A Deserted Island Paradise...and some Fishing Action

We have had an exciting two weeks in busy Aitutaki. We spent three nights on the motu (small, uninhabited island), attended the school prize-giving and sponsored a game-fishing competition.

Maina

Our trip to Maina Motu was incredible. Maina is on the south-west corner of the lagoon and is everything you want on a deserted tropical island - white sand, warm waters, native birds, no mossies, lots of hermit crabs, and LOTS of sun. We had the use of a friend's beach hut, but slept outside on the second night and cooked over the fire. Quentin (Snr & Jnr) from Wet & Wild took us out on Sunday morning, and deposited us in the sand, and that is pretty much where we stayed. Our days consisted of lying on the mat under the trees on the beach, reading books and waiting for the sun to move across the sky, whereby we would pop up, move the mat and go for another swim. Heavenly - no cars, no TV, no phones. Just the peace was relaxing with the blues and whites and the stars at night.

In the evening we gathered wood and coconuts, lit the fire, cooked dinner & toasted marshmallows, then lay back to watch Jupiter set, the satellites pass and the stars shoot. Our night on the beach was a little chilly due to a fresh breeze, but we would have all made it through to sunrise if not for a 4am shower of rain! Never mind. It was the most relaxing sleeplessness I have ever experienced! Tuesday afternoon rolled around and we said "Ka kite a kone Maina" and heading home to much appreciated fresh water and soft beds.

Prize Giving

The following day was the school parents day, which we didn't quite understand but we thought we would just roll up to school and find out about it in the morning. The boys were dressed and in the car when the principal rode up and gave us the English language newsletter that said there was no school today and the Parents day/prizegiving/reports/parent-teacher thingee started at 2pm. Crazy place!

So at 2pm we arrived for the Tekaaroa SDA School Prizegiving which had lovely flowers, lovely singing (yes even from our boys) and 2 hours on small chairs... Bailey received a Certificate of Academic Achievement in Maths, Oral English, Reading English and Physical Education, plus the Academic Excellence in Reading and Academic Excellence in Numeracy awards for Grade 3.

Jamie received a Special Award for being a Great Explorer in School, which was signed by ALL the teachers as Jamie doesn’t like to confine himself to one class, but flits in and out of all of them. It was a very funny and quite appropriate solution to the problem of assessing a child who never appears in a classroom long enough to observe!

It was really nice that the school made a special effort to give some speeches in English, and the Chairman of the school board translated the Maori for us. Michael and I were unexpectedly called up to present some of the certificates which was also nice.

Fishing Competition

L: Michael and his 8kg Yellow Fin Tuna on the Mary J. R: Weigh-in time, with the kids and the Aitutaki Game Fishing Club in the background.

To finish off the week Pacific Resort Aitutaki sponsored a tournament at the Aitutaki Game Fishing Club. Michael had to be at the wharf by 4.00am to get out to the good off shore spot by sunrise but the fishing was worth it. His boat pulled in 6 tuna - Michael's weighed in at 8kg, which paled next to the comp winner with a 22.5kg tuna. It was a fun night at the fishing club with all the locals were there, and all five of us, plus a few others, had special tournament shirts. I took the kids home for Viriama to look after and settled in for a very good night.

The Merry Month of May

So…here is a rundown of our May:

• Bailey’s birthday rolled around on the 10th. He was very excited to have parcels arriving for him and of course the birthday cake at school again. This time we had a moko (ghecko) cake, with the moko perched on top of the cake with vines around the base. He had a lovely day and appreciated being the centre of attention - and all his presents!!! Thanks very much! (from Bailey)
  

• Mothers day was also on the 10th though through some screw up Michael had to go to work for a while in the morning. I hope all the mums had a good day.

• Correspondence school is finally coming together. Bailey now has two days each week at home with me at 'Mummy School', while our 'nanny/nana' Tav looks after Jamie and Sienna at her house. J&S love it, because Tav feeds them icecream, takes them to the beach and for rides on her motor scooter! As I dropped them off today, Jamie disappeared out the back of their place chasing a piglet so Tav had to ask her son to chase after him! In addition to this, Jamie spends one afternoon a week at Collette's house with her daughter Marie (Marie is one day older than Jamie), where he does 'Collette School'. As Collette is a teacher, she has them well organised with writing and spelling books. It can't be long before Jamie is reading on his own.
  

• We are in a much better routine because of this, with the kids playing with Marie and David (9) at their house on Monday, and David and Marie coming to our house on Friday. Tennis for Bailey is Tuesday -Thursday, plus a swim afterwards if it is hot.

• One Friday we stayed in the resort so we could take the kids to the Island show. It was quite late for them, but as we visited everyone getting ready Sienna announced that she wanted to dance. So the mama’s dressed her up and she performed in the show! Little Irene held her hand and told her where to go and when to dance and Sienna copied along. It was gorgeous – we were so proud! The second time she went on she had her thumb in the whole time as it was 9pm!

• May has been a crazy month for travel agent famils - at least 3 per week, with as many hosted meals. I have been doing 2 each week with Michael (otherwise I'd never see him)! Sometimes Poppy and Stephen join us as Stephen is the Sales and Marketing manager for Island Hopper Vacations. This helps to spread the load, and Poppy and I can whine to each other the following day about how dreary some of them are and about how much our husbands work!
  

• So one night when we had a group of agents in for dinner I left Tav at home with the kids and scarpered down to the resort for a quiet Pina Collada on the beach before I put on my work face. As I sat in my favourite spot - the sunset seat - I watched a lightening storm start over the southern part of the lagoon. It was amazing with flashes every 5-10 seconds. This continued for half an hour without any thunder and the skys got darker and darker. A lot of the guests were taking photos trying to catch a lighting bolt on film - a difficult prospect! Before I went into dinner I rang Tav to warn that the storm was creeping closer. An hour into dinner the heavens openned in some of the heaviest rain we have seen. The lower decks of the restaurant had to be evacuated up to the main floor so everyone was crammed together - mostly in good spirits. We were due to have the Fire Show on the beach that night, but Ipo and the boys did very well and performed 3 shows in the Port Chochere. That was after they had helped to sweep the flood waters out of the lobby! The inevitable 'average' thunder came along and I rang Tav - the kids were fine all in bed together. It was a funny funny night - you got to laugh really.

• The following morning I heard that Poppy's whole vege garden had been washed down the hill! I picked up the phone to call her only to find that the phone was dead. Cell phone too. I turned the computer on and there was no internet...then turned to the modem which showed no lights at all - a lightening strike took out the cell phone mast, our house phone line and our modem too. Thankfully the computer is on a wireless connection! It took Telecom Cook Islands 11 DAYS to get things working again and we flew our new modem up from NZ. TCI ARE USELESS HOPELESS PATHETIC and wouldn't know anything about customer service if a STONE FISH DELIVERED THE MESSAGE!!! Every day I went in there - "How are the repairs going" to be told "there are a lot". Breathe................ The computer came up with a boot error the day after that but I managed to repair windows just before I reformatted the lot of it!

• This place is hard on electronics actually. Our good toaster doesn't stay down anymore, we have replaced the DVD player and only the top half of the toasted sandwich maker heats up now. Both the old and new camera's are kaput....I don't quite know how we have managed all that....

• NB: Michael has a new strategy for getting out of dancing during the Island Night shows - he drums!!!

• My birthday (and Mrs Perry's) came along on the 29th. Thanks for the parcels everyone. The reading material in particular was much appreciated. Michael arranged for the maintenance guys at the resort to cut down the legs on a plastic chair so I can use it at the beach and it works very well. I was well spoiled on the day with Michael taking the day off and Poppy going to a huge amount of trouble to arrange for a trip on the lagoon to Maina and Honeymoon Islands in their boat Tiny Bubbles. This included hiring a skipper (as Stephen was in Rarotonga for Golden Oldies rugby), driving the boat down off the mountain on her own and putting a ribbon around the capstan! The 6 of us and the skipper went off for the day, had a lovely picnic with champagne and other yummies and spent the whole day lording it up on beautiful, mosquito free Maina. We tolerated the occasional visitor, but they were left in no doubt that we ruled the island!!! The kids spent at least 4 hours in the water, with both boys snorkeling without water wings now. It was a really special day.

• We have an exciting week next week with Mum and Dad coming for a visit. We are looking forward to seeing them so much. The kids are busting, and we are looking forward to a few games of 500!

• We have had an issue with a parcel that has gone missing in the post. We suspect that the main problem was that the parcel was sent in a Crocs box rather than a plain package, which made it a tempting target. It contained shoes for Michael and medicine for me, which ended up causing a major problem when I ran out and went through 3 weeks of withdrawal and pain until I obtained a new supply from Rarotonga. It was quite unpleasant for the whole house - enough said! We have another, more secure way of getting my medicine up here for next time, so lets hope that goes much smoother.

• And from the bizzare island stuff file....PR sent out their new wedding package with a special section for "Renewal of Vowels".......it didn't go past our desk, I can assure you of that!

xxJen

PS - We broke open the winter suitcase this morning - the kids had long pants and hoodies on as it was only 20 degrees! We must be getting soft!

Swimming, Snorkeling, Sailing

We have had a regular sort of busy week or so...
Saturday
Bailey and I went to sailing for the first time in a month and Bailey did really well. Jim (the coach/rescue boat driver/gear rigger and repairer/general Jim Friday) didn't give him a chance to hesitate and they went out from the beach to the sand bar - futher than he had been before. Bailey left the beach at the same time as one of the larger cruise boats which didn't cause him concern but made his mother have kittens. He was then sailing to and from the sand bank a dozen times and doing quite well. Jim came back in to pick up a couple of parents in the rescue boat at which point Bailey forgot to tack away to return to the sand bank and kept on going. He then decided that he had better turn around now and jibed - with the result being that the boom donked him on the head and swept him overboard! Of course he had a life jacket on, and the boat didn't go far. We motored over and pulled him out - no damage done but he got a bit of a fright. We went back to the beach and that was that for the day.
Sunday
Dinner at the resort with Stephen and Poppy and two......unusual......travel agents out of the States. Enough said.
Monday
First day on the school 'bus'. The driver wanted to have them in the truck cab but the boys were quite determined to sit in the back. Hurray - one less trip to make with my dwindling fuel.
Tuesday
We received Bailey's correspondence school papers - all two cartons of it! WOW masses of resources for art and maths, two terms worth of booklets and CD's - about 4 hours of work per day! So we started Mummy school on Tuesday. Maths was great and a piece of cake. English was....complex - an activity booklet, spelling, handwriting, creative writing, independent reading, guided reading, shared reading........and I'm sure I have left something out. Technology - Bailey's first choice - very cool 'design your own paper bag'! PE - running and skipping (we haven't got to that yet)! Jamieson was UNIMPRESSED that his brother should get so much one-on-one attention and had the mother of all tantrums. I'm suprised he didn't put a hole in his bedroom door, where he endured a prolonged period of TIME OUT! I will need to find activities for them to do at Mummy School...
Wednesday
Bunked off school and went on the lagoon. We attached ourselves again to a Bishops Cruise and had a lovely time again. Bailey loves snorkeling. Lots of sun and snoozes on the way back to the island. I mean, it's not like the kids will be missing out on anything....
Thursday
...except the notice that said the whole school was going snorkeling on Thursday! So typical - 2 days notice, 2 teachers in the (admittedly very shallow) water, 2 mums on their motor bikes coming to see the Papa'as wife to get togs for her 2 boys who are sitting on the beach while everyone else (50 kids) are in the water. So Sienna and I went along to the beach, 25m along from the resort, and stayed until 12 when we all went home.
Friday
Bliss - Pareau day and a full day (to 1pm) at school for Jamie.
Saturday
Sailing again, and I took all 3 kids. There was a nice king tide and a stiff breeze. Bailey, Jamie and Sienna helped the mums (no dads there) rig the boats and off they went. But Bailey did a leg off the beach and then back and was motoring along at a fair clip when he burst into tears and decided he wasn't having any of it. So he sailed back to mum on the beach and a cuddle. "It was going toooooooooooo faaaaaaaaaaaaaaassssstttt" That's ok, we'll try next week. Most of the older kids weren't there due to a series of vaka (waka/canoe) races. So it turned out that the senior crews were paddling from town to Ootu beach, where we were - some 18km. So we hung about for the crews to arrive which was very cool. There were lots of supporters there, lots of biscuits that Jamie could ask for. My island boy has NO shortage of confidence at all! So the kids swam all morning, a beach full of parents watched, and it was nice.
Sunday
The rain is back for a few days. We were amazed that Sienna slept through the (more gentle) thunderstorm (although I confess to feeling quite nurvous myself and each flash). She is sleeping in the same bed and one or both of the boys and is actually sleeping through the night, which is very nice. Michael went to work of a while, preparing for our time off, and we looked in on the staff village where our house will be built. It is nice and close to the beach and there are two 2-year-olds there for Sienna to play with, so that will be nice, though the house will be much smaller. So it was an easy day - hot chips for lunch, a bit of mummy school (still a novelty) and an early night.
Monday - today
Michael has flown to Raro, we are following this afternoon, and we will be there until Saturday on our first round of remote leave. It will be good to get off 'the rock' for a while. The kids are excited to be going on the plane, and have a 'family holiday with 5 of us'.