We just came back from almost 4 days of relaxing and enjoying the beautiful
reefs and its inhabitans. We left on wednesday morning after the morning
practice of the girl on the boat which was next to ours (she has a line hanging
down from the forestay and does the ballet on the line hanging down – nice to watch during
breakfast ;-)) and sailed back to our beautiful little island.
There, Marcus had the fastest catch of fish I have ever seen. He put the fishing
rod with old cheese from Easter Island into the water and 5 seconds later he
had a fish for his BBQ dinner. Amazing. Marcus was VERY happy. Next morning the
sea had calmed down a bit and it was low tide. We used the chance of a bit more
shell-sand on the beach to play paddle tennis, which ended up being a test how
much leather-like our soles of the feet are already. The “sand” of the island
are all very small pieces of shells, yet big enough you can pick up every
piece, like very small stones. Running over this sand is like sanding your feet
with very rough sand paper. To make it a bit more challenging, there are even a
lot bigger pieces of shells and dead corals in the sand. Acupressure massage on
the feet. Well, we can still walk ;-)
Later we tried to snorkel a bit but the
current was so strong that we could hardly hold ourselves at the reef, so we
went back to the boat. That evening, in the sunset, we BBQ’s sausages and for
the first time in my life I ate “bread fruit” (I don’t know the English expression).
A big green, almost round, vegetable with white dots on the shell which grows on
trees and after cooking tastes like sweet potatoes, almost like Yuca. You peel
the thick skin off and then cook it in water. I prepared it like a bavarian
potato salad and it worked great!!
Yesterday we changed our position to a chain of islands, all connected by
sandbanks, north of the airport. I LOVED it there, we finally found my big
bathing tub. A huge area of turquoise colored ocean, where I was finally able
to SWIM a distance and not just snorkel or stay at one place. But, we also did
snorkel quite some time yesterday and I again today. What was so funny there?
The sandbank / reef parts in between the islands have a good stream from
outside the atoll to inside the atoll, especially at high tide coming in. We walked
towards the outside and then just laid in the water with our mask and snorkel
with no movement necessary. We drifted to the inside end of this reef, floating
over this beautiful underwater scenery, which looks as if someone had put
oriental gardens with bonsai trees and mushrooms under water. We saw different
shells, riffs, corals (I love the purple one), sea cucumbers, crabs and much
more. A whole different world. It is like swimming in a huge aquarium, tons of
fish around you in the most beautiful colors. In the meantime I have even lost
my fear of the little sharks, since now I know they swim away if they see you.
My favourite are the big rainbow colored fish (parrot fish). They come in large
groups, but they are shy – in contrary to the little blue fish, which are more
curious. And, there were no jellyfish (Quallen). Did I ever tell you this? On
the first day after we arrived here, Alita was just cleaned and the motor back
in order when Marcus had the watermaker running. All of a sudden I hear a
strange noise from the watermaker, we had to turn it off. Maybe something in
the filter? I joked and said, maybe a jellyfish? You know the answer. Yes,
indeed. The yellyfish came so close to the boat and to the inlet of the
watermaker that the watermaker had indeed sucked one in. Having seen and
touched this gelatine like transparent mass in the filter I now understand why
you call it “jellyfish” in English. It is like jelly, only I would not want to
eat it…
This afternoon, in some light rain, we came back to Mangareva because we wanted
to eat Pizza tonight and I am going to church tomorrow morning. Oh well, here
on this island people have too much money, no need to do much. Pizza place closed,
so is the only other restaurant. All sailors (and there are many here right
now) stood in front of closed doors. You can’t buy vegetables here, shops are
hardly open, baguette only in the morning, ….people live well here. Most of
them work in the black pearl industry, most men diving. They are definitely not
prepared for tourism, which on the other hand is good, everything stays
original and there is no crime here. For the first time, I feel really safe in
a place, I even already slept outside on deck twice already because I wanted to
fall asleep under this beautiful star sky.
Tomorrow after church we have a cooking party with the other germans at
the older guy’s TransOcean Club house. I will make an apple cake – the wish of
the Fritz. He plays old german songs all day long, for sure he’ll play the song
“Micaela”.
So long, here are some pix of the last days. The rest can be found added in
the photo gallery of the “Iles de Gambier”.
