Week 2

Oceania » Cook Islands » Rarotonga
January 9th 2011

Published: January 9th 2011

Week 2

So life on Raro is still going well. The weather is still amazing and life is still great. I wish I had big, wonderful things to write about but to be honest, I am working pretty darn hard over here and don’t really have too much time for anything else. We have a 6 day work week with Sundays off. The only problem with that is the whole island shuts down on Sunday, forcing us to sort of relax at home and catch up on all the things we put off during the week like laundry and what not.

There were of course, a few highlights to the last week here in the South Pacific. My flat mate Sara decided to move out of our house and into a great little apartment with her boyfriend Kevin. That means the house is now down to just three. Myself, Tim and Lucile. It’s a fairly quiet place to be, we cook dinner and watch movies most nights, and after a long day on the boat it’s all perfectly fine by me!

On Monday and Saturday I got to go on 2 tank dives out on the South end of the Island which is where we have been keeping the boat the last week. Normally we keep it in the main dock on the North side of the island but the winds have been coming rather strong out of the North so we relocated. There are some really nice sights along the south however, and it’s a nice change of pace. Rarotonga is actually a mountain half the height of Everest, though most of it is underwater. Now, there are some spectacular Ice Age waterfalls where the old river beds used to be that are magnificent drop-offs underwater. On a good day one can see white tip reef sharks, eagle rays and turtles along with great coral formations. The South is a little trickier to get the boat in and out of the reef however, and it is also not the cleanest beach on the island. Our intern Tim had the freak unfortunate luck of stepping on something extremely sharp as he was getting off the boat to pull it into the beach and has a massively deep cut on the bottom of his foot. The amount of blood was a bit worrying, but we got him bandaged up and Lucile ran to the pharmacy to get supplies to keep it clean. He is doing fine now other than he has to wear proper shoes and isn’t too happy about it. Tim was not alone in being accident prone this week as Emily and Hilary, two of our friends that are Au Pairs on the island had a blowout on their motorbike while on the way to dinner with us all on Friday resulting in Hilary getting some nice scratches and Emily coming away with a broken ankle. Of course, the surgeon isn’t in until the beginning of the week when he will look at it and decide if he can set it or if she will need to go home to Canada. None of this was in her plans of course, she is only on Raro for another 6 weeks then off to New Zealand with a one year work visa. All of our hopes are high that the doctor will be able to set it here and she will be ready to go to New Zealand when the time comes. I also did not get away scot-free this week as just last night I had my own minor scooter accident. I made a turn onto a back road which was all gravel and even though I was going slowly, the bike just couldn’t handle it and slid out from under me. I am perfectly fine, just a few war wounds. One on my left elbow and the top of my right foot, but both are VERY minor and should scab over in a day or two. I am not bruised or broken as far as I can tell and I didn’t even put a tear in my clothing. The scooter seems fine too, she wasn’t exactly the finest running machine to begin with and the brakes were pretty dodgy but…. That’s Raro. Steve was just saying yesterday afternoon that everyone eventually ends up in some sort of scooter accident on this island…. I am hoping that mine counts and that I have that “out of the way.”
Back to good news though! On Wednesday of this week Sara and I took some equipment to the Pacific Resort’s pool to drum up customers by offering free SCUBA trials. Our only taker for the afternoon just so happened to be a rapper from neighboring Tonga who was back on Raro to shoot a music video. He wanted to try and shoot some of the video underwater so decided to give scuba a try. It was by far the most hysterical afternoon I have had on the island. His name is King Kapisi and he is a giant Polynesian man with the best sense of humor you could ever hope to get. He took to scuba like a fish in water and gave Sara and I some of the best laughs of the year! He even got his wife to come out and video while we taught his 9 year old son as well. Too too funny!

Friday night a huge group of us all went to the curry house on the island called Raviz which as an all you can eat buffet for $15 on Fridays and Saturdays. After completely stuffing ourselves with butter chicken and garlic naan, we headed out to a few bars in Avarua. First we hit up Trader Jack’s which is right on the water and had a great live band. Vikki, our English friend who got her Rescue Diver cert with us over the last 7 weeks came out as well and she and I had a blast. After a few drinks at Trader’s we headed over to the “hotspot” Whatever! Bar for some serious dancing. Very good times were had by all! I called it an early night at 12:30 which was a good call because I dove first thing in the morning the next day!

Last night rounded out the week with Sara, Kevin, Hillary, Emily and myself having dinner over at Tom and Courtney’s (our instructors) and of course me falling off my bike. (Maybe I should get training wheels?!)
As I said before, Sundays are left for sleeping in, which I happily did, and relaxing. I moved my stuff into Sara’s old room and am delighted to have a proper bed and dresser for my things. Maybe I can talk my Mum into mailing me some pictures for the walls!  Or any of my other friends, I love getting mail!!!

Talking to Mum last night made me super homesick again, but only because I love all of you so much. Please keep the emails and post coming, it brightens my day! Love you, talk to you soon!
C

Copyright Notice: All Rights Reserved