The Tuamotos
August 25, 2004 
Posted by Belle in : Tuamotus, French Polynesia , trackback
We decided rather than have two short visits in two different places in the tuamotos, we would pick one spot and stay there for tour or five days. The wind brought us to Ahe. The Tuamotos are a group of small, extremely flat islands. Kind of like the Exumas in the Bahamas, but they are atolls. An atoll is a group of lowlaying islands, in this case they form an oval, that form a lagoon. They are beautiful.
The first day we just wandered around in the water, looking for a good snorkeling place. Seems that most of the coral died because of El Nino. Too bad. It was supposed to be some of the best snorkeling.
The Second day I worked on Connie Francis. Sophia took Dio to the tiny town on the island near us and he was a big hit. He came back with a shell necklace and a ton of flowers. Sophia and Dio are the greatest ambassadors!
On our third day we packed up a large picnic, got our snorkeling gear and went off exploring in the dinghie. First we met up with Fiona and Lloyd, a nice English couple who were anchored right next to simpatica and then wences found a nice sheltered spot for a picnic and a little snorkeling. It was a really fun day. Wence and I went snorkeling together and saw a sting ray with a HUGE stinger. And lots of other small fish, some parrot fish. I’m fine with a few fish. I like to follow them, pretend I’m a piece of seaweed so they eventually forget I’m there and maybe get a chance to act like they would normally. It’s fun to watch. I saw a cute family of tiny little white fish that lived in a little coral stump. They would come out and look at me, getting very close to my fingers, looking into my mask. I wanted to touch them, but whenever I moved my hand they would move away, just out of my reach and then look back at me.
The fourth day we went into town. It was like some strange Star Trek episode at first. There was nobody around, no noises. It seemed like the entire population had been beamed over to another island or something. Then the children came on their bikes. They remembered Sophia and she started playing with them. Dio started kicking a ball around the street. That kid has soccer in his blood. Mine. Not wences’s. It was really fun. All the girls stripped every flowering tree and garden of its flowers to bring bouquets to us. It is a custom to give people who are arriving or departing a tiara of flowers. Since they knew we were leaving the next day, they gave us tons of flowers and asked all kinds of questions. They were all so sweet.
We were sad to leave the tuamotos, but looking forward to getting to Tahiti. The thought of seeing a café, a big super market, and being able to take a long hot shower was well, shocking.
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