Aitutaki
Throughout the night the National Geographic Endeavour was hounded by force 7 winds and an unrelenting stream of westerly swells. The night passed difficultly for our vessel, but she stayed the course, and by dawn the low-pressure cell had lost a little of its punch. As daybreak gave way to morning our passage was further cushioned by a slackening of the winds and a minor easement of the ocean’s motion. Though the rain continued to fall, this was a welcome development. However, the atmospheric conditions of the previous night had delayed our arrival to Aitutaki.
The interim was filled with a presentation by Steve Maclean on the life and three great voyages of legendary explorer and navigator Captain James Cook. Born of humble stock, he rose through the ranks of the British Admiralty to become one of the world’s most famous and important explorers of the millennium. He benefited from great timing, but was blessed with a gifted sea-going acumen and innate navigational skills. His was a trail followed by many but surpassed by none, save only for the possibility of the explorers who ventured into the rarified air of space exploration in the latter half of the twentieth century – and they buoyed by the financial and technological gatherings of a world not even dreamed of in the time of Captain Cook.
By noon the rain still fell in a steady stream. The clouds were low and woven into a blanket of gray. As our vessel approached the lee of the western shores of Aitutaki, the sea state had subsided substantially, our vessel’s passage taking on a softer cadence and timing. Shortly after lunch we were evenly adrift off the island’s western shore. A northwesterly breeze, slightly offshore, flattened the waters and provided a relatively easy Zodiac passage through the channel in Aitutaki’s reef to its main town, Arutanga.
Once all were ashore and marshaled in the harbor’s semi-enclosed gathering locale, a local song and dance troupe broke into a Cook Island, drum-driven rhythm. The men, clad in grass and loin cloths, and the women, adorned with fragrant tropical flowers, knee-length sarongs, and girded in a hoop of leaves, danced to the local music as if they had rubber in their knees and bearings in their hips. It was a performance steeped in the tradition and warmth of South Pacific welcoming.
Following the performance, some of us made way to the open-air buses for a circle-island tour of fishhook-shaped Aitutaki’s central island, while others struck out in local boats for a snorkeling excursion in the island’s resplendent lagoon. The bus tour made way along the island’s main road, stopping at an historically-important marae (an ancient, sacred Polynesian stone structure predating European contact), which was in close proximity to one of the island’s impressively-large banyan trees. The tour terminated near the island’s northern end, not far from the airport, at a small, languid resort on the edge of a pearl-white sandy beach. The snorkelers all boarded local boats, and moved south across the lagoon’s brilliant range of jade-greens, turquoises, and indigo blues, before anchoring in the shallows just north of Honeymoon Island, one of Aitutaki’s small outer motus. After donning masks and fins, we swam into the liquid turquoise for an encounter with the island’s “aquarium,” a stretch of lagoon bottom dotted with coral heads and teeming with fish and invertebrate life. It was a jaw-dropping sight. The heads were rich with colorful coral species, and surrounded by scores of reef fish, diverse in species and swollen in numbers. The sun never broke through the clouds and the rain continued to fall, but this did not lessen the impact of the experience.
By mid-afternoon all snorkel boats had marshaled upon the stretched-out, sandy shores of Honeymoon Island. Many red-tailed tropic birds, in various stages of breeding, serenely reposed under the island’s low-lying foliage. Upon approach they hardly stirred, giving all of us moment to pause and closely admire these splendid aerial masters. Even surrounded by camera-wielding, encroaching groups of humanity, they held their own, offering all of us photographic opportunities rarely offered by any wildlife. Adults whirled overhead or guarded their young brood, while sub-adults, on the edge of fledging, sat squarely on the coralline sand, their mottled, gray-flecked, white plumage radiant in the muted light.
As it was our last visit of the season to Aitutaki, the National Geographic Endeavour drifted into the night off the western shore, and our vessel’s officers and staff invited Aitutaki’s stellar port agent and another local dance and singing troupe to the ship for a farewell performance of Polynesian culture. The day drifted into night much as it had begun – bathed in a steady rain.
Throughout the night the National Geographic Endeavour was hounded by force 7 winds and an unrelenting stream of westerly swells. The night passed difficultly for our vessel, but she stayed the course, and by dawn the low-pressure cell had lost a little of its punch. As daybreak gave way to morning our passage was further cushioned by a slackening of the winds and a minor easement of the ocean’s motion. Though the rain continued to fall, this was a welcome development. However, the atmospheric conditions of the previous night had delayed our arrival to Aitutaki.
The interim was filled with a presentation by Steve Maclean on the life and three great voyages of legendary explorer and navigator Captain James Cook. Born of humble stock, he rose through the ranks of the British Admiralty to become one of the world’s most famous and important explorers of the millennium. He benefited from great timing, but was blessed with a gifted sea-going acumen and innate navigational skills. His was a trail followed by many but surpassed by none, save only for the possibility of the explorers who ventured into the rarified air of space exploration in the latter half of the twentieth century – and they buoyed by the financial and technological gatherings of a world not even dreamed of in the time of Captain Cook.
By noon the rain still fell in a steady stream. The clouds were low and woven into a blanket of gray. As our vessel approached the lee of the western shores of Aitutaki, the sea state had subsided substantially, our vessel’s passage taking on a softer cadence and timing. Shortly after lunch we were evenly adrift off the island’s western shore. A northwesterly breeze, slightly offshore, flattened the waters and provided a relatively easy Zodiac passage through the channel in Aitutaki’s reef to its main town, Arutanga.
Once all were ashore and marshaled in the harbor’s semi-enclosed gathering locale, a local song and dance troupe broke into a Cook Island, drum-driven rhythm. The men, clad in grass and loin cloths, and the women, adorned with fragrant tropical flowers, knee-length sarongs, and girded in a hoop of leaves, danced to the local music as if they had rubber in their knees and bearings in their hips. It was a performance steeped in the tradition and warmth of South Pacific welcoming.
Following the performance, some of us made way to the open-air buses for a circle-island tour of fishhook-shaped Aitutaki’s central island, while others struck out in local boats for a snorkeling excursion in the island’s resplendent lagoon. The bus tour made way along the island’s main road, stopping at an historically-important marae (an ancient, sacred Polynesian stone structure predating European contact), which was in close proximity to one of the island’s impressively-large banyan trees. The tour terminated near the island’s northern end, not far from the airport, at a small, languid resort on the edge of a pearl-white sandy beach. The snorkelers all boarded local boats, and moved south across the lagoon’s brilliant range of jade-greens, turquoises, and indigo blues, before anchoring in the shallows just north of Honeymoon Island, one of Aitutaki’s small outer motus. After donning masks and fins, we swam into the liquid turquoise for an encounter with the island’s “aquarium,” a stretch of lagoon bottom dotted with coral heads and teeming with fish and invertebrate life. It was a jaw-dropping sight. The heads were rich with colorful coral species, and surrounded by scores of reef fish, diverse in species and swollen in numbers. The sun never broke through the clouds and the rain continued to fall, but this did not lessen the impact of the experience.
By mid-afternoon all snorkel boats had marshaled upon the stretched-out, sandy shores of Honeymoon Island. Many red-tailed tropic birds, in various stages of breeding, serenely reposed under the island’s low-lying foliage. Upon approach they hardly stirred, giving all of us moment to pause and closely admire these splendid aerial masters. Even surrounded by camera-wielding, encroaching groups of humanity, they held their own, offering all of us photographic opportunities rarely offered by any wildlife. Adults whirled overhead or guarded their young brood, while sub-adults, on the edge of fledging, sat squarely on the coralline sand, their mottled, gray-flecked, white plumage radiant in the muted light.
As it was our last visit of the season to Aitutaki, the National Geographic Endeavour drifted into the night off the western shore, and our vessel’s officers and staff invited Aitutaki’s stellar port agent and another local dance and singing troupe to the ship for a farewell performance of Polynesian culture. The day drifted into night much as it had begun – bathed in a steady rain.
