Well, that is what we saw at about 7:30am when we first got to our room and looked out the back sliding door of our unit.  This picture was taken from our doorway.  Just like in the magazines.  Just like the brochures.  Just like all of the web sites we had been researching.  My goodness! 

After our 21 1/2 hours of travel, we woke right up.  The hotel supplied snorkel gear and the kayaks "free of charge".   The metal pan in the lower right corner of the picture is sitting on our deck and every day one of the staff would provide us with clean water to rinse our feet off in.  The reef is about 400 feet out at this point and the lagoon was very smooth and inviting.  It was only about 100 feet from our deck to the edge of the water. 

These 4 pictures were taken with our underwater camera while we were out kayaking in the lagoon in front of our hotel.  One of the pictures show Dave and Gini and one has Dave taking a picture of us.  In one picture I am standing out on the reef.  There was an area about 50 feet wide which was only about 2 or 3 feet deep there.

Here are several pictures we took out on the beach right in front of our hotel.  There are lots of dogs which roam the island.  Whenever you went down on the beach you would have one or two dogs to keep you company.  They all seemed to be very friendly and not a problem at all.  You would see a dog sitting beside someone and it would look like the dog was with them, but probably it was not.

Every Sunday, the Paw Paw Patch holds a barbeque out on the beach behind our hotel.  It was good food and some good music.  Jackie and I shared a table with newlyweds from New Zealand.  When it got dark enough, they pointed out the Southern Cross as we sat at our table.  How very special!

The photo on the left is one that I found on the internet. It shows the lagoon in front of the Rarotonga Beach Bungalow and our hotel is just to the right of this picture.  You can see how much coral there is in the lagoon.  The fish really hang around the coral and the coral keeps the lagoon free of any boats.

The Rarotonga Beach Bungalow is where Dave and Gini stayed.  That is them on the front porch of their unit (which were very nice!).  They finally got to go scuba diving a few days and told us stories of sharks and other creatures that I don't want to think about!   (I closed my ears!)  They said the water was extremely clear on the other side of the reef... and they did see several sharks... up close and personal.  Gini brought Jackie a couple of neat shells from "down below".