Ironic Independence Day and Camp Coconut!

The start of October saw more Public Holidays – two this time! Tuvalu was celebrating the 34^th anniversary of independence from Britain! And what better way to do that than with marching, standing to attention, and parading…in the rain!!! It felt like just about the most British thing they could have done, and a spectacularly ironic way to celebrate their independence!!

 

 

Sadly it did rain a lot!! Much harder than I’ve seen it since I got here!

Whilst school students, scouts, sailors and police on parade were all standing to attention! It was tragic to be honest and the fact that none of them ran screaming from the runway was massively impressive!  They were freezing and soaked through to the skin by the time they eventually took cover. 

All the marching and the majority of the celebrations were scheduled on the Saturday of the very long weekend, so we made sure we were up and about at the central Vaiaku maneape before 8am so that we didn’t miss a minute of it!

The next day two boat loads of us and our masses of gear headed across the lagoon for a 2 night camping adventure at the highly prestigious Camp Coconut! Camp Coconut, as it is called by those of us that are fortunate to have stayed there, is a small clearing just off the beach on the uninhabited island of Tepuka, just on the other side of the lagoon from Funafuti. 

 

We took everything we would need with us, traditional mats, mosquito nets (which I was exceptionally grateful for and if I could have used one all day as well as at night I might have not come back quite so nibbled!), eskies with beers and water, sausages (sort of), beans and of course our trusty peanut butter and bread, and fruit!

 

Day one on Tepuka was more eventful than expected. Andy and Dan decided to go spear fishing just after lunch to try and catch us some fish for dinner and Sandra went with them to snorkel.  They took the boat and went to an area in the lagoon where they’d been lucky previously.  Kate and I and the kids remained at base camp, swimming, reading and then building the fire!  When the others returned they had some tales to tell!!!  It seems that their successful spear fishing meant that they attracted some unwanted attention from sharks!  Dan was charged at by a 2m+ grey shark (rubbish name but that’s what we think it was from his description) that got about 2metres away from him and then changed its mind and swerved away!!!  Andy after shooting a large grouper-looking fish, which he proceeded to hold out of the water above his head (an image I wish I’d got a photo of), wasn’t enough to deter the shark that bit his flipper/fin as he was scrambling to get back into the boat – quicker than he ever has before!! Considering their close encounters they returned fairly calm about the whole thing! Tough boys!!

Alls well that ends well and thanks to their ‘bravery’ we had fish for dinner!!

That night we had an expertly built fire and watched the most beautiful full moon rise…

 

Followed by the most amazing sunset…

 

Later we also saw some strange lingering shooting stars, very graciously giving us time to turn around and still see it!  One also had an odd green hue that we think might have been some space junk re-entering!

Great day!!!!

The next morning Kate and I swam around the island, and although not a particularly big distance (took about 45 minutes) the changing currents and inconvenient waves made it a little tricky! But it was amazing to do it and see all the different underwater environments, reefs and rocks and white sand flats and lots of fish but no sharks, thankfully!

Doing something so strenuous early in the day meant I felt totally ok about doing exceptionally little for the rest of the day.  Read my book under a palm tree, had a little nap, took some photos, splashed around in the sea! It was one of the most relaxing days I’ve had since I got to Tuvalu. As evening began to draw in, Kate and I made another fire – which the boys were very complimentary of!!

 

We’d thought the first night had been a good moon but the second nights’ was even better!! I’ve never seen the moon come out of the sea that way – and it was enormous! I took almost 100 pictures of it although none of them really do it justice but this one came out pretty good...

 

The next day accidently started with story time – I was being a little anti-social, sitting in the shade on my Breakfast Cracker bucket, reading my kindle when Rex and Maggie (aged 4 and 2 for those of you that don’t know them!) thought that I was reading a story worth sharing and wanted me to read it to them! Sadly I’m currently reading A Short History of Nearly Everything – which is thoroughly interesting for me, but probably not so for them! So I improvised and they were very happy with my magic tree story!  Towards the end of my fairly average story Andy joined the fun, which meant that I could pass the story-telling baton to him! And we all got to learn a little something about rocks in a fun way!! I didn’t know that Geography teachers were such show-offs ;)

The day went similar as the others at Camp Coconut – reading, snorkelling, swimming, lazing! Started to pack the camp up and got ready for our return to the hubbub of Funafuti in the afternoon, and we all were pretty sad to be leaving our island paradise that we’d had all to ourselves all weekend! It’s a mere 45 boat ride but it might as well have been a world away, it had magic rejuvenating powers on me!

Farewell Camp Coconut…until next time!!