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| Over the rainbow... |
No such thing as a sleep in. Up at 6.30am and started a loaf of bread before setting off down the east coast to Motu Nao Nao. We thought of visiting here for the day and returning to Faaroa Bay. Left at 7.20am and followed the chart closely, navigating through clearly marked areas and arrived to Nao Nao at 9.45am.
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| Raiatea |
The passage down was lovely, with beautiful colours to rival that of Bora Bora. You could clearly make out the shallow from the deep water.
Once we rounded the point of Motu Noa Noa the sight was just breathtakingly amazing – truly no words to describe the beauty of this place. There was one other catamaran anchored in the lagoon – 28ft - all the way from Barcelona! We picked our way through the scattered bommies & anchored in 2m of water. Probably not a lot of room left for another vessel to anchor here. There was a stretch of reef only 7 metres behind us. We couldn’t wait to jump in and test the waters. The Motu is private and very beautiful with a white sandy beach & swaying palm trees and other lush vegetation. We had our first breaky beer with our hot freshly baked bread and swam some more until lunch time.
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| Dream Yacht Charter in Dream destination |
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| Motu Nao Nao |
It was then time to head out in the dinghy with a few beers in hand and explore the outer aquatic surrounds of the island. The breakers on the outer lagoon sounded great crashing on the reef. We motored as far as we could along the southern side of the island – until you come to a reef off the island on the south east point. We headed back very slowly stopping at coral heads along the way & viewing the sealife from the dinghy. The water was like glass and I managed to get some good coral & fish photos from the dinghy! We stopped at the beach whilst a rain shower came through and went for a swim in the rain. After getting back to the boat, we donned our snorkel gear & jumped straight off the back and snorkelled along the coral bank behind the boat. This was the best snorkelling and best reef we had seen. Good colourful corals, many fish and amazing clarity of the water. Very impressive. There was a bit of current running through, so we had the dinghy let out on a very long painter and didn’t stray too far but then we didn’t really need to. We fed the fish off the back off the boat - & along came a big toadfish which was very friendly and we fed by hand!! The other fish weren’t so friendly.
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| South West corner Nao Noa |
The little catamaran from Barcelona departed our anchorage and we decided that this was the place to stay as we were pretty protected from the prevailing breeze and very secure. If we had come here at the start of the holiday – I don’t think we would’ve left – pure paradise. We went ashore late in the afternoon with a bottle of wine and sat on the beach watching a really good sunset. There were a few bugs & mozzies, so we decided to drift around in the dinghy before heading back to the boat for a nice steak/potato & salad dinner washed down by more wine and a game of cards. This is bliss.
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