Tuesday 24 February – downpours

We decided to stay another night here it is so pleasant and well protected from all directions. In the morning we headed to the headland at the entrance to some dive spots marked on the NFL App. It was pretty much slack tide which was good so it was reasonably easy snorkelling. The coral was really colourful, with loads of smaller fish. It was a magnificent drift snorkel until we got out to the swell that was crashing onto the rocks. It sounded worse than it was but the water clarity was not good so not to my liking I had enough. We went to the other side where Scuba Junkie and another dive boat had arrived. The water was clear and the coral was so colourful and thriving, it was lovely to see, it was a great snorkel.

We headed back to PolePole and had a snack for lunch. Around 2pm we decided to go and snorkel another area, as we were getting ready I spotted an ominous black cloud, we decided to wait for it to pass. That was the start of the rain, it didn’t let up until midnight. It poured down swirling us around and around, but thankfully we were rock solid. The wind never felt like it got too bad, but certainly nasty conditions, it was a white out of clouds, we could not see the mountains on the other side nor our beach. We should have realised weather was brewing as four long boats arrived in our sheltered bay over lunch. It is amazing what they endure, they have a tiny cabin, which they all seemed to enclose with plastic. They were all there when we went to sleep, nobody was budging. I’m just so grateful we didn’t have this weather when Lovat and the kids were on board. It is the rainy stormy season so we should not be too surprised and actually we have been very lucky so far.