Sailing Pau Hana: Best dives of my life

The Tuomotus are amazing. The water is very clear with visibility regularly topping 30m. The wildlife is outstanding. There are sharks, huge tuna (like 300+ lbs), schools of big barracuda and an array of tropical reef fish that all make for a pretty surreal setting. Hands down, best tropics ever. We even had a little black tipped reef shark living under the boat while we were at anchor this week. That made jumping in for a swim pretty exciting.

The diving has been outrageous. We made several dives in the pass with literally hundreds of reef sharks and some grey sharks, they all hang out and wait for injured or disoriented fish to happen along. The currents are pretty strong so timing the dives with an incoming tide is important to avoid being sucked out to sea.

We're currently in Fakarava, a larger atoll in the central Tuomotos. We've been diving, snorkelling, swimming and basically living in the water as much as possible. Last night we went ashore to this tiny pension on a sand beach with a primitive tiki bar. One of the boaters is a guitarist so he brought an amp and a couple microphones. Two of the local musicians came with their ukeleles and we got to listen to local music as we munched on fresh fish and poulet roti. Throw a tropical sunset in there to top it off and it made for a great night.

We sailed through the lagoon yesterday, dodging coral heads and pearl farm buoys (this is the home of the black pearl), and are now anchored near a small village called Rotoava. The supply ship is here, which is a good thing as we've run out of nearly everything. Propane? Ran out mid-dinner prep a while back. Fresh fruit or veg? Nope. Eggs? Nada. Clean clothes? Uh, nope. Water? Getting low. Fuel? Again, running low. Beer? Not a single one. After the supply ship unloads, we'll have about 12 hours to get everything we need for the next 2 weeks, after that it'll be gone, gone, gone.

We'll be slowly making our way to Tahiti in the next 2 weeks. We'll be there for a bit, doing some minor repairs and reprovisioning for the next 3 months of the trip. Our internet access is quite limited, but I'll update when possible.

Rip some trails for me, Bozeman!

South Pacific multi-tasking: captain catches a tuna and flies a spinnaker!

Makemo Pass: no shortage of reef fish

Midway up the lagoon in Makemo Atoll, at anchor

These pics don't due the underwater scenery justice but these are clams that have algae growing around the lips, results in brilliant colors from black to purple to blue and turquoise.