Day 96 - moving day
Ia orana, Megan here. Today we packed up and moved out - across the lagoon. I had a final kayak and frolick along the shore. I added sandpiper and fruit dove to my list of birds spotted. And then we were off. On the journey, Naomi handed me the wheel and I learned to sail Bluebird. I have taken the wheel before, but only for a few panic stricken moments in the Marlborough Sounds and without having a real necessary direction to head in. But this time went quite well. Qwalen even kept me on my toes by instigating a man overboard drill with a coconut. Unfortunately we were unable to save him but we did almost get him back. Jaime's arms weren't long enough. Hopefully his coconut family will have some peace knowing it was close. Lucky we didn't practice with any of us. I hear Qwalen originally intended to hurl himself into the ocean. Honestly my heart probably couldn't have taken that.
We have arrived on a new shore. All by ourselves. A much lusher island chain that has it all - hundreds of nesting noddys, as well as their fluffy fledglings scattered about the forest floor, many crabs full of machismo, and even a little coconut frond shelter to laze about under. And I turned over a rock to find a sea snake! Wow! Can't wait to keep exploring here. Mauruuru!
Ellen here, This AM's tuna fishing mission aborted due to gnarly wind and swell out the pass, Q and I decide on a mellow, more conservative consolation prize - dinghy to the inside beach and walk over to the outer reef for low tide shellfish foraging. WRONG - even at dead low tide 2m breakers were crashing onto the part of the reef we were hoping to forage. Making headway felt a bit like looking for shells while playing twister, except the board is made of sharp rocks and you only get to see it for two seconds out of every twenty, and if you don't make it to the right dot someone shoves you over sideways. Lovely sail here though, nice to be somewhere where we're the only boat in sight, and the simultaneous sunset colors and full moon rise from the quiet lagoon shore, wind-sheltered by coconut palms, was dreamy.
Q here Just for the record, this open ocean I almost hurled my self into for a man overboard drill was inside a rather calm lagoon with minimal current and relatively close to land. But most importantly, I had full faith in the crew, who executed the drill relatively seamlessly. A new beach today, so many new shells, so exciting.
Jamie, Harry Potter 3 has been viewed, bring on the 4th! This will be prime grouper hunting fields this new spot. Today I won a game of age of empires on the computer too so really making the most of being in tropical paradise it would seem. Megan made delicious pasta and chorizo for dinner. We got into the dates this morning in the porridge too so I had ample energy to send my Chinese army in against the Huns and the celts.
Hello it's Naomi, Quite exciting to explore a new motu, this one is a bit lusher than the last, altho with an inordinate amount of holes for pretty large crabs to live in. A lot a LOT of crabs live here and at first I thought man I wonder what all these crabs eat ! This is a lot of crabs whole islands like a little crab warren. Then we came across the trees full of noddies and the babies helplessly hopping around on the ground and I thought oh no. Who knows what tonight will bring for those little babies, some wing to pincer combat perhaps. Really nice evening poking around on the reef watching the sun go down, we tried to watch sun and moonrise but a cloud bank obscured the moon then some low clouds made it set again after it had finally risen. Very bright out tonight, tomorrow we will experiment with different techniques for husking coconuts
Bluebird out
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