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Published: February 12th 2011
We were up on deck bouncing across the waves at a rate of knots – and the wind was 30 knots – on route to the paradise Heron Island; we had bagged a last minute deal at a fraction of the usual price and were pleased with ourselves. The spray was hitting us in the face, neck and chest and we were covered in lumps of Rock salt like Pretzels. Arnuad wasn’t enjoying that experience so we went inside. That was the wrong move to make. I took my eyes of the horizon, the waves were smashing against the windows and I turned green. I didn’t lose dignity alone- half the boat was chundering in to paper bags whilst competent crew dowsed our necks with frozen flannels and fed us ice cubes.
All became well as Heron Island emerged in front of us and we were greeted with turquoise waters and a refreshing fruit drink and the tweeting of a million birds. A feeling of euphoria swept over me eradicating the earlier nausea, we were in paradise.
The Island is a true coral Cay. Formed over thousands of years, it is literally an Island made from and in the
middle of a coral reef. The island is small; you can stroll round it in half an hour. Yet it is home to 72,000 nesting Noddy birds singing love songs and minding their single egg. At night Mutton birds come out of their burrows; a peculiar waddling creature somewhere between a crow and a puffin, they are very awkard on land. Their mating call is loud and enthusiastic, mournful and melancholy. To human ears it resembles a ghostly wine or a child crying. Early explorers thought the Island was haunted such was the strangeness of the noise every night. I will upload a sound recording we made to you tube (you have to hear it believe it).
During the days we snorkelled with reef sharks and rays. At night we sat under a starry sky and watched as giant turtles made their slow way up the beach to nest. We woke at 6am to go and watch the last of the turtles returning back to the ocean after a laborious night. Her task: first after a half hour climb dragging herself on her belly, she must use her front flippers to dig a large hole. This takes an hour
or two. Then she uses her back flippers to dig a small perfectly round hole about 40cm deep where she lays about 60-120 eggs. She crawls back down the beach at a painfully slow speed (she is tired) and is often stuck behind rocks crawling round in circles until the tide comes in. We helped one of the hatchlings on its little way; it was on its back having been attacked by bird. A few seconds of the tiny flippers bobbing and paddling with us cheering it on, excruciating, the sad little creature was snatched from the sky by a eyeballing gull- maybe the same one that dive bombed my head earlier. If it hadn’t been the gull it would have been a shark. Only one or two of the hatchlings from her nest will make it.
A fable from Hawaii: Two young lovers from different tribes, forced to meet in secret away from the merciless watch of her father, took half a flower each and vowed to join it as one again when they could next be together. They were caught that night by the father and he angrily cursed them; to become a Cabbage plant. A cabbage
plant is what the young girl indeed became and she holds in her bloom half of her flower still. She lives only in the low lands. The boy became a cabbage plant too, he also holds still the matching half of their flower but alas, he can only grow in the highlands and thus they are doomed to be kept apart forever.
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Dad
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Tazzi
What no blog on Tazzi? I wanted to see a picture of a weedy sea dragon. Heron Island sounds nice. You could be cast away there and live on turtle soup and sea cumbers, is that one that Arnaud is clutching (which I believe taste disgusting, especially the eggs, but the Japanese love them!). Dad.