We’ve had a busy couple of days here on Palmerston.
On Thursday we were taken ashore mid morning. We were ferried in, again, by our host Edward. This time he picked up Ken and Laurie from Trim moored next to us. We had a brief chat with them before Helen, Ben and I went to the shore to snorkel in the crystal clear warm waters surrounding the island. Apart from the usual, but abundant, crowd of fish we saw a small turtle and two dead sharks. The sharks get it from the villagers. I assume because the sharks are competing for the same fish the villagers eat they get a bash on the head if they get too close.
Back ashore we all had a shower using collected rainwater. This was especially pleasant as we can’t have showers aboard as a result of the broken water maker. We then headed back to the school as it was now the lunch break and we had a few bits and pieces to give the school. From the school we walked to the beach on the south side and round to Tere’s house which is just finishing construction and is the nicest on the island. It even has a guest house on the beach which looks very romantic.
We had more fried wahoo for lunch which was just as tasty and just as filling.
In the afternoon we hung around Edwards home with his family and Ken and Laurie from Trim. Shirley, Edward’s wife, brought out some juice and rum (from Trim) which we supped and mellowed out. Occasionally we would wander around. Edward was cutting branches off a mahogany tree to trade with a friend for goods. The five little piglets running around were quite a draw. We were given some barbecued wahoo to take back to the boat which we later ate. It was delicious.
On Friday we went ashore to take a look at the laptops and printers which had been reported to have problems. Ben came up with most of the answers but in some cases the problems were trivial (out of ink/out of paper).
We again had wahoo for lunch but this time we had it steamed and it came with doughnuts of which Ben ate about 5. There were still many left and we eventually went back to the boat we were given a plateful. They surely want to fatten us up.
Around mid afternoon Ben and I were picked up to help Edward and his two sons, John and David, fish for parrot fish on the reef. They laid out a net across a shallow part of the reef while we circled round to scare the parrot fish in. The first time we didn’t catch anything which may have been partly due to Ben and my inexperience. We felt bad when the fish got past us and not into the net.
The next time, with a little help from another father and son, we caught 19 parrot fish. Even then, the rest of them took over leaving Ben and I at the back feeling a little spare. But we probably helped a bit.
Next stop was fishing rods on the reef. I lost my hook, bitten off by a baby shark and nearly caught something else but I don’t know what. Ben managed to catch a pretty big relative of a grouper which we gave to the family. They’d caught two tiny ones so we felt as though we’d contributed.
That evening, as with the previous two, we pushed on with watching The Lord of the Rings extended edition until we felt too tired to continue.
Our plan had been to leave Saturday morning. However, we learned that on Saturday morning Edward and his sons would be going out to catch birds on one of the other islands along with the other families from the village. Furthermore, if we were around at 2pm we would count towards his families share of the overall catch. Furthermore, these birds were considered a treat and we would be fed some if we were here on Sunday. So we’ve decided to stay on until Monday morning.
This morning, Ben and I were picked up around 6:30am and were taken across the Lagoon to one of the unoccupied motus. The birds are actually preflight chicks about the size of a small hen. The younger ones are left and only the ones big enough are taken. One just grabs them by their head and stuffs them in a sack. The family knew where to look and bagged all the birds. Ben and I added moral support. In their boat the birds were left to sit in the bottom where they puked up the bits of fish they had earlier eaten. This, apparantly, was edible. I though David was joking when he said we could eat it but it turned out to be true as Edward ate some later. Yach.
On the way back to the main island we spotted another sailboat on the way in. We stopped off at the main island to drop the birds and David off and headed back to Dignity. Edward and John hung around for a while. He knew he could get to the boat first as the other hosts had left it til later to hunt their birds. The boat turned out to be The Road last seen by us in Huahine. They’d had a long sail from Bora Bora without their autopilot and were hence tired. I agreed to go with Edward and join them in case they needed extra help coming in. By now we had humpback whales in the vicinity. I kept only seeing their splashes. Even when I was aboard The Road and they were breaching nearby I kept missing them. Oh well.
Once The Road was safely moored Edward took me back to Dignity. Ben and I headed off to the reef with our spear guns and soon had snagged 5 large parrot fish which we intend to give to Edward – hopefully making up for the lost fish from our first attempt yesterday. The snorkeling was excellent which pursuaded Helen to come out with us for a bit even though she’d just washed her hair. The visibility was excellent and by the reef there were lots of underwater fissures to explore. There were a few white tip sharks swimming around but they were more scared of us.
This afternoon, at 2pm, the birds will be shared out. We should be going ashore to watch this event. Then they’ll have their necks massaged (to death), be plucked, fired then frozen ready for the feast tomorrow.