Today we took the dinghy out to explore the outer reef area on the east side of the lagoon. The motus running along the east side are connected to the barrier reef for the most part. However in the south end there is a big gap between the Piti Aau motu and the outer reef. There are many interesting coral formations in this area.

One large coral island rises up above the water just behind Piti Aau. You can approach carefully by dinghy and explore the island and its tide pools. There are lots of fish and many colorful clams in this area.

As we were getting ready to leave a Polynesian family arrived on their power boat. The wife tossed a danforth onto the rocky island (helping mother nature make sand of it) and they all came ashore. We said hello and then they headed off into the coral shallows. I wondered what they were up to and then I saw the wife prying clams from the coral with a big steel bar as the son followed along with a floating plastic box to house the harvest. I was pretty fond of all of the colorful clams on the reef. There are a lot of them at present however so hopefully the harvest is sustainable.

Once away from the coral island we headed through the submerged coral to explore the bank behind the reef to the south. There are some buoys here in the sand flats that we saw a tourist boat leaving from. As it turns out this is one of the shark feeding spots. We saw lots of little black tip sharks and several rays patrolling the grounds to ensure that all of the scraps had been cleaned up.

There were many other interesting areas to explore by dinghy on the southeast side and we had a wonderful day of it.