Hello from Huahine

This morning we have been for an interesting dinghy ride through shallow water between Huahine and the outer reef to a motu (little islet forming part of the reef). Forgot to take shoes, so had a rather painful but lovely walk along the rough beach, finding quite a few shells. Gorgeous water colours. Now P is busy making some savoury muffins for lunch, as she says she is tired of baguette!

We had a very pleasant few days in Moorea. Went to a spot where stingrays come to be fed. A bit touristy (the rays have their stings cut off), but the rays come right up to you and take bits of fish from your hand. We didn't take food for them, but there were enough people around who had, tinned sardines seemed just as welcome, so we had a close-up view.

Left the island with a good supply of small sweet pineapples which grow so well on the volcanic soil of Tahiti and Moorea. It was a night sail to Huahine, about 80 miles. We chose a rough night, winds 25 knots which wasn't too bad, but the seas were big and we were running with the wind so rolling like mad. Everything rattling and banging and none of us got much sleep, it was so nice to get into the calm shelter of the island early in the morning.

Huahine is really two islands very close together and connected by a short bridge. We hired a bike for P and spent a day cycling around the northernmost island. Very scenic and the coastal road was quite flat except for one very steep bit with a look-out at the top, and an even steeper downhill the other side. I didn't trust my brakes and walked both up and down! Along the way we filled our rucksacks with a tasty fruit called 'star apples' (not star fruit) bought at the roadside, and also some mangoes picked from a wayside tree so were fairly heavily laden for much of the day.

There were plenty of stops en route - a huge complex of ancient 'marae' or religious sites consisting of stone platforms and upright slabs of stone. Some were beside the sea, and some up steep paved tracks through thick forest - plenty of mosquitoes.

There was a vanilla farm to visit, and we hadn't realised that the pods grow on a sort of vine. Only one harvest a year, then the pods are dried in the sun for 3 hrs a day for 3 months, so no wonder they are quite expensive to buy. We've seen the pods used to make sweet-smelling bracelets, and also as a sauce for fish. Don't fancy the latter. Another stop to take a short boat ride out to a pearl farm in the middle of the lagoon. Demonstrations of how the oysters are prepared, but it was mainly a little shop selling locally made pottery, and pearl and mother-of-pearl jewellery. The final stop was to see some sacred blue-eyed eels that live in a small river. Big fat things about 6ft long, and again fed by the tourists (and local children) so they are quite tame. There's a taboo ('tapu') on eating them.

We had hoped that there would be some dancing for P to see while here, so were pleased to see that there was a local 'soiree' in the little town. Actually it was a 20 min walk out of town, very dark and no pavement but luckily not very much traffic. A large marquee had been erected with lots of food stalls and a bouncy castle around it. It looked as though the whole town was there, and all evening people were coming and going into the marquee with food, and children were playing around, a real local event, not put on for tourists which was nice. Many women were dressed in traditional brightly coloured mumus with coronets of flowers on their heads, and the men with necklaces of shells and sharks teeth and coronets of leaves and bark. The dancing was great fun, lots of hip swinging and foot stamping to drums and guitars. As we noticed before in Papeete, the dancers are all sizes, and those with rolls of fat dance as enthusiastically as the skinny ones, it's just not considered important. We have some nice photos and a couple of videos on the computer, passed on by some people from another boat so hope we can show them to you some time.