Rather than cycle around an island, today I
decided to swim instead -- or rather, to snorkel. It took me over an hour to snorkel all the
way around Hideaway Island, partly because I was taking underwater photos along
the way, but mostly because for quite a bit of the way the water was only about
30 cm deep -- too shallow to use my legs or I'd risk cutting open my knees on
the sharp coral. So I kind of had to
squirm along using just my arms. Still,
even in the shallow parts I saw quite a lot of fish life, and I got to see how
much devastation Cyclone Pam had inflicted on the reef:
At one point I saw what I thought was a piece
of string that had been dumped into the ocean.
When I touched it, though, it promptly disappeared -- they were the
feelers of some sort of sea creature:
Apparently the main beach at Hideaway
Island used to be sand, but when we arrived it was covered in dead and broken
coral, all blown up by the cyclone:
During the five days we've been here, the
resort workers have transformed the main part of the beach by digging up the
sand and coral, filtering out the coral using a wire netting frame, and
spreading the sand out again, so now the beach is mostly sand again. What an ingenious way of fixing the problem!
In my swimming, I also discovered where the
best snorkelling was, and saw some amazing fish I hadn't seen before, as well
as some beautiful coral formations that were undamaged:
I also saw lots of coral that was
regrowing, which is encouraging:
Out of the water, I spent basically the
whole time with the family, watching the children while they swam in the pool,
played with the lizards and hermit crabs, and explored the island.
Oscar made friends with an English couple,
and within a few minutes was playing pool with them! He'd never played it before, but he learned
quickly. He then asked me to play, and
after a few games he had become quite expert at playing -- I could still beat
him, but only just. He seemed to really
enjoy playing it, and it was great to be able to do something just with him:
In the afternoon, Ruth took Quinn and Tighe
across on the ferry so that Quinn could skim-board on the sandy beach there,
while I stayed pool-side with Anneke and Oscar.
Anneke's been quite reserved today, complaining of a runny nose, and
seemed content to sit and draw while listening to music on her phone. She seemed happy enough, though, and we
chatted a bit which is great. After the
busy few days we've had, I think it's good for everyone just to chill out for a
day:
When Ruth got back to the island, I headed
off for a quick ride while she took the children to see a local acrobatics show
at the neighbouring beach bar. It sounds
like it was quite fun.
My ride was just for half an hour today --
very much a recovery ride as my leg was still a bit sore from my long ride the
other day. It was dark by the time I got
back, so we all headed back to Hideaway Island where we had dinner while we
watched the geckos chasing the moths in the lamplight. Tighe just had bread and jam for dinner,
Anneke had Lava Cake, and Ruth had a child-sized Spaghetti Bolognaise. I was starving, though, and ate a huge
dinner. It was quite nice, for bar-style
food.
Afterwards, we had hermit crab races
again. I chose the fastest crab I could
find, and won several times in a row until my crab got too tired and I had to
retire him. One of the locals joined in,
and thought that what we were doing was hilarious.
In the evening, Ruth gave my sore leg a
rub-down. We're leaving quite early
tomorrow as we've booked a taxi to take us all the way around the
mainland. There's a World War II museum,
and several other things we want to see, but we have to get started quite
early. I'm planning on riding at first
light to get it out of the way -- hopefully my leg will be better so I can have
another attempt at riding up Khlem's Hill again.
No comments:
Post a Comment