A boobie is a type of bird, so get your mind out of the gutter! We discover several motus where many birds are mating for the season. There are nests high up in trees, on the ground, and at eye level – basically everywhere! But we of course focus on the boobies.
In the southeast corner of Toau, there are many little motus and spits of land that don’t even qualify as a motu. We explore many of them in search of sea treasures and good photo ops.
One palm motu: this beautiful spit of sand has one lone palm tree thriving on it. There is not much to this motu other than the tree, but it is fun to share its small piece of paradise.
Toau Motu
Three palm motu: from afar, it looked like there were only three palm trees on this motu, but as it turned out there were about 8 bunched together. Clearly someone is caring for them as they were well trimmed and the dead palms were removed.
Typical Motu: covered with brush, trees, palms, and more. This little motu had a small reef around it, lots of coral and rock. And a surprise to us a tall wifi repeater (getting wifi from Fakarava and sending it to the pass anchorage). Of course, we couldn’t get any wifi as we were not at either end of the repeater.
On the same motu as the wifi repeater are tons of mating birds including lots of boobies.
Boobies
We found lots of white, fuzzy baby boobies in the trees. They are pretty easy to spot as they stick out against the green leaves. The top left photo is of a mom still protecting her egg.
Baby Boobies
On the ground, on some bushes, and between the rocks were lots of baby bird eggs.
We were clearly disturbing the birds so we gave them a wide birth. But even with our best efforts, they were unhappy so we left the boobies alone.
We had great fun exploring a lot of the motus in the SE corner of Toau, but it was time for us to continue SE.
Passage Toau to Fakarava
It is only 15nm from the Toau pass to the Fakarava North pass which should technically take us about 3-3.5 hours to sail. However, the wind was not cooperating and we are had tack several times making our 15nm sail a 40+nm sail and taking well over 5 hours. Lucky for us it was not a problem as we were trying to time slack tide at the Fakarava pass and our longer than normal jaunt worked out perfectly.
We get the hook down in time to enjoy a quick dinner at our favorite tapas place in Fakarava called Hirinaki Lounge and then we were off to bed as it had been a long day.
The last blog we sail to and arrive in Toau and search for sea treasures. Events from this blog post occurred mid-November. Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind our adventures.
