There’s a warning for high swell and therefore strong currents in passes, so we still haven’t left Nengonengo. Instead we did a snorkel in the pass yesterday, were sucked out high speed with the current, marveled at fat grey reef sharks, a big nurse shark, numerous white and blacktip reef sharks, napoleons and swarm fishies in incredible numbers–absolutely fabulous. We just had to be careful to hop back into the dinghy before we drifted into the area at the exit of the pass where the standing waves started (wind against a strong current makes for impressively high waves…). We did this trip a few times as it’s a short pass.
Today we took the opportunity to explore the northwestern and western motus by dinghy. After a one mile ride across the rough lagoon we walked a few kilometres down the western motus and were positively surprised to find large nesting colonies of frigate birds, many red-footed boobies who are just courting (they don’t dance like their cousins the blue-footed boobies, but ‘sing’ instead, or rather roar 
)
Nengonengo has turned out to be the nature paradise we hoped it would be…
