Footnotes from Water Music

Fakarava might just be our most beautiful stop to date! We entered the lagoon through the north passage, pretty village with some good shops and a very useful outfit called Fakarava yacht services where we could get laundry done, and get some internet. They also hired bikes so the following day we biked along the only road stopped for lunch, had a brief visit to a pearl farm (not a huge success so we hope to find another one on another atoll), and had a lovely swim on a beautiful beach where a local family shared their picnic with us including delicious home made coconut bread. The next day we stopped at another anchorage about 10 miles up the lagoon where there was not such a good 'yacht services' outfit with only very limited internet. Yesterday we arrived here at Harifa where we met a Royal Yacht Squadron boat with a lovely couple from Bursledon on board, there was a pig being roasted at the restaurant on the beach and nearly all the yachts had booked in for supper sadly we were too late and they were fully booked but the hog being roasted on the beach looked amazing and we have decided to stay a few more days and have supper there tomorrow. Today we moved 7 miles up to the southern pass into the lagoon where you can drift snorkel in the incoming tide behind your dinghy alongside sharks and manta rays - we didn't quite get it right but did at least see a lot of sharks and some amazing fish and coral. We've persuaded Stephen to allow us a relaxing day tomorrow before leaving in 2 days time through the southern pass for Kauehi another atoll and from there we plan to go to the biggest atoll in the Tuomatos Rangiroa (where we just might get some internet), and from there the 2 day passage to Tahiti.