Commodore
October 13, 2023

Saturday 14 October – great snorkelling in the channel

This is a lovely anchorage and a great place to sit out a few days. We went snorkelling in the main channel between the two islands, which had great coral and crystal clear water. We tied to a buoy out there and had a great look around and then did a drift dive with JeldiJeldi as the current was rushing through. There are apparently 8 leopard sharks in the deep part of the channel, they are nocturnal, so you should be able to see them lying on the bottom during the day, but we did not see them. In fact they have not been seen this last week, so maybe they have gone somewhere warmer! We got quite chilly out snorkelling, everyone has wetsuits here, the water is significantly cooler, we may have to invest in some!

We did a drift dive through this channel almost from the breaking waves in the distance right the way through nearly back to PolePole

The coral was really interesting and alive, plenty of small fish, not much bigger fish

This was the sight during afternoon tea, whales are still around

We headed to the resort for supper just before sunset, we were glad to meet a young dad on the beach who could help us drag JeldiJeldi up the beach a bit, as there is no dinghy dock here. We were the only sail boat in for supper although we did meet the Irish sounding Swedish guy and his son at the bar. We had an excellent Lobster supper with delicious mash and rich sauce, followed by a chocolate mouse that was equally delicious, what a treat for us! We sat at big tables with guests from the resort, mainly Kiwis, a young German backpacking couple and a young family from Hawaii. There were some real characters, I had an enormous bald tough looking Kiwi guy next to me, his second wife who was delightful, was telling us about his passion for painting his toenails bright colours! She, the ex wife, works in customs so I was quizzing her what I am going to do with my shell and seed collection when entering NZ, she just said I need to declare it all, and they will look at it. Eeek I think they may be tougher than the Galapagos – I have so much jewellery made from seeds and shells.

After pudding they had crab racing that was good entertainment. They had 27 crabs that they auctioned off, which took quite a while as each crab was exhibited! We were slightly concerned about JeldiJeldi in the pitch dark so we headed back home before the race even started.