Fakarava

In our first Tuamotu island, we were approaching anchor by the time we woke and quickly got up for our room service light breakfast, as we both had activities at 7.30am.

Fakarava is essentially a very large lagoon with a thin spit of land along the north and east sides. In the picture below, the west and southern sides look thicker but there are actually just reefs.

Lynn was doing the ‘Fakarava Cultural Tour’. This took a couple of hours, all up, and included a visit to the decommissioned lighthouse, to a church. There were lessons in basket weaving, opening coconuts and throwing spears for sport.

Meanwhile, I went on the ‘Blue Lagoon Tour’. This hustled a dozen of us into a steel boat which headed to the north-western corner of the lagoon where we jumped out, waded ashore, and then snorkelled in a smaller, very sheltered lagoon set within the island. It was relatively shallow (2-8 ft) with a number of coral bommies and the usual array of common fish. Coming back was into a strong wind and oncoming waves, rough and soaking but fun.

We met up in time for lunch, then in the afternoon we slept, sat on deck and eventually watched the lagoon recede. I had thought about going ashore but Lynn assured me there was essentially no village or anything to visit. We then went to the trivia competition before dinner.