Diving and coconuts

I'm in love with the Cook Islands. If you want a fabulous beach vacation, this is the place to come. I haven't had the best weather, but it is a gorgeous area. I toured another island, Aitutaki, on Tuesday. The weather on Raro was rainy, but Aitutaki had sun breaking through the clouds. We took the yellow boat to tour the lagoon. We snorkeled at a few different sites - zebra fish, trumpet fish, and a medley of others. I saw some huges clams - who knew the inner part where the shells meet come in such a variety of colors. They keep the younger clams in cages to protect them; I saw a diver checking up on them. For those who watch the show (I don't), we stopped at one of the islands they used for Survivor: Cook Islands. Puna, our guide, showed us how to husk a coconut which I later put to practical use.

There are chickens all over all of these islands, even on the uninhabited ones. Just not what I would expect to see on a tropical island. I think hermit crabs are my new favorite creature. They were crawling all over the islands we visited on the day tour. They're in all shapes and sizes. Since they find their shells to inhabit, they are as varied as the shells you would find on a beach. Some are teeny, teeny, tiny, while others are a decent size. They feel you coming, and just zap back into their shell to hide. It's funny to see the shells just tumble. If you wait them out, you see them emerge and go about their business. We also saw a red-tipped tern with it's chick. Very cute. Lunch was fabulous - freshly caught tuna, a variety of salads, and a breadfruit salad (think potato salad, but with breadfruit). Oh, and the lime juice is quite delicious.

Wednesday was a dive day for me. The water was nice, nothing compared to what I did my cert dives in (those were in Illinois - burr!). We saw lots of fish. I really like the trumpet fish, and the itty bitty blue ones. The colors are quite amazing. On our second dive, we ran into some bigger animals. I was swimming about, when I put on the brakes because I almost swam over a Hawksbill turtle It was feeding, so we just floated for a bit to watch it. Later, we saw a white tip reef shark - so graceful. Later, my dive partner about freaked. I looked over and she's gesturing frantically. I swam over, and there was a huge, huge moray just below her. We also saw a Spanish dancer which is a lovely thing to see. It's called a dancer because it looks like it is dancing in the water; it's a prety pink/red color.

That evening I had the chance to go to an Island Nights performance. It was pretty cool. They give an overview of the culture of the Island, then they have a dinner of local cuisine (taro, fish, octopus curry - awesome!, breadfruit, pawpaw, etc). Then, they have the dancing which was great! I liked the format because they start with the traditional, tribal dances, and then go to when the missionaries arrived to current day. Earlier in the week, I met a couple of the guys who work at one of the dive shops. Their colleague is in this dance troupe which is how we ended up going to the performance. It was really good.

Sadly, I have to leave here, but I hope to be back one day. I'm off to New Zealand's South Island for a couple of weeks. Time to break out the cold weather gear!

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