The condensation on the Bridge windows almost gave one the impression it was raining, the air so humid, as we approached this island. We had called here before of course and often had to cancel, or, as in the case of the infamous  “Tender 9”, had to use the west side of the island and Arorangi, where a cut had been made through the coral to a small pier.  As you can surmise, I wasn’t going to touch that place again, so the only option was to ‘drift’ near Avatui itself, conditions permitting.

Our radar screen. Lower area is land, blue/green, the reef

and the same on the Electronic chart

The depth of water allowed us to drift quite close to the harbour, the shallower ‘no go’ areas almost near the beach and so it was, after maneuvering to adjust our heading to suit, giving us relative shelter from the swells, that we commenced our tender operations, albeit slowly.  Even though it looks calm in the photos, there was quite a swell running along the ship’s side.

The harbour, the tender pier to the right.

I had never been ashore here, (well, once, however wading on a reef doesn’t count), so I decided to jump in a tender and just ‘go see’ what it looked like…

A tour departs

Inside the small harbour

The pier

In places, the harbour was shallow enough to wade….

I took the Go Pro with me, here’s a compendium of scenes, (I’ll try to get better at this 8-O)

We are on our way towards Tonga, Nuku’alofa for the 28th.  Tonight we cross the Dateline and clocks go forward 23 hours.  I write on the 25th, the 26th doesn’t exist and we wake up on the 27th, work that one out……..