This morning we began the day with another dive, this time on the ocean side of the north pass. This was definitely our best dive yet. The coral here was extremely colorful — light blue, lavender, bright yellow, dark yellow, black, white, various shades of beige. No single color was dominant. The coral also had a lot of variety in shapes, including some formations that looked almost flower-like in addition to all the shapes we had seen before.
Today we had a sailor from another boat come to visit. He was curious about our powerboat and wanted to know more about her. A few hours later one of his boat mates came by and said he wanted to know more about the boat, too. The cruisers are fascinated by Kosmos. Invariably, as soon as they find out we have a power boat, we are inundated with questions. They always ask the same questions in the same order. Eric has threatened to make up ridiculous answers to throw them off, such as “How much fuel do you carry?” “One tablespoon of plutonium.”
We didn’t go into town until close to sunset.
S 16-03.4 by W 145-37.6 – This morning we went scuba diving. Special Blend had highly recommended the Fakarava Dive Center and we had booked an appointment the day before while in town. The dive master and his wife picked us up from Kosmos and took us out to a reef inside the lagoon near the north pass. It was just the two of us. The dive master adjusted Christi’s weights, saying she had too much. We loaded into our gear and jumped in.
Today Christi started the day by grudgingly performing a rain dance. Out came the brush, soap and hose. It always worked with the car, maybe it would work with the boat. She only washed the areas most in need of a good scrubbing, clinging to the hope that the rain dance would work and Mother Nature would take care of the rest. Oh, and Brad from Special Blend retrieved our ropes for us. Thank you Brad! Continue reading
Wednesday June 6, 2007 — We went to meet Richard at the fancy hotel. We arrived early to explore the island with the hotel. There is an airport (complete with a passenger loading/unloading boat dock), three little souvenir shops selling jewelry made with locally raised black water pearls, and a couple of houses. The houses are farther apart than in town and have no fences. The views of the lagoon are beautiful. There are a lot of dragonflies around, too. We were surprised at the amount of trash strewn about. In addition to the usual bottles and cans, we saw a lot of broken sandals and buoys.
Back at the hotel, we watched some workers put a palm frond roof on a bungalow. There is a basic wooden frame. It looks like the two halves of the palm fronds are braided about a third of the way down from the stem. The fronds are laid down and nailed at the stem to the frame. The fronds are laid down a few inches apart and overlap one another. The fronds are covered with chicken wire to keep them from blowing away. Continue reading