En Route for Tuamotus, French Polynesia 5 Nov 2011 8:00 p.m. 16S50 144W41
After a slow but easy passage with light but fickle winds, we arrived back in atoll country early yesterday. Blacktip reef sharks rushed to greet our anchor as it entered the water. Our new buddies have been circling ever since, certain that a big gray hulk of a boat like ours, must be a fishing vessel, and that soon blood and guts must start pouring over the side in plentiful quantities. So far we’ve disappointed them. They didn’t seem interested in the cucumber skins, nor the rice bits, but the fact that the little black trigger fish are excited by the vegan droppings, did seem to get the sharks excited. Frank suggested that the kids scare them off with a good cannonball from the bow, or bellyflop from the stern. They seem reluctant.
We are the only boat anchored between Tahanea’s two main passes. We’ve seen a few small fishing boats in the distance, otherwise the only trace of other humans is the ubiquitous trash on the beach. Atolls make effective filters for the pacific ocean. Why is it that every shoe or flipflop we find beachcombing is a left foot? What’s up with that? We have not done a formal survey, but I think I may do one, it’s surely a research topic that has not yet been covered. Today’s data: 3 right for 12 left. Is it that most people are right footed, so when they step into the boat, it’s the left shoe that tumbles? Do they only trail the left foot over the side? Or do they tend to loose the right shoes on land, then toss the remaining useless left shoe into the sea? Maybe the tall blond man with one black shoe could help us solve the mystery.
While all that trash should make me sadder, there is something strange and exciting about being in such a remote place, and imagining how such an odd variety of plastic leavings ended up so far from humans. What was their path here – conception, to manufacture, to purchase, to use, to abuse, to rejection or loss? We’ve seen laundry baskets, hard hats, shoes, toothbrushes, dolls’ heads, Mr. Bubble containers, fishing buoys (lots), clothespins , soda bottles, lines varying from 1/16 of an inch thick to 4 inches thick, oil drums, tugboat bumpers (15’ long), today I even found a Lego (well actually a fake Duplo – from our own experience in bathtubs, Legos sink). Do they have bathtubs on Japanese fishing boats, requiring a good supply of Mr. Bubble and floating Duplos? How do you loose a 15’ fender? And did someone get tired of doing the laundry, and toss the whole kit and caboodle into the sea? I too have been tempted, but!
So walking one way around the motu, we skirt the edges closer in to land (where most of the plastic floats to the highest ground), then we return via the reef edge where violent life battles are being fought. Eels and grouper attacking the fast-footed crabs, turquoise parrot fish charging up the deep channels to gnaw on the softer lagoon size coral then rush-retreating before they’re high and dry, and black tip reef sharks scratching their bellies in 3 inches of water to check every nook and cranny for dinner. You can almost see the conical shape of reef snails forming in response to the pounding of the waves, the why of their evolution clearly visible. And thousands of perforations in the reef plateau seem to be powered by a set of giant’s lungs, as each wave causes the reef to breath and bubble, groan and hiss. It’s a magical scene. After miles at sea with only a rare sighting of a whale or turtle or tuna, it’s amazing to walk the reef and witness the myriad life forms battling or their very lives under our feet. How can such a hostile environment sustain so much life? Why does that savage intertidal zone seem so prolific when a few yards inland or a few yards out at sea, ecosystems are barren in comparison?
Truly a blissful way to end a school day.
xoxomo