August 2012
Sand Spit off Musket Cove; Para-gliders and kites fill the sky; My day ashore to walk the sculpted spit; My private aquarium; The reefs; The landlubbers disembark; My Boeing cap; I slip ashore hopefully unnoticed; Starfish and seashells; The kite boarder in-crowd arrives; The action carries on until the sun goes down; How it can all change—another view; Musket Cove and Lomani resorts; The ‘poker card player’s widow’.
Sand Spit off Musket Cove--Lat 17 Deg 46.63’S, Long 177 Deg 10.46’ E
The inner clock said it was time to go. So we load up with fresh produce and motor out on a still blue-sky day to Musket Cove, Malolo Lailai, Mamanuca Islands.
Russ chooses the spot—off the sand spit away from Musket Cove. Always we
anchor ‘on the horizon’ rather than huddle with the boats in a congested bay. It makes me feel somewhat vulnerable, but at the same time one with myself. The depth sounds at 56 ft. We drop the hook behind a catamaran from Cape Town, South Africa.
Russ chooses the spot to anchor, just off the sand spit away from Musket Cove. It is high tide now.
The sand spit emerges mid morning and late afternoon. It entices you ashore as it evolves with the ebbing tide.
Para-gliders and kites fill the sky
It looks like party time in the sky with coloured balloons and kites drawing the
eye. The tide is down, the spit is waiting, and we go ashore. It is the first time I have seen kite boarders in action. It is an intriguing exhilarating water sport.
If I was 10 years younger—and being the water person I am—I think I would have had a shot at it and loved it. Imagine water skiing on one board, but rather than holding onto a line attached to a motor boat, you hold onto a line that is attached to a kite.
The kites are beautifully designed, brightly coloured, and carry the boarders over the shallow water at high speed. They like to kite board on this spit because of the shallow water. If they fall, they can stand up and put their feet back into the board—which almost looks like a snow board—and away they fly. Falling into deep water would propose a challenge for getting back onto the board.
I did see a young chap swimming a long distance to shallow water, holding onto the board. His kite lines had broken and he had to just let the kite float away as he swam back to get his dinghy and retrieve it. SHARK!!! Just playing.
It looks like party time in the sky. Kite boarders tear across the waters until their arms call out for a break. In the distance a young woman brings her kite down, while her child stands watching. Two beached kites look like sea dragons. Children of the boarders play in the sand in the background.
With the wind on our nose, the sand spit emerges mid morning and late afternoon sculpted to different forms of perfection as the tide comes and goes.
Like the water, it calls me and the next mid morning I dinghy toward the spit
while its form is still perfect—before the voyageurs arrive. This is to be my day to walk alone, where no person has yet set foot. Where the ebb tide is still at work sculpting the sand.
It is a beautiful experience to be alone surrounded by water. To wet my feet at the rim of perfect sand and leave light imprints over the course I choose to take. Looking back at the imprints or seeing them come ‘full circle’ is kind of like realizing the miracle of life. I get a feeling for my existence: for knowing life and being alive.
And then, when the tide starts coming in I see parts of my prints being washed away. And it is as if the short journey made is certain to come to an end. And I get a feeling of vulnerability. Or even that I don’t want to turn back, to just walk on and let the tide engulf.
Walking the spit alone I get a feeling for my existence: for knowing life and being alive. But when my footprints get washed away, I feel vulnerability. And/or I feel I don’t want to turn back, rather just walk on and let the incoming tide engulf.
My private aquarium
The next morning I swim off Zulu’s stern toward the spit. The water is deep turquoise and as the sand bottom comes up to view—about 10 boat lengths from Zulu (450 ft)—I look for the coral heads that ring part of the spit. That is where my morning pleasure awaits—my private aquarium time.
I’m surrounded by reef fish, tiny ones of diverse family groups. I don’t have the proper names of all, and don’t want to create marble mouth. They are all my favourites: little black and white stripe ones, long silver hypodermic-needle types with a mercury-blue line running seemingly inside the mid and length of their bodies.
I am sure either of these nipped me under my arm and on my hand when I first entered their domain. I curl up in a ball and swirl around to find the culprit. They all act innocent swimming by in schools. By now there are myriads of them. I think they are mistaking me for the mother of all fish, because I’m surrounded. They’re intrigued as am I!
Back to my favourites: tiny electric blue fish that change colour--as the light strikes them--to lime green and pink; vibrant yellow fish with blue stripes and blue lips; orange-red ones with black vertical stripes; coral fish; parrot fish; brilliant blue starfish; a slothful speckled beige and sandy brown fish that lies on the bottom looking like a box or a cow fish; a scary looking black and white eel--head only looming from a crevice.
There is a small bright yellow ‘sl ow-minded’ looking box fish with blue dots and the most sluggish small tail. It looks totally lost and hangs near the bottom. I love the black one with vertical turquoise stripes fringed in a yellow silken frame.
Pow! The sand explodes below me. I get a fright and almost jump out of my costume. Then I see the sting ray—deceptive in its camouflage, somewhat ominous and on and on and on until fish infinity. I must get myself an underwater camera!
Here are some photographs of the representative colourful, comic, beautiful reef fish which I copied off a Fiji web site to enjoy, and to share with you in lieu of your own snorkel experience.
Blue Tang reef fish, Fiji. He knows he’s got class. Somewhat snobbish! (Photo copied from a web site)
Blue Devil reef fish, Fiji. (Photo copied from a web site)
Clown reef fish, Fiji. These are my favourites. I would stop the fin motion and just hover and watch for long minutes. So striking and delicately framed as they nibble away. (Photo copied from a web site).
Coral reef fish, Fiji. The school sticks together with purpose. (Photo copied from a web site).
Crescent Tail Big Eye reef fish, Fiji. He looks like he might struggle with reef academics. He carries an expression of “I’m not quite understanding”. (Photo copied from a web site).
Reef fish, Fiji. They cut a priceless profile. And oh how I love the sweetheart mouth. (Photo copied from a web site).
Titan Trigger reef fish, Fiji. What an incredible pattern! (Photo copied from a web site).
Riegel Angel reef fish, Fiji. (Photo copied from a web site).
Silver Sweeper reef fish, Fiji. Looks like a collage. (Photo copied from a web site).
The reefs
The reefs—although sadly mostly DEAD—are alive here next to the spit. They are so amazingly beautiful when the sun casts shafts of light on them. For want of Latin nomenclature: I see smooth salmon pink sculpted ruffled types; bright pink and purple crystal cluster types; lime green and mustard feathery types; fans; yellow whirling silk types; bright orange; cream spikes with neon periwinkle tips.
Green Chromis amongst Staghorns, Fiji. Staghorns are their private hotel. (Photo copied from a web site).
Orange Anthias and Anenome. (Photo copied from a web site).
Fiji Red Fan. How absolutely exquisite!! A show stopper for sure. (Photo copied from a web site).
I am in a living underwater wonderland. It seems, too, as if fish species congregate around specific reef types of their liking. They choose their favourite reef ‘hotel’. I swim on. Oh no! Three evil Crown of Thorn Starfish—killers of the reefs. I did not bring anything to pull them off with. I’m feeling protective of the life around me.
Crown of Thorn Starfish. Killer of reefs! (Photo copied from a web site).
The landlubbers disembark
I have been in the water a long time! Am glad I wore my ‘surf’ top for protection. The wind has picked up and it makes a mournful musical instrument sound through the top of my snorkel, as if from an Oboe. I lift my head up every now and again to mark the spit. The tourist boats have landed bringing the land lubbers for an offshore ocean outing.
They disembark and step onto the sand looking tenuous. White skins, cameras, snorkel and fins. The Fijian boat men sit at anchor under awning shade, awaiting their fragile ‘cargo’ to return. The holiday makers are in awe. They are having such a wonderful time in nature.
My Boeing cap
I have my 4-year-old yellow Boeing cap on—a gift from a colleague (thank you Cathy) before leaving the US in 2008. It is my ‘sailing’ cap—wind worn, moldy, sometimes fresh looking after a long awaited wash. Now at the spit I have turned it into a water transportation cap. I put it on back-to-front as I swim through the water and snorkel. Then once on the spit, I turn it around to shade my face. I love that cap! It makes me feel like I am the only one on the spit when I pull the bill way down.
I slip ashore hopefully unnoticed
I try to get out of the water gracefully and un-noticed. I’m thinking of buried sting rays or stone fish and consider walking ashore using my flippers as shoes. That would cut a Loch Nest Monster-image and I definitely would be noticed! In fact the land lubbers might flee. Especially when they notice the perished two-piece and zoom into straps that have lost all elasticity for holding up ye olde cargo.
So I swivel around in the shallow water to gain a sitting position, praying to all the sea gods to give me one more chance and that the sting ray or stone fish doesn’t poke me in the bottom. Off come the flippers and I chance the walk ashore bare foot. I hold my yellow Boeing cap over my chest willing to take on a dose of sun stroke rather than expose dropsy look.
I think I’ve been noticed! That’s OK. When you get to my age you can wear purple. Wish I had something purple.
I walk the circumference of the spit. It seems to change every day to a degree—always ending on one side in a perfect point that slices into the blue waters.
Starfish and seashells
Down I look as I walk. I see tiny, tiny starfish imprints in the sand. Perfection. I study them. Starfish footprints! Did they submerge themselves in the wet sand to leave the print? I see one in shallow water. Then two, then quite a few. They are yellow-beige with dark gray spots and rather fragile looking.
A surprise: I see a perfect shell. Tereba—a slender long auger-like shell that ends in a fine needle point. The body of which has whorls with dark apricot marking. It is magnificent in colour and form. I tuck it into the sand so no-one finds it.
There’s another: Conus--white with purple tip, and another: a Spider Conch. It is so encouraging to find them alive. I pick up a perfect Bi-Valve--white with an apricot pattern sans inhabitant, and slip it into the top of my bathing costume.
It would take much serious study to describe molluskan systems. The related genera and how they are grouped together to form a family, with several families becoming super families. I’m not in the studying mood. But I did buy a book on shells, which I do not have with me as I write. Another time………..
The kite boarder in-crowd arrives
The wind has picked up. The spit has about 6 dinghies with anchors thrown in the sand. The 'in crowd' have arrived. These are yachts people from Cape Town, Spain, France, and England. They are the high 30 and/or low 40-year olds who have hit the beach ready to engage the wind with serious kite boarding.
They have the latest water gear on, packs around their waists that connect to the kites with strings. The kites are rectangular curves of blues or orange and turquoise or red and greens all with unique markings. The kite boarder’s bodies are firm, muscular, strong and tanned. They are in their prime and super outdoor adventurers. Some have young children who cluster together to make castles in the sand. They, too are sun tanned, yet protected with suits and hats, and are water savvy.
The scenario, from an ultra novice onlooker—still holding cap over chest-- is: He man or She lady connects the kite strings to a fanny pack. A board, a bit like a water skiing board, lays nearby their feet. It has clips your feet can slide into. Someone else picks up the kite and holds it downwind.
Sometimes, when the kite boarder is tied in, a burst of wind initially picks the rider up into the air for a short time. The rider then holds on to the kite at a hand bar, picks up the board and makes way to shallow water where they sit down to slide their feet into the clips.
Pow the wind in the kite takes them screaming across the waters. Back and forth in colourful array—the experienced riders’ board edges cut through the liquid blue, bodies leaning back, one arm dangling by their side, the other holding on to the hand bar. No worries mate. It is flying time.
A sea plane flies low over us. I come back to spit land reality. Here I am an onlooker, looking like a cross between a burnt sponge cake and raisin bread. Holding on to my 30-year-old fins and mask, my ‘surf’ shirt squeezing out bulges. Suddenly I realize father time has left me behind. I feel a little vulnerable or insecure with age and pull my cap bill down a bit more so they might think I’m pre-teen.
Then think—buggar it, I don’t need a kite board!! I’ll head back into the water and swim for the boat checking regularly to see if at any moment He men or She ladies don’t decapitate me and I lose my Boeing cap!
Looking back on this day, I DID lose my cap! On reaching Zulu I got a shark image figment of imagination and went into high gear. When I took my mask off before climbing up the stern ladder it must have fallen off my head and floated away without me knowing, kind of like my youth has with time.
The topper is when I de-costumed to rinse off at the stern, my Bi-Valve perfect shell tumbled into big blue too. I’ll be honest. I have a bit of a hollow spot over the losses. Smile.
So much more, but enough said! Or just a little more?
The action carries on until the sun goes down
Russ and I dinghy ashore to see more. The kite boarder in-crowd are still at it to the point of becoming mere silhouettes. Talk about committed to exhilaration, bordering on extreme fun! Enjoy the pictures as the sun goes down. See the dinghies looking like beached whales.
The kite boarders are still at it to the point of becoming mere silhouettes. See Russ, a dot of a figure walking by the dinghies—top picture.
How it can all change—another view
A small peek into how serenity and security can all change overnight. This Front lasted more than 24 hours with torrential rains and winds to 54 knots. Our old faithful Bruce anchor held with all its might and Zulu rocked and rolled as if at sea.
Nothing is forever.
The sense of serenity and security can change overnight. This Front lasted 24 hours or more with winds peaking 54 knots. I photographed the indicator at 45 knots.
Musket Cove and Lomani resorts
It is here at Musket Cove, on Malolo Lailai island, in the Mamanucca island group, that yachts congregate in general for an easy get-away from Vuda Pt or nearby surroundings to make for salty talk and hanging out at anchor.
It is here, too, where they have a rally in the month of September, with lots of boats merging from all over Fiji. BBQs, drinking, and wet T-shirt competitions are some of the exercises that cap the race off. And later, this is a jump-off point for yachts heading elsewhere for the hurricane season: NZ or Australia.
Fortunately, we are here in August as the above does not appeal to me. Seeing me in a wet T-shirt would make for a veritable sailors’ nightmare!
Too much to say, too little time, too tired to write. In essence—during our two-week stay on the spit—Russ and I would dinghy the long ride to Musket Cove and I would walk further afield on Malolo Lailai island for a touch of resort life.
Russ would sit all afternoon playing cards with yachties from Silver Ruffian et al in the shade of the Musket Cove Café verandah. He would quip at my being the ‘poker card player’s widow’.
Not interested in the least at playing cards, I would put on my best bathing costume and pareo and, with a flower in my hair, walk the two curved beaches from Musket Cove to the best resort at the island point--Lomani. Lomani means Love. Many honeymooners make it a point to express it here.
Overhead view of the water, beach, and point where Lomani resort is situated.
(Photograph copied from Lomani’s website.)
Once, after walking the long hot stretch of beaches, I was driven by a need to splurge on respite for the sake of protein. Dizzy from the heat, I sat down at a table on the outside dining patio—overlooking lawn and trees to the sea.
I ordered the Lunch Special: Mahi Mahi on yams with long green beans, topped with a paw paw (papaya) chili sauce and grated coconut. In addition—to bring my tomato-red face down to a shade of neutral-- a jug of ice water and jaw-achingly-cold Fiji Bitter beer cooled me down to 98.4 and quenched the thirst. My waiter had a flower in his hair too. A light breeze caressed me.
Lunch time in heaven!
Lunch patio where I dined in heaven. (Photograph copied from Lomani’s website.)
Usually, however, my destination at Lomani was the pool! It was so beautifully designed in appealing curves set in a tropical haven of trees and flowers with a view to sea. I would slip into the cool, fresh water as if I belonged there permanently, and swim slow motion for long, long periods of time.
My divine swimming pool at Lomani. (Photograph copied from Lomani’s website.)
The beach I’d evaporate to--after my pool swim—for the walk back to Musket Cove. (Photograph copied from Lomani’s website.)
Then I’d slink out—in a resort style slow-walking sashay-- and evaporate onto the beach into the hot sun and walk the long hot way back to Musket Cove. But half-way there, I’d sneak a shower at the Plantation resort’s pool to freshen up. I would run the resort gamut!
Hammock on the beach at Plantation resort. Zulu is one of three specs on horizon anchored off the spit.
The beach near the Plantation resort with leaves framing the Cape Town Cat and Zulu anchored off the spit.
Musket Cove where I would start and end my walk.
The ‘poker card player’s widow’
Then I’d play the waiting game for Russ to finish his card playing: either on a chaise lounge under a coconut tree, or on a bench on the dock watching the Fijian workers crowding into their small boats at days end—loaded down with fish caught or a chicken or sausages bought from the way-too-expensive store.
The boats leave trailing wakes on still waters and the sun had reached its setting point. And still I’d wait—the ‘poker card player’s widow.
Two poems I wrote in my ’mind’s eye‘ while walking on the spit.
The Full Tide Will Carry me Away
I walk the white sands at the ebb tide
Through shallow waters
Past imprints of miniscule starfish
Past live shells I want to protect
On and on through the shallows
To where the water engulfs the white sand spit
Toward the horizon
To where I wish
The full tide will carry me away.
Not Knowing Anymore
Today I swim with the reef fish
The clown fish the butterfly fish the coral fish
Over plate and fan coral and vibrant anemone
And I feel warm tears run down into my mask
At the full scale of not knowing any more.
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