Turtles and Dugongs
Kokamo's Pacifc Meanderings
Tom and Rachel
Fri 20 Aug 2010 06:22
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Kokamo is at 16:35.7S
168:09.8E
We have had a pretty busy week with
Rhys and Krys joining us on board Kokamo as we left Port Vila and started to
head northwards around the west coast of Efate. We found our way in to the
tricky, reef enclosed bay at Lelapa island for some great snorkelling and,
just in case you thought our standards were lapsing, fitted in an evening
of pina coladas around a fire on the beach. After a quick stop at the
uninhabited island of Eretoka to see the sacred burial ground of cheif Roimata
we sailed on again to a good kite surfing spot on the north coast.
Although Tom had a good session, our little dinghy had to carry out two rescue
missions - once to pick me up when the wind had died and I was slowly drifting
away from the beach and once to rescue Rhys, who despite all our attempts to
shout to him, seemed determined to body drag out to sea! He claims in his
defence that all he could hear was the water rushing past his ears!
A pretty quick (slightly overpowered
at times) sail up to Epi Island, under genneker the whole way, was made even
more exciting by some major fishing activity. Having failed to
catch anything for weeks we were pretty excited when we got a huge
strike as we set off in the morning. The shot cord on our fishing
line was pulled completely taught and we knew we had a big fish but
unfortunately before we had a chance to do anything about it the line
was slack again and the fish was gone. Nontheless we felt sure that with a
whole days sailiing ahead of us we had a good chance of catching something for
tea. Before too long we were reeling in a more manageable sized fish
but sadly this turned out to be a barracuda and had to be thrown back. However
later in the day we hooked fish on both lines at once, and after
getting a bit of a look at them we could see we had two 1 metre
long mahi mahi - one of the best eating fish in this part of the
world. I was already planing the steaks on the BBQ, followed by
ceviche for lunch the next day and perhaps a fish curry or
two.......However turns out it's not as easy to kill a mahi mahi as you
might imagine and, can you believe it, we lost them both despite one of them
having a few large knife holes in its head after Tom's attemps to
hurry its demise. By the end of the sail all we ended up with was one
smallish mackerel - hardly dinner for
four!
Rhys and Krys set off home yesterday
and Tom and I have been chilling in out in Epi. There are loads of turtles here
and we have seen them each time we've been in the water but the real
highlight this afternoon was snorkelling with the resident dugong (or 'cow fis'
in bislama), called Bondas. They have a very large, rounded, fat body
with a tail shaped like a whale's fluke and paddle like finns.
For such a big mammal their diet of sea
grass seems ridiculously non-nutritious and so they have to spend
all their time sitting on the bottom munching away. Their mouths have big,
soft flappy lips but when they stop eating to swim to the surface to take
breath they definitely look as if they are smiling! It was an amazing experience to be able to see a wild
dugong in its normal habitat at such close quarters!
Fantastic
afternoon!
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