As the Tiputa road disappeared, the cairns built of reef fragments showed us the way. We had been delivered to Tiputa by a broad shoulder woman with her hair in a classic Polynesian topknot driving a lime green water taxi. Her deckhand hoisted our bikes onto the foredeck and she took my 2000 polynesian francs. She is the first resident woman we have seen at the helm of a boat. Every water taxi, launch and canal tender has been driven by a man. She drives confidently across the pass that had so worried us, pointing the boat towards somewhere in the middle of the lagoon but landing exactly at the dock on the far side.

Separated from the resorts built close to the airport by the wave and dolphin filled pass, Tiputa is less driven by the outside tourism pressures. We head straight for the post office to mail our school taxes to the Adirondacks. Karl goes inside and I sit on the bench outside knitting. The service is slow so the line outside grows. The driver of the lime green taxi comes and goes. Others figure out how to do their business on their phones and leave. I peek inside and Karl is sitting in the chair chatting with the post office clerk sharing poicture of snow and tales of throwing snow ball and sand balls. I go back outside to apologize in my terrible French and the small group assures the clerk is new it may not be just a computer problem. One of the young women explains how she grew up here, went to university in Tahiti to study social work and health care but there are no jobs here. A woman carrying 3 dozen eggs passes by. The young woman comments the eggs cost $20 and she cannot afford them. She is moving towards a lifestyle that her grandparents based on coconut farming and fishing. She leaves on her bicycle after giving up the clerk and Karl. At last Karl emerges and we get on our bikes to explore the island.

After a quick spin through town we head along the oceanside road. We ride along a concrete paved road that becomes a track occasionally in distinct and marked by cairns built of reef fragment. We can see how the atoll is built. The wafes from the Pacific swell break in blue curlers one soccer field length from us. It is low tide so the 100 meters (yards) between the breakers and the road is a shallow reef structure covered in a knee deep water. Our path is built of reef fragments. Barren grey piles of broken reef lines both sides. On the land side the piles often loom over our heads. A few plants hang onto the road edge. The island is really narrow and very low. Away from the ocean on the other side of the piles are neat rows of coconut palms, the farms. The palms extend for two more soccer field and then the lagoon opens up at a white beach of very bleached reef fragments. If this had been the Marquesas 12,00 years ago there would have been a volcano where the lagoon is. Rangiroa volcano has washed away. No mountains and no black sand remain just the ring of reef and reef debris remain. The ocean and atmosphere have eroded the volcano away. In some places we bike across places the ocean floods in stormy weather. Car sized reef fragments are the fingerprint of big storms that occasionally tear up the front of the reef. Eventually we reach a crossing, marked by cairns where it looks like the water is rising. Time to turn around so we do not get trapped.

After lunch we tour the modern lagoon reef at the entrance to the pass. At the Aquarium, a popular dive site just next to the range markers and buoys that guided us in. Given our experience with the stranded Danish Divers I am stressed about the paddle and the snorkel but the beach on the island is quiet, inhabited by terns and boobies. The trail marked by anchored buoys is easy to follow. A marvelous array of shapes and colors reef are a reminder of how different a living reef is. Fish of all sizes and colors sneak in and out of the reef nooks and crannies. This reef and the entire island are in a balancing act with changing sea level and ocean acidity. The Marquesas sit high above any future sea level rise but these atoll islands with roads and cairns constructed from reef fragments are on susceptible