Maggie at Anse Amyot, Toau

Fish feeding frenzy off our boat

May 2 2015

Toau Atoll,Tuamotu

On Wed April 29, we decided to make a brief visit to a nearby atoll, Toau. There is no pass into the lagoon, but a small bay with 6 mooring balls. We were glad that we made the stop as it was quite interesting and beautiful. We stayed an extra day from our plans and left 5:30 Fri am.

The special treat was the snorkeling. From the mooring ball you could swim over to the reef and see dozens of different kinds of fish. Rob saw a "friendly" black tipped shark swim under him! Right from the boat you could see a good variety of fish. They were under the boat feeding off the growth on the hull. If you put any food in the water they would swim out and compete for it.If we stayed longer they may have finished the cleaning job for us.

Only one family lives on shore, fishing, maintaining the balls, copra farming, and sometimes serving dinners to cruisers. We got in some much needed exercise hiking around the motu, a small islet along the reef. We had a good visit with the wife, Valentine, and did some bartering. We traded some grapefruit and rum and advil for our mooring fee, a fish, lichee fruit and some coconuts. We were both happy with that deal.

We are now on the 230nm trip to Tahiti. We hoped to do it in 2 days and one night with the forecast. But with a wind angle too close to downwind and a series of squalls it will probably be a bit after dark. We knew, however, that there is an outside anchorage that can be used with poor visibility. Also, there is a full moon.

Luc and Jackie have sent us a schedule of events starting Mon. One interesting one will be training for doing eye testing on children. We are also looking forward to Jimmy Cornell's thoughts on the scheduling of stops going forward and who will be participating where. We will be staying in a brand new marina that just opened isn't actually scheduled to open until June.