Thar She Blows

That's right, the whales are here. I mean, not right here (unless you believe my Wii Fit age yesterday) but you know - out there. The annual migration patterns (no I don't really know what I am talking about) brings the humpback whales to the Cook Islands for spring, and Aitutaki has a front row seat. Actually, the Rapae Bay restaurant at Pacific Resort Aitutaki has the best seats in the house - watch the whales breach just outside the reef while you have breakfast. It doesn't get much better than that. Of course, Poppy and Stephen have a seat in the Gods at the took of the Piraki lookout and can see the whole eastern side of the island. Poppy tells me that she has been watching whole pods of adults and babies through her telescope, splashing away and having a jolly good time. At some stage, according to Greenpeace, 'our' whales will start to groove west towards Nuie and Samoa. In the meantime, my tally is '1', Michael's is 'several', and to risk stating the obvious - they are BIG!
Of course now that spring time is here, cyclone season is around the corner (November). I bought a couple 'emergency' boxes this week to fill with torches, batteries etc. The kids have a vague sense of the purpose of the Emergency Box, as when the power went out 10 min ago (at 10am) she suggested lighting a candle. That's my girl. Forecasts for the 'season' are mixed. Locals say that it is unseasonably cold and therefore the odds of the water warming enough to create a major system are slight. On the other hand the Weather Experts say that El Nino will mean higher sea temperatures and better conditions for whirly-gigs to develop, particularly in our neck of the woods (160W, 20S). I don't know - the locals have been living here a long time....... Not too worry, we have a plan of sorts - Michael will deal with his tourists and Super Mummy will deal with the rest :-)

Cyclone Trivia For Today: Big blows in our part of the world are monitored, and named, by the Fiji Met Service (those anti-monarchists). In case you wanted to call the Blow in person you might want to try the following names (in order): Mick, Nisha, Oli, Pat, Rene, Sarah, Tomas, Usha, Vania, Wilma, Yasi, Zaka. Check out Wiki for names from the rest of the world.

So aside from the widelife encounters and disaster planning, it has been a pretty active month. Pacific Resort Aitutaki entered a team into a 'business house' sports night where 8 teams played netball and volleyball. Michael made a showing on the netball court but more than held his own in the volley ball. Unfortunately we weren't there to see the volleyball, as the round robin for that started at 8pm! It was a lot of fun - everyone had their kids there. Hot chips and slushy's for dinner, some exceptional skills from the men on the island, and roaring laughter for the boys who obviously play more basketball than netball. PRA got second in the netball and won the volleyball. These trophies are piling up I tell you!

The Wii is getting a good workout. I try to do Yoga, step aerobics and boxing every day, and Michael is using it as a suppliment to his running and riding. On a home school day, the kids do boxing and running after breakfast to level out their energy levels for school!

We have been surfing too - sort of. The beach near the house is lagoon calm and can be quite tepid in the warmer months. For a change of scenery we took a drive to the golf club and had a look at the eastern beach. It is much closer to the reef and exposed to the prevailing wind and seas. It is rocky rather than sandy. The waves come over the reef and roll towards the beach towards crashing on the coral shelves at the tide line. Quite stimulating really! Anyhoo at low tide there are a couple of large 'pot holes' in the shelf big enough for the kids to sit in up to their necks. At high tide, there is a break in the rocks so that the boys can stand waist deep and jump the waves without getting washed away. Jolly good fun. I personally like the surf crashing and spraying everything with water.

We have watched a few family groups fishing in the area and they seem to get a good catch. We watched one group cleaning their catch up the beach from us. Many wore big white freezing-works gumboots to go out wading to the reef edge. I happened to see one of the fishermen later in the week and he made a point of coming over and explaining that the group had had a discussion about whether they should have given us some of the catch, but everyone was too shy to make the offer! I decried saying that they deserved the catch after their hard work but that the gesture was truely lovely. Nice people here.

On the school front, Bailey and I put on a puppet show which followed the Arts section of his N curriculum. It was a lot of fun and the audience of 3 were impressed! Jamie's school books have arrived and we are slowly getting into that. The resources are amazing, though keeping everything straight between the two boys is a full time job. Maybe I'll do my teaching certification while I am here...