Tikehau, Aug 18 - Aug 20

We departed Rangiroa on the 18th in the early light for a day sail over to Tikehau. The weather was perfect as was the wind. Unfortunately, the wind continued to pick up after our arrival and the anchorage in tikehau was less than ideal...in fact it was downright bumpy. We had planned on going for a scuba dive in their pass which was supposed to be quite nice, but when we went ashore on the 19th to sign up for a dive we found that the small resort where they were supposed to be seemed to be pretty much empty. We met the lady who ran the place on the beach, and she was quite nice and explained to us that their dive boat had broken down and now the only dive guys on Tikehau were at the big Pearl luxury resort hotel, which was quite a ways away. On our way back to town the small resort's dog followed us the entire way (about 10 mins), even after the resort owner came and tried to get him in her car. She explained that he thought we were her guests and so was escorting us. Everyone in town seemed to know the dog and all the kids seemed pretty excited to see him. I wanted to ask her why she seemed to have no other guests for him to escort, but couldn't figure out how to ask that politely. We also encountered two broken pay phones on Tikehau. One right near the dock and one right out in front of the post office. This seemed pretty strange given that EVERY Post Office in French Polynesia has at least one pay phone outside it, and every single other one had been in working order. We wandered into the store, killing time until 5PM when we could pick up the baguettes Fred and Aimee had reserved for us that morning, and the lady in the store said the closest working pay phone was at the airport - out past the seemingly deserted resort we had been to earlier. All this seemed a bit contrary to an entry in a guide book that said Tikehau was prospering in recent years because of it's desirable location on the route between Rangiroa and Tahiti. After we got back to the boat and found the anchorage still quite rough we decided to leave the next day for the big city in Tahiti.