By now we’ve established our usual routine for remote places: a nice balance between work and play… For the past few days we’ve spent the mornings restitching and reinforcing our dinghy cover and in the afternoons we explored the motus on the eastern side.
Yesterday we took Pitufa a few miles further south through the lagoon. While the central lagoon is deep (50m) with plenty, but clearly visible bommies, the area along the eastern shore is rather shallow, the water’s a bit murky and so full of bommies that we had to go very slowly and zigzag our way in–not the usual joyful lagoon sailing we enjoy, but slow motoring… Finding an anchoring spot between the shallow coral heads also wasn’t easy, but it turned out again, that the old ‘no risk, no fun’ saying is true: the motus down here are stunningly beautiful with long white and pink sand banks, wooded motus (a natural mix of shrubs, palmtrees, pandanus, pisonia trees) and thousands of red-tailed tropic birds!
It’s hard to walk around, because a nesting tropic bird sits under every second bush and noddy nests with chicks in all sizes are built in the branches above. Finding so much nature here is a very pleasant suprise!!