Gong xi fat choi. Happy Chinese New Year.

27 degrees at 7:30. A maiden port for P&O. Just before I left my cabin for the excursion, there was quite a breeze and some ominous looking clouds. This is the second of three consecutive tender ports.

Because of the swell, it took a lot longer to tender to the dock. The tenders were moving about a metre up and down between the tender and the ship. Once we were on land, we boarded the bus to the lagoon. The bus had two long bench seats and no windows.

We passed lots of well kept graves in people's gardens and by the side of the road. There is only one road round the island and the public buses have one of two destinations Clockwise and Anti-Clockwise!

We then boarded a glass-bottomed boat out to the Muri Lagoon. There we snorkelled and swam. The fish varied in size from tiny to really quite large. Quite a lot of coral about. The local girl on the boat was throwing pieces of bait fish into the water and the lagoon fish were leaping up and swimming all around. Later she swam under the boat and we could see the fish swimming in circles round her. One of the boys on board then brought up a giant clam for us to see.

After that, we sailed to Motu Koromiri for lunch. We had fresh fruit (coconut, passion fruit), bread, cooked bananas, onions and fresh fish. Then we had a demonstration of palm tree climbing and coconut husking and opening and coconut cream making. Then we were shown seven of the three hundred and seventy five ways of tying a sarong. While we were on that little island I saw a man and his dog on a surfboard.

When we got back, Barbara and I went for a local beer before tendering back. Back on board I got sticker number 12 in the Individual Quiz. We lost the TV Trivia quiz in the tie break and then won bottle 22 in the Syndicate Quiz.

The local mobile phone service is called CK-Cokanet!!

It was warm and humid on my way back to the cabin for bed, but I guess it'll start to cool down the nearer we get to New Zealand. Today marks the beginning of week eight and also means nine weeks today we arrive home.