Boy, confused was I, we set off at 9am Monday, flew 5 hours and arrived 2pm Sunday due to the international date line. I spent several minutes trying to work out if I was a day older. It was raining when we arrived, but my spirits lifted when we were serenaded in by a man on a little yukelele type guitar. We had a great place to stay right on the beach, on the sunset side of the island. We played "spot the honeymooners". The island is only 32 km round, is very pretty and not overdeveloped. All the women wear flowers in their hair and we felt very relaxed. The rain stopped just long enough to do a couple of dives, I was down longer than "air pig Stephen" and just as he was surfacing I saw the biggest Moray eel I (and the dive guide) had ever seen. It was 2 meters long and as thick as a mans thigh. And I saw a turtle.

We went to an Island Night , but rather than choose a fancy show at one of the resorts, we went with our hostel to a dodgy nightclub and saw a very unpolished but by no means less entertaining show. Of course Stephen was selected to dance with one of the lovely ladies, I ran into the toilets to hide. The singer was actually reading the words from the song book. He was the happiest Cook Islander we met! I asked if I could have my photo taken with him and he was over the moon.

But the next day saw the winds really pick up, the lagoon surrounding the Island was churning away and the hostel owners said last time the weather was this bad 2 years ago all flights were cancelled for 4 days. And flights to Fiji only go twice a week! So we crossed our fingers and hoped we would get to Fiji at all.