Fill in facts
Jennie here: Things seem a bit confusing right now as the Noforeignland site shows Bluebird still on a mooring off Makatea when in fact they left there this morning heading for Bora Bora to get Qwalen and Ellen to a flight heading home to California and for the four left (Naomi, Jamie, Miriam and Megan) to hopefully deal to the paperwork involved in checking out of the country and getting their bonds back that the French require of visiting sailors. So we're not sure why the spot isn't working but I'm happy to say the iridium still sends an accurate location when they push a button as she sent today http://map.iridium.com/m?lat=-15.844258&lon=-149.003372 click on that and zoom out until you can see the blue of the satellite view, then keep going until you can see some of the islands to get an idea where they are. Someone was asking about atolls the other day and I've always found the island groups of French Polynesia most interesting as they represent all the stages of evolution. The Marquesas (island group NW of them now) are early stage, volcanoes that erupted out of the ocean, deep anchorages and no fringing reefs. Gradually coral reefs do form around them as you've seen in the Gambiers, Tahiti, and actually the rest of the Society Islands that Tahiti is part of. That interior mountain gradually erodes until just the fringing coral reef is left as you've seen in all the Tuamotu atolls they have been visiting. Usually the pass in to the lagoon would have been formed by a fresh water river coming off the mountain in the middle and it's stayed coral free allowing boats in. Makatea where they just spent a couple of nights is the rarity, like Niue (the largest in the world) it is a raised coral island, full of holes and caves carved by fresh water. Hopefully we'll hear a bit more about the place if they send in a report tonight. In the meantime here's some more atoll info with a diagram of my explanation near the end https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atoll Here's hoping they have a speedy sail tonight as that plane won't wait!