Still in Amanu

We're still in the Atoll of Amanu. The captain and the crew have recovered now. We spent most of last week at an island on the SW of the atoll where we snorkeled a bit but did not do much more than recover from our illnesses. Yesterday we moved to a reef in the form of a star in the middle of Amanu, which was nice. Today we moved to the north east, where we'll stay at anchor for a couple of days. It's nice, the typical scene though, which I expect for the next couple of weeks as well. We're at an outer reef island full of palm trees. The reef itself looks like the moon or a cemetery for shells and million years old dead corals. Sometimes you see the red stone from the volcano come through. That's it. On the inner side, behind the islands (the side where we anchor) in the water you can find many little reefs and reef heads, good for snorkeling. Interesting underwater landscapes with many colors of the corals. Even a lot more colorful are the inhabitants of those reefs, many different kinds of fish, including reef sharks. I don't really like them but I got used to them, as they always appear when I am snorkeling. Yesterday I finally got the photo that I wanted: from the front. One saw me and came right towards me, looking curious. Being generally afraid of sharks I was amazed that I just quickly took my camera and took pictures of his face. Then, when I saw him too big through my lens I thought "ok, that's it, thanks, you may leave now". And he did turn away. Puh. I know, these are the "friendly" sharks, but there is always some fear remaining. ...

And then again, talking about these friendly sharks, I have a little story. Marcus has lost his last two, big fish he caught to groups of these friendly reef sharks. Ha was not able to pull those big fish in before the sharks took notice of what was happening (a fish dying) and started to eat it off the fishing rod! The day before yesterday about 6-8 of those little sharks came to take the fish apart underneath the Dinghy (where Marcus was sitting in). Marcus thought "ok, next thing is they bite into the Dinghy" (which they can't)....Today Marcus was standing at the beach and had thrown the rod out. He immediately had a big fish. By the time he had the fish at land, there was nothing more left than the head of it...Very friendly sharks. The sharks we've seen are about 1m-1,5m (4-6ft).

I will not write much I guess the nest days and weeks, unless there is something special happening, because all I could talk about is the same - island, reef, turquoise water fish, sharks, sun, stars and rain. Those islands are usually small, not much to do. Here it seems I might be able to take a long walk via the moo-like reef-side. I did walk for a while today - until I found a space big and flat enough to be able to practice some dancing....

We plan to go back to the town of Amanu on Saturday for 2 days and then go on to Hao.

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