Tonae, Fakarava
30 July 2014 | Village of Tonae, Fakarava,Tuamotus, French Polynesia
Steve
Just got settled. Had a beautiful sail down the inside of the atoll to this anchorage/village named Tonae in Fakarava. It is so amazing to sail at 8 knots in perfectly flat water inside the atoll here. It is postcard beautiful and can't really be described. It is tough to even capture the beauty in a photograph. We are the only boat here. Tomorrow we will go ashore and explore. Here, they will call even a single home a village. So, we'll have to check out this village in the morning. Then, if the wind holds we'll go the rest of the way to the south end of the atoll and get set up dive the pass. This pass is known for it's sharks. Hundreds of them on a single dive. The motto of one of the dive shops here is, "if you dive with us and don't see a shark it's a free dive." Hope to get some good video and photos.
Using our new scuba compressor. Taking about 20 minutes to fill and 80 cu ft tank from 300-3000 psi. I blew a safety disc in one of our 4 tanks yesterday and can't find my spares. Checked with the two local dive shops and no luck. The tanks they all use are 5000 psi and the burst disc is different. Something else to put on the delivery list when Larry and Cindy come in October. Four tanks make it convenient for us to do 2 tank dives, now we have to fill between each dive. A pain, especially if it's a long dinghy ride back and forth to the dive site from North Star.
All is well and hope to give a good report of some awesome dives in the next few days. When we are done here, we'll sail back to the north end for a few days of real internet and provisioning again.
--with Kim Watford