Pearls from Manihi

After three days in the wilderness we headed back down and dropped anchor next to Xavier's motu. Anchoring in coral is fun. It is often hard to find nice shallow water, there is usually good sand for the anchor to dig into, but there are usually coral heads for the chain to wrap around, or a big lump of loose coral to foul the point of the anchor. We managed to get the anchor down in 13 metres (yes, I know, it's nautical miles across the surface, but metres for depth!) and holding well, with the fringing reef of the motu running alongside us ten or fifteen metres away. If the anchor let go we'd be scraping along the reef in very short order, but we were all certain it would hold, and it did. Xavier let us loose on his internet again and I managed a few more photos to the blog while the important business was done. He had received a Scottish Bagpipe from Christmas Father! Not that I'd actually played one of these before, but got it working, played a Breton tune, and gave him some pointers and tips to get started.
We moved to a safe anchorage and in the morning went to see Fernando, the village baker. He is also one of the two remaining pearl farmers and I spent a long time admiring pearls and trying to choose ones that might be very cheap but the girls might like. Ended up paying $50 for 40 but he kept dropping handfuls into the bag so i have something more than that. It was gratifying as well as disappointing to see that the ones I really liked were all quite valuable, so they stayed behind. While I looked at pearls, Fernando and his brother tried to convert Marcel to 'Herbalife'! Very odd to have this pyramid health food tablets being pushed out here in the ocean. Out to the garden to pick us some breadfruit, and there, struggling in the bare coral 'soil' were a few tomato plants. Fernando picked two of these precious green fruits for us! It's been a long time between tomatos out here. He showed us his pet coconut crab, living in a 200L barrel with a split coconuts. Actually I don't know if it's a pet or just being fattened. The crabs we've been eating are clearly not coconut crabs then, and the book which told me coconut crabs are green is wrong, as Fernando's pet is very brightly coloured, reds and blues and big! Loaded up with manioc and coconut bread from his freezer, and baguettes it's back to the boat and away. As we navigate the pass, Fernando is on the VHF waving and wishing us a safe trip.