Makemo West pass snorkel

 The big main reason to be in the Tuamotu island group is the snorkeling and diving in these amazing crystal clear waters. We sailed back through the bombies retracing our track,(which was much less stressful than the first time through) to get back to the West pass, far from the village. Makemo is 40 miles long East to West and 10 miles wide North to South. The village is on the NE side about 30 miles from this pass. That is a lot of bombie dodging!

We finally get the weather window we had been waiting for and it pays off. Here Mike is coming back up from about 25-30 feet of water.

I am using the GoPro for taking photos because it has a better water proof case than my other little Fuji camera. The draw back is, that there is no zoom on these cameras, so you just aim in the general direction of what you want to photograph and then crop out the rest with a program so you can see the details. A Moorish Idol swims among the coral rocks.

Bet you did not see the octopus in the previous photo! They are so good a camouflage when they want to be.

Can you see him now? He is back in his hole in the process of camouflaging again.

Mike dives down for a closer look.

Then we spot another octopus swimming across open sandy bottom.

And the funniest thing happened. One octopus reaches a tentacle into the hole of another octopus and taps him. It was like a game. “I got you. No I've got you, tag you're it!” (double click on photo to enlarge)

Looking into 40-50 feet of water, you can see most of the coral rocks here are small. And somewhere down there is another octopus!!

I can't see him so Mike dives down to point him out.

Once he does, the octopus shows himself and I get a good photo. How lucky to see four octopi in one snorkeling session!!!

As we swim back towards the boat, we realize there is a fairly healthy bombie not far from our keel.

And another one close to our rudder.

From this side of the boat we don't look near as close, but we will have to watch it closely. One thing to note on this photo is that Avatar is 44 feet long, and I am guessing we have 100 to 150 feet of visibility here!! Wow, just incredible!

I spotted this very rare bright yellow cigar wrasse. Looks a lot like the Trumpet fish, but very bright yellow! Could be either I guess, so hard to tell. 

Mike dives down to inspect a hole in a rock. We still to this day have not seen any lobsters!

On the way back to the boat, we see this 4 to 5 foot long black fin reef shark. He is just cruising along, not bothered by us at all. Let me just say, it does take a bit of time to be comfortable swimming with these guys, but the black tips are pretty docile. It is some of the others to be careful with. 

From this angle we look awfully close to that bombie again. Think we'll re-anchor!!

Makemo bike tour

One of the issues of living out island is things in the cupboard can get old and then bugs show up in them. One day I was making some Idaho instant mashed potatoes (the last of the ones we brought from Mexico) when I found little bugs in the potato flakes. Out here, potatoes are hard to come by and instant even harder! So we sifted through the rest of the container and drown the bugs in a bowl of water, so we could use what was left. 

The wind was still blowing but we were getting boat bound fever, so we figured out how to launch the bikes with a halyard over to the quay to go get some exercise.

There is a lot of dirt on the deck from the other side of the cement quay.

With the wind blowing, it pushed us off the dock about 4 feet, so to get off the boat we had to shimmy up and down the dock lines. 

On the far side of the village we noticed when we sailed in several long white crane looking things, so we rode down to see what they were. Apparently they had a wind farm here (whoa, good idea with these Miramou winds!!), but the company went out of business and the wind farm only lasted about 8 months. It was enough to generate electricity for the whole village! Now they have no way to repair them and they sit there folded down out of the wind. Another good government idea, shot to hell. So sad! 

Continuing our ride down the beautifully paved flat road, we found some great yard decorations.

Upside down tree stumps with shells and floats.

This family is obviously Catholic with a shrine to Lady of Guadalupe, just like the ones we saw in Mexico! 

Virtually all houses that are not in the heart of the village have a solar array for electricity. This is one of the newish government subsidized houses.

This house blends nicely with its pink and sand colored paint job.

We spot the high school gym class out runnng laps around the sand soccer field. Notice the horse shoe pit in the front!? And that is a rain squall off in the distance.

We have found many of these chipper grinders which make great mulch to put around your trees, since the ground here is basically sand and coral.

This lovely driveway is lined with the sacred tea leaf plants for protection from the evil spirits.

This looked like a beautiful big house with a solar water heater on the roof. Why don't they have those in Mexico?!?

Mike circles round on the road waiting for me to take my photos.

Back in the village, I notice this great palm tree loaded with coconuts and a colorful bougainvillea plant.

Next day at the dock, the Mareva Nui is back. This is the same ship that came up behind us on the passage 2 weeks earlier.

Each ship has their own barge they use as a tug.

The deck hatches are opening on the front of the ship. And what a great ventilation system they have for below decks.

Next they unload their own fork lift to move all the supplies with.

The barge is tied up to the quay between us. The large black and white arms are the crane they use to remove and load gear. The guy in the blue shirt on deck is the crane operator.

Another squall is coming and this one looks nasty. Might even rain on us!

So many people here get around on these 3 wheel bikes. With the basket on the back they can haul groceries or kids! 

All unloaded and re loaded, the Mareva Nui casts off, job completed in just 4 hours! These guys work fast!

One of the crew members was off gallivanting around town and did not expect the ship to be ready to go so soon. The captain honked his horn several times before pulling away from the dock to say, “we're leaving with or with out you!” Then we see a guy running up the quay and the barge guy drives in to pick him up and rush him back to the ship.

Then upsy daisy, they hoist their barge and the two men aboard while heading for the pass. 

The Miramou winds finally over, we went back to anchor and lick our wounds. Thank God we had this hose over our dock line!! It took a serious beating.

And the line, hmm, don't think we'll be using it again!

In God's special way he lets us know the storm is over, the winds have passed and life is good again here at the end of the rainbow.