In 7 days it will be exactly a year since we flew into Los Angeles and took possession of "Volare" at Longbeach. I find it incredible to believe that we've been living on board for a year now!!! We are of course going to celebrate with whichever of our many new cruising friends are in the anchorage (in whichever tropical paradise anchorage that may be in) at the time.

We are starting to get into the more remote areas now and finally - after putting if off for a year - 3 days ago, I had to bake my first loaf of bread and grow my own veggies onboard. In Mexico the supermarkets in the big towns were just like home (except all the labels were in Spanish) and we were able to buy pretty well anything, including the amazing Bimbo bread, that would stay fresh forever. Bread isn't sold at many of the these petite atolls, the locals probably bake their own baguettes. Alos the islanders don't eat fresh vegetables, so in more and more of these remote places, the only thing you may be able to find in a little shop are a few potatoes or a bit of garlic. Fruit was in abundance in the Marquesas but in the Tuamotos, the only fruit you find is in someone's garden. Therefore, my trading skills come very much into play. A friendly local will often give you some mangoes, bananas, papaya, and pompelmouse, which looks like a grapefruit but this wonderful fruit is it's giant relative and is much sweeter. So if we see a house and garden with lots of fruit trees, we introduce ourselves to the owner, get friendly in our broken French and start trading.

Today I did some trading for some beautiful black pearls straight from the young man that owned the pearl farm. The biggest pearls he had taken about 6 years to grow. A bit toooooo!!!! expensive for me. They're very labour intensive, so very expensive, the one I picked up was about US$600, just for the pearl. The smaller ones have taken about 3 years, so I now am in possession of some very beautiful black pearls, just have to find someone now to set them. I was really surprised at the cost of them straight from the source, I thought we could get them for a much cheaper price. although if you buy in bulk, the price is negotiated on volume. This delightful young man, Jerry (he said, from Jerry Lewis) could speak a little English and was very entrepreneurial in coming out to the boats with his pearls. He's the first person in all these Islands that has approached. It's good, we told him, as we don't really know how to approach the actual pearl farmers themselves. The farm may be in one location and they may live somewhere else. He was quite a character and so did very well and sold to all 3 yachts. Although the others all paid in US dollars, I traded for mine and he was very, very pleased and he said his wife would be very happy tonight.

Since our last entry we have conquered the dangers of our first atoll entry. We had been into atolls in our previous cruising life but it was many years ago and reading our cruising guides it appeared very scary as you have to plan your entry depending on the tides and currents.

Bit hairy coming in at first to Mahini Atoll, as I was up the bow on watch, (Skipper decided to steer in the end and I would be watch, except at the last minute the 1st ratline was too high for me). Skipper didn't trust 1st mate to steer as the current was running about 6 knots against us. So Greg just gunned it and kept going and I stayed on watch on the bow. It looked deep to me at first but shallower after we entered the lagoon, I could see coral heads but they looked well under the keel but Greg said his heart was in his mouth at one stage as the depth sounder read 0.1 meter under the keel. I didn't think it looked that shallow but when water is so crystal clear depth is deceptive.

We anchored safe and sound in about 11 metres of beautiful clear water off a little motu (islet) in front of a little village. The next day, after spending 2 hours trying to get our anchor up, which was wrapped around about 12 different coral heads (in the end Greg borrowed a scuba tank from "Talerra" to free the anchor, as our Hooker unit wouldn't reach that depth), we motored to a beautiful anchorage just off "The Pearl Resort" which was just gorgeous. The majority of accommodation was in little luxurious huts built over the water. We had a FREE anchorage, out front and the guests of the resort where paying US$700 - US$ 1200 a night for the same view.

Our 2nd Atoll Ahe, yesterday was therefore a breeze, and now we're heading for Rangiroa, the biggest atoll in the Tuomotos, apparently you can fit Tahiti into the middle of the Atoll, so this will be very exciting.