Thursday - Our boat trip day

Today we headed off for a snorkelling trip to the far side of the lagoon - near our favourite place, Honeymoon Island. This is where I spent two days on our first visit here in 2014 getting an idea how to Kite Surf (but not mastering it!).

We opted to go with a new business set up by brothers Mike and Paul Lee called Aitutaki Coral Restoration (Aitutaki Coral Restoration). Mike is passionate about trying to restore the coral in one part of the lagoon where he 'plants' coral fragments which apparently grow at about the same rate as finger nails.

We were booked for a 9am start but Mike rang and changed it to 1pm. Rather than get a taxi, we opted to hire a car from Dylan (our host) and make a day of it. We set off around 9:30 and drove around parts of the island we hadn't seen much of before and ate our (home made) egg sandwiches at a secluded picnic spot before heading off for the wharf in Arutanga.

Along the way we stopped at Baxters Water World for a top-up on beer (just a six pack of Heineken - but we may have over catered on this front with only three nights to go).

At the wharf we were met by Paul and headed off across the lagoon in his boat. Mike was going to take us but he was already at Honeymoon Island giving Kite Surfing lessons.

Overnight we had serious rain and passing thunderstorms but we were back to sunny patches with just a 15-20 knot breeze and a warm 28C temperature.

We had a two stops for snorkelling but couldn't anchor in the coral restoration area because the wind was too strong. We did get a chance to talk to Mike out at Honeymoon Island and he gave us a run-down on his activities. Quite fascinating and good on him but it is a pretty big challenge.

On the way back to the boat we found what can only be described as Wilson's long lost brother


The snorkelling was fantastic with a huge number of reef fish. I also managed to find a few Giant Clams even though Paul didn't seem to know where to find them. Here are a couple of stills from my GoPro footage which I will bore everyone with when we get home.




These things sit in about 6m of water and are nearly a metre long. When I swim up to them they move their shells and quiver when they detect something coming close.

Once Paul decided the wind was too strong to anchor and another front was heading our way we headed back after about three hours. Since we didn't get to see the Coral Restoration area he only charged us $200 for the trip. The normal price is $145 per person. Including the $80 for the car hire, this was pretty good value for a great day out.

With another in-house dinner of snacks followed by sausages and salad (washed down with Corona/Gin/Wine) we are feeling just a bit weary.

Just two full days left now before we head home on Sunday.


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