Dave & Margs' Travels

We spent the day just relaxing on the deck and snorkelling in the clear waters in front of us. Mathias reported that Fiji had warned our island it would be affected by Cyclone Arthur and that we would have to batten up the hatches later that afternoon but then as he looked at the sky he said don't worry it won't happen. He was right - it passed by 200km away.

We left the next morning and flew back to Rarotonga and were met by a transfer to our new accommodation at Muri Beach on the east of the island. We had a first floor apartment with balcony view overlooking the garden and beach. It was a resort area with several accommodations and restaurants and sailing club but it was still very chilled. It was also the first place we had been to all holiday that had sunbeds and so we tried to make use of them when we could, even when the tide was in and we were part surrounded by water.

We walked, we cooked, we swam in very shallow water with a strong current so you swam to keep in the same place etc. We also shut a friendly geko in our louvre window! I liked the gekos but when it got to night time and there was one wandering around our room I wasn't so keen as we didn't have mosquito nets and I didn't want it crawling on me in the night. When it went through the louvre window we shut it quick and it was trapped between the window and the mosquito screen on the outside. Moments later another one got in our room. I had an interrupted nights sleep!

One day we caught a bus to a marine reserve where the snorkelling was fantastic. The only problem was people feed the fish in the reserve, mostly with stale bread we think, but it did mean that fish larger than I liked surrounded us wanting food. At one point Dave and I had to just go for it and swim through a shoal of about 20 fish all about 10 inches or more. We got up one morning and saw sunrise accompanied by a three-legged dog and his four legged mate. On our final morning we walked across to the nearby motu at low tide. The walk there was quite straigh forward. We got attacked by mossies when we went to watch some hermit crabs and we went for a wander and headed back. The wade back was more exciting - we saw a sea snake (which we carefully avoided), other long pointed nosed fish, new butterfly fish we hadn't seen before, a large shell and Dave tried in vain to pick up a tiny (1 inch) butterfly fish which took a liking to his orange reef shoes and hid by them.

We missed going to watch a small volleyball tournament by about 1/2hour but sat and relaxed and watched a few sailing races which was very slow as there was barely any wind. Dave (newly experienced skipper) commented on tactics and techniques of all the competitors. The weather was lovely, the people friendly and the pace of life slow. We could have stayed in the Cook Islands for a very long time and our decision to reduce the time spent in Tahiti and have more time in Cook was a very good one. We would recommend it to anyone. It is probably the best bit of our trip.