Aitutaki first boat trip into lagoon and outer islands: Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Aitutaki first boat trip into lagoon and outer islands

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Aitutaki 8,9,10,11,12 sep; we flew with Air Raro and left around 11 am from Avarua and arrived at Aitutaki at about 12. The following photo’s are from Wednesday the 8th. Tamara, Stuart’s daughter picked us up from the airport and took us to Moana villa. (Stuart is the owner of the house we stay in in Arapati (pepi) in Rarotonga. Tamara was extremely helpful and told us most of the important things to know on Aitutaki. She recommended we do the Bishops boat tour asap and she booked us in for Thursday !

snorkel photo’s and videos download from underwater camera here;

Sep 9; as we waited on the road for the shuttle to take us to the start of the boat tour, we watched resort employees to do some team building during lockdown just across the road.

2 young family’s with 2 kids each, a German from Great Barrier island and us joined the tour. We headed for one foot island, boating alongside the left of the lagoon, and along the way we passed Akaiami island that was used for plain fuel storage (?) between the fifies and sixties; it was formerly a landing strip for TEAL flying boats which regularly stopped for servicing weather conditions during the coral route in the 1940’s and 50’s. It now is a private accommodation (Akai-ami Paradise) consisting of a lodge and a villa on the private island. The lodge has in fact been rebuilt on the exact spot where the original TEAM terminal stood and has been built to keep in line with the original design.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akaiami

Just before we start snorkeling at a good spot, captain Barry jumps overboard catching some fish for our lunch that we will have on one foot island !

Snorkel photos and video below here; download from underwater camera

After our snorkel we pick up captain Barry who caught our lunch and then we got dropped off at a sand bank 20 minutes walking from one foot island. We walked through waist deep water to one foot island whilst the captain took the boat there to prepare our lunch.

One foot island, captain and helper serving lunch and Bob having siesta