Every expedition has its highlights, the moments of excitement and spectacle that stand out among all the rest. Every trip also has its quiet times of contemplation, moments of reflection and, occasionally, new understanding. These experiences, balancing thought and action, learning and memory, are the real nature of expedition travel. Wherever we are in the world, what we see there and what we do there create what we learn and what we take away with us.
And sometimes, when we are very lucky, everything comes together for a truly rare experience. These times and places are usually not in the brochure. They are created on the fly by the vision of the expedition leader, the support of the expedition staff, the enthusiasm of the guests and a unique time and place that provide the setting for something very special.
Today we are traveling through the northernmost waters of the Cook Islands. We are on our way to Manihiki, a remote atoll famous for its black pearl industry, a small atoll that lies over six hundred nautical miles east of our last port of call in Samoa. But we were making good speed, so we had just bit of time to play with and our expedition leader, Tim Soper, was laying plans to make the very best possible use of it.
We had all expected a full day at sea. But as our day began, a small diversion from our course and permission from the Cook Islands official who were traveling with us brought us instead to Nassau Island, a tiny speck of land in the near-endless ocean, like a single star in the sky. A scout boat went out as soon as we arrived and send back a good report of landing conditions and a beautiful reef. Zodiacs were in the water before we finished our breakfast and we were off, in full expedition mode.
Most of us choose to go ashore to visit the little community on Nassau. Rather surprised to see us, they greeted us with great enthusiasm and showed us around their village with pride. The students in the local school welcomed us with a song and their teacher told about her training in Rarotonga and her decision to return to work in this most remote corner of the nation. We also had a great hike with Tom Ritchie, wandering along the beach and then exploring the hulk of a cargo ship that had been cast up high above the reef.
Meanwhile a group of snorkelers and divers rode the Zodiacs around a point in the reef where the swell was breaking into long white surf. Just past the point we found a beautifully sheltered area with clear blue water and a gorgeous gently sloping coral reef. A mild current was flowing east along the shore, so we were able to simply drift along watching the reef slip by beneath us and keeping a watch for sea turtles and the wonderful variety of beautiful fish.
Before long it was time to get underway once again, so we were all back on board the National Geographic Orion by mid-morning. It seemed surprising to have so much of the day still before us – we felt that we had had a full day’s experience already in our brief visit to Nassau. But now the wide Pacific opened ahead of us once more and we could look forward to presentations from the staff, delicious meals and the time to contemplate the lovely serendipity of true expedition travel.
