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After a good nights sleep on the northern tip of Taveuni, we had a refreshing snorkel before setting off again. This time it was just a day trip, about 25 N miles, through the passage between Taveuni and Vanua Levu, and around the bottom of Venua Levu to Fawn Harbour. Not much wind, so motored over half the way. The entrance to this harbour is through a 1 N mile long channel in the reef. Inside it is calm as a millpond, completely surrounded by reef and mangroves, you would never guess there was a raging surf on the outside. Just after dinner we heard a lot of splashing going on around the boat and looked out to find the whole harbour was alive with jumping fish! These fish, the size of herrings, were leaping 1/2 meter into the air, propelling themselves about 1 meter forward and often skipped along the surface several times like a pebble skimming across the water. There were thousands of these fish, leaping, jumping an skipping in all directions - fun to watch. We laughed as some hi t the side of the boat in their frenzy. What a show! It looked like you could walk across the water on these fish, there were so many of them at the surface. This morning as we came out of the harbour into open water again, we were greeted by a school of around 20 dolphins, gracefully bounding along beside us. Magic! Today we had plenty of wind and enjoyed a swift sail for the last 35 N miles into Savusavu. We arrived at 1.30pm and had cleared customs, health and immigration by 3pm - very easy. Went ashore and explored a little. There is a good fresh produce market, 2 supermarkets, several other useful shops, a few restaurants, cafes and bakeries. Everything we need is very close, just a short walk to all amenities. A handy location. Met up with quite a few boaties we have seen in other spots along the way, plus some new ones. So far it feels like a very friendly, welcoming place, with a smile and "Bula!" from everyone we meet.

The best snorkeling is on the eastern reef of Nukuatea Island, where turtles graze, Manta rays play and hundreds of different kinds of fish inhabit hundreds of different types of coral. We had to pinch ourselves to see if it was real. It was like watching a fairy tale brought to life. The reef is made up of much larger versions of the coral we saw in Tonga and the reef fish are larger here too. It seems someone took all the fish and coral from the whole of Tonga, enlarged them and plonked them all in one reef in Wallis! Wow! On a more practical note, the supermarkets here are like heaven compared to anything in Tonga. Plus we got our first decent rain in 3 months on Tuesday night so managed to fill up our water tanks and do all the washing using the water in the dinghy. A real bonus :-) We live in a wonderful world.

Around Wallis itself there is mainly sea grass, and it is no good for snorkleing. Further out in the lagoon, the water is clear and there are many coral reefs to explore. We enjoyed snorkeling the reef at the southern end of Faioa Island, at the SE edge of the Wallis lagoon. Pretty coral, teeming with fish, clear warm water. It is very warm here. 30 degrees today and the water is 29 degrees. When swimming or snorkeling it feels like you can stay in the water forever without getting cold. We both stayed in for far too long this morning and got sunburned backs! Have now moved to another island in the Wallis lagoon, called Nukuaeta. Manta rays were frolicking about as we came in to the bay. The coral garden here is the most magnificent we have ever seen. About 2km long and 200m wide, it covers the full length of the E side of the island - and then some! We snorkeled (with shirts on this time!)in amazement at the variety of different sorts of coral, some gigantic structures, larger than we have seen anywhere else. Everywhere you look you see purple, pink, yellow, green, blue, white, grey, brown coral in every size and shape you can imagine. While snorkeling we spotted a turtle near by. He swam off in a great hurry once he realised we were close. Last night we enjoyed a balmy night, sitting in the cockpit chatting away until almost midnight. There was a full moon so it seemed almost as light as day. Very nice to sit outside all evening - we totally lost track of time because it was warm and so light. Ended up going for a midnight swim in the moonlight to cool down a bit before going to bed. A very nice way to round off the day!

Everyone here speaks French. It is difficult to find anyone who can say more than two words of English. So we have pulled out our best recollection of school time French - and that was a long time ago! Between us, we have managed to cobble together enough of the right words to be understood, eventually, with lots of laughs along the way. This 78 sq km island has a "road" running around it, which is approx 35 km in a circuit, plus a few more internal 'secondary roads' that lead to crater lakes and plantations. We have seen more banana trees and taro plants than we ever imagined. Not really sure what they do with all the bananas and taros. There are only 9000 people living here but it looks like you could feed the whole of the south pacific with bananas from here. There are no signposts, no roadsigns, or village names. The map has village names on it, but the villages do not. So it is impossible to tell where exactly you are on the island at any time. There is water on one side and ban anas on the other, wherever you go! The buildings here are made of concrete and are far more permanent and substantial than the buildings in Tonga. There are several large Catholic churches, built of stone with white painted pointing's. Some are very elaborate, adorned with towers and balconies and ornaments. There are only a few pigs, and they are kept in pens. Lawns are mowed, gardens trimmed, hedges neatly clipped. Everyone drives around in late model cars. The usual French collection plus a lot of new Ford pickup trucks. These shiny vehicles are everywhere - we are not sure what happens to the old cars, they all look quite new. One of the highlights so far was our visit to Lac Lolololo. This is a large crater lake which has vertical cliff edges dropping a long way down, like a deep canyon but almost perfectly round. The lake at the bottom of the cliff looks deep and dark. Quite stunning. On Friday we managed to find the one and only bank on the island to get some money out. Paci fic Francs are used here, there are 78 Francs to the NZ$. From what we have worked out, prices here for groceries are pretty much the same as NZ. After the limited supplies of basics in Tonga, it was wonderful to go to a real supermarket and buy nice bread, cheese, pate, salmon, pastries and a huge selection of fruit and vegetables. Everything here is imported, quite a bit from NZ such as apples, kiwifruit, Anchor UHT milk, Tip Top ice cream, Mainland and Kapiti cheese, Cerebos salt. Surprising to find all these NZ products amongst the mainly French imports. We have seen several vehicles with All Blacks logos on them, some shops with the logo on the window and some people wearing All Blacks t-shirts. We haven't seen any other rugby team logos, but it looks like Wallisians are keen All Black supporters. The people here are very friendly, they wave as we go by on foot or in the car. Lots of smiles as they say "Bonjour!". Some locals stopped and gave us a lift to the vege market, then came back and took us to the car rental place and helped to translate what we needed. Very helpful! Our little Peugout 206 has a bit of trouble with roads designed for 4 wheel drive vehicles, but it is getting us around! Today we had 33 degrees, so fairly warm. The water is 29 degrees and feels soft and silky. We can stay in the water a long time without getting cold! On Friday we caught fish in the lagoon which fed us for two nights. After visiting the supermarket we now have chicken, pork and NZ lamb in the freezer as well. This was good timing as on Thursday we finished the meat we had in the freezer from NZ. Not bad going - we lasted 3 months before we needed to go shopping!