Travel often equals personal revelations. On a Island with so many churches it’s only natural. I’m 31 now and have travelled a fair bit but have only recently worked out that when one travels it’s good to not focus too much on the surf. Instead try to diversify your experiences because, more often then not, you won’t be surfing perfect waves until you can’t function properly any more. So to limit frustration, I suggest to move on. Don’t just sit around and wait for it to get good, get amongst it and soak up every thing thats different from your norm. Isn’t that why we make the effort to travel? There are heaps of other really cool experiences that are good to fill the down time and diversifying will leave you with a truck load of memories, new friends and that contented, exhausted feeling that makes you feel like your on holidays and deserve that arvo beer. Today we got up with the obvious intention of going for a surf but also had some other points of interest that we wanted to check out. Straight after breakfast we wandered over to the activities hut by the pool and signed up for ukelele lessons! The two guys that run the hut are your classic Islanders. They are funny, friendly and have a really positive outlook on life. Our group was pretty varied, a couple in their early 30’s and a father with two teenage sons. It was a bit slow to start but our teacher had obviously dealt with hundreds of novices and before long had us warmed up and singing and playing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” by the end of the hour. We could see from the beach in front that it was blown out and small so we did some work until it was time for the Coconuts 101 lesson. As we arrived back at the hut there was a crowd of about a dozen gathered within earshot of the base of a tall coconut palm, but far enough away not to get hit by the coconuts raining down in the garden beds. Our teacher this time was already up the top, with a thick rag tied in a loop and crossed over to form a figure eight between his feet, which was all he used to get up and down the palm. After he picked all the ripe fruit he shuffled down almost at the speed of gravity and offered anybody daring enough the loop to try on the next tree. Long story short we both learned how to cimp trees without branches, which is not that hard if you aren’t afraid of heights although I recommend only trying it after you get guidance from a pro. Then it was on to learning the 15 stages of growth of the “nuts” and how to get into them the quickest and safest way. Can you remember Castaway and the first time Tom Hanks tried to open one? I felt like that in the beginning but now I have a new party trick and its about a minute long. Added bonus is we are saving about $6 a day in coconuts plus all the mangoes we are gathering is heaps of fun and cheap! Then it was time to surf. It was really hot, the wind had dropped to nothing and we were on! We rang Eric @ Eric Boog House who we had been told to get in touch with for surf info, to see if we could catch up for a surf. His wife told us he was already in the water at a place previously overlooked by us (here like everywhere it pays to talk to the locals) so we bee-lined it straight there and found pumping lefts! Finally! We watched another local boogie boarder paddle out and followed suit. There were five in the water for about as many minutes and then it was just two of us. It was easily 6 foot with super late drops. A quick fade to stall, pop out, maybe a turn or pump for the next section but I never hesitated to pull out if it looked like going dry because they all ended up that way! Coming in was easier than I expected but could have easily gone wrong if I mistimed the approach to the reef. From there we headed straight to the arvo markets which was all food stalls and a young islander busking with 20 or so people sitting around enjoying an arvo beer in the sun. There was wood fired pizzas, fresh smoothies, curries and pork Bbq skewers. I ordered freshly cooked, locally caught Blue-fin Tuna which came on a bed of rice and tomato mango chutney with homemade chilli cognac sauce. Oh my god - so good! I could have eaten 2 or 3 servings and it was the best $10 I’ve spent so far! There is food for every taste and budget here, heaps of crap but also loads of healthy, reasonably priced, goodness.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 09:20:09 +0000
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