Kuta, Bali, Indonesia
Here is an important bit of travelers’ etiquette that you should become aware of:
When you join a long-term traveler, you need to be ready to pay the tax.
Continue reading “Traveler’s Tax”
House or Travel?
Karumba, QLD, AU
As our time wound down in Australia we found ourselves having a difficult conversation about a choice we could not had foreseen coming when we first started this adventure.
Like we said last week, we had a good time “living the dream” and we were successful at said dream; we had completed what we originally set out to do. Much more than what we originally planned actually, as this whole “sailing to Australia by way of Tahiti” kind of came together on the fly. What we had not anticipated was that the dream would actually be fairly profitable. You see, Australia had been good to us on the job front and their wages for the jobs we worked were, when compared to the United States, 2 – 3 times higher than what we would have been paid in the states. Alongside that we had watched our money very carefully and saved every chance we got. Also don’t forget there were 2 of us. What that all boils down to is that when we originally planned our trip, we had not expected to leave Australia with a surplus of cash. As it turns out, we did have quite a reasonable surplus…which led us to a question we weren’t sure how to answer:
House or Travel?
Diving the Great Barrier Reef
Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia
Life Achievement Unlocked-
Found Nemo!
We all knew the Nemo reference had to be made right?
We took a 3 day, 2 night “sleep on the reef” excursion.
And this time we rented an underwater camera to make sure we caught everything.
Especially the sea turtle…
Back on the Surface
Vava’u, Tonga
Like we said, Vava’u is a cruising paradise and there are just some things you need a boat for:
Just in case you thought the water was nothing but frolicking baby whales and amazing coral, we found out that Tonga waters also play host to hundreds of jellyfish that “come up” at night.
Swimming with Baby Whales
Vava’u Tonga,
Like Niue, Tonga is favored by the humpback whales as a combination bordello/nursery for the production and raising of young until they get enough blubber to survive the cold of Antarctica. Unlike Niue, Tonga is one of about 3 places in the world where you can actually get in the water and swim with whales. Yes, swim. With whales. How close you ask? Well check out this video of a baby whale breeching 30 yards away from the swimmers!
Nemo’s home
Vava’u Tonga,
Not only is Vava’u a cruiser’s paradise, the islands and barrier reef of this group make for some fantastic diving. One does feed into the other. In order to get to the dives sites you have to be able to traverse the water between the islands, which means hiring a dive boat or bringing your own. This keeps a limitation on how many people actually get to the sites which in turn keeps the dive areas in pristine condition.
Underwater Tonga was unique in that among all the islands we’ve seen, in Tonga the coral really steals the show. With colors including lime green, purple, red and every hue in between not to mention varying in size from the size of a hand to well larger than a human, the coral in Vava’u was a sight to behold. Most of it was close enough to the surface and received enough sunlight to really bring out the beauty lying just below the surface. The crystal clear water everywhere you went didn’t hurt either.
Sharks That Make Cookies?!
So, on another note of why the open ocean is dangerous, let’s talk about Cookiecutter Sharks. You may be saying to yourself “What in the world are you talking about!? Cookiecutter Sharks? Sharks that make cookies! AWESOME!” And we would agree except for what the sharks use a cookie dough…because that would be flesh.
The first time we ever heard of these vicious little suckers was when we were snorkeling with dolphins in Niue. Now, I don’t have any footage to show you of our snorkel trip, but it was awesome! We were in a couple of inflatable dinghies on our way to a dive, when a pod of Spinner dolphins started swimming off our bow. (Called “spinners” because of the amount of spins they perform on their jumps.) No matter how many times you’ve seen dolphins while underway, it’s still an amazing experience and what made this even better is that we were able to get in the water and be towed by the boat so we could swim with them. It was fantastic!
While we were in the water, I noticed a few of the dolphins had circular wounds on them in various places.
The first thing that came to my mind was that they had some sort of flesh eating disease (which worried me since I didn’t want to catch it!) Continue reading “Sharks That Make Cookies?!”
Whale Sex
Alofi, Niue
Did we say the Humpback whales woke us up with their singing? Well, if that’s not enough to get us roused and play then they get a little more insistent by rubbing themselves against the hulls of the ships at anchor! While they didn’t do this to our boat, other people in the anchorage reported it happening to them. Tiffany was even startled one evening out on the deck while we were moored when a whale blew off the stern of the boat. It was pitch black and unfortunately we couldn’t see it. Our current captain never being one to pass up an opportunity to play with whales, we “volunteered” to help out a visiting whale research team by taking them out for the day. The fact that we benefited from being able to use their gear to listen to whale songs and track down the whales ourselves was purely coincidental.
We learned that the researches were primarily interested in pictures of the whales’ humps and the undersides of their tails.
Then we swam under the island!
Alofi, Niue
Let’s start our exploration of what is arguably the most beautiful island in the South Pacific with the diving. Hey, you know what? Let’s start with just the freaking snorkeling, because it was that good! The water here is crystal clear and no, not what you’re imagining – it’s better. By more than a little. You have not seen water this clear in your lifetime. Ever. Seriously.
One of the advantages to having almost no one on the island a tiny tourist industry is that there is almost no pollution. Not having a coral reef encircling the island means that what little runoff there is gets immediately swept out to sea. Continue reading “Then we swam under the island!”
Water Access
Niue
Ok, nothing to do with anything but come on, it’s awesome. You stop, there are coconuts, what more could you possibly want?!
So the thing about Niue is that the entire structure of the island is so very different from the other islands we’ve seen so far. It doesn’t fit into the mold of Darwin’s Theory of Atoll formation (which if you remember from this entry the island forms from a volcano and then as it slowly sinks and erodes, it is surrounded by a coral reef until there’s nothing left except for a lagoon in the middle of a coral reef). As we mentioned earlier, this particular island is an elevated atoll. So it used to be a lagoon surrounded by coral, but the lagoon is now more than 30 feet above sea level and a narrow skirt of coral creates tide pools around the island.
The locals have adapted to this by finding various paths down to the coral shallows, using natural chasms and caves to lead them out to the open water.
And being as lugging your canoe straight up a massive wall of coral would not be the ideal end to a long day of fishing they also had to find ways to store their canoes.
And yes, in case you were wondering – those rocks are very sharp. They’re made from dead coral, and are very jagged. Think razor blades. Great for defense, suck for sea access. As the ocean crashed over them, they don’t get worn down, they break off into new jagged peaks.
Tiffany managed to scrape herself pretty badly on one of them…
