We left the village this morning and moved a mile along the coast where we anchored to watch and wait for the tide to turn. We wanted to snorkel the pass that flows into the atoll, which we had heard was pretty special, but you can only do this when the tide is coming in (so you don't get swept out to sea) and relatively slack (so you don’t get swept onto the rocks). Once the tide was right we motored Guppy out through the pass and then all jumped over the side (with G still tied to Guppy); holding on to the painter, we all drifted on the tide back into the atoll. Below us we watched a really healthy reef slide slowly past, along with many species of fish - many we had not seen before, and a lot of big ones. A highlight was watching the sharks feeding in the pass. They looked like grey sharks and silver sharks. We had six or eight quite close under us at one point. They knew we were there but were pretty uninterested in us. They have plenty to feed on and the visibility was very good. With four of us clustered together around Guppy we probably looked like quite a big object for a shark to consider for a snack. Anyway, we drifted out the other end of the pass thrilled to have done it and happy to be back in Guppy.

Then it was back onto Barracuda and we picked our way through the boomies as we motored over to the east side of the atoll to visit the tiny Kon-Tiki motu. This is the spot where Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft ran aground in the Tuamotus, ending its voyage from Peru. There is a monument and a plaque to commemorate the landing, along with many Norwegian flags left by his fellow countrymen.

One of the features of this motu is that it is mainly covered by indigenous trees and as a result is also host to indigenous birds, mainly the pure white atoll terns with their black eyes and beaks. They seemed really tame and seemed quite unconcerned by our presence. We also harvested a green coconut, broke it open on the coral and enjoyed the jelly-like meat inside.

After that it was off south to find somewhere protected to spend the next few days. We have a weather system coming through tonight and probably need to hole up for two or three days. We have found a nice spot in the east side of the atoll behind some motus. Our evening recce found plenty of interest in the water and ashore, so we should keep ourselves busy until the weather improves.