 8mph pace that we travel on this boat, and the vastness of the Pacific ocean you can see that it would take a lot longer than one season to cover those distances. The majority of boats doing the "coconut milk run" will need to get across the Pacific to a cyclone protected area like New Zealand or Australia before November. Given the mileage, there's a well worn route that visits a lot of beautiful island groups and you can't really cram much more in unless you love to move really quickly and spend a lot of time on passage. Plus, the further you get away from the trodden route, the harder it is to get parts or services that you might need along the way as things continually break. So, we're doing a pretty typical crossing since it seems easiest and it's all new to us anyway. It's nice to arrive at an island group too so that you have shorter hops between islands rather than one iffy anchorage at one island. If the wind isn't right, you have no choice but to stay offshore.

Jon says that we're like a hermit crab- we clunk around with our house with us everywhere we go and while it's nice to have it with you, it does slow you down. If we were like the coconut crab who has no shell or a tourist who hops a plane, we'd be lighter & faster and would cover more ground! I don't know which is better but in my heart I think I'm more of a traveler, enjoying having my house with me, which is good, since that's the budget I've got to work with.