7 July 2012 The Atoll Fruit-Dove, according to the book, is tame and a weak flyer. At dawn we dinghied over to another motu, crept around the perimeter listening and watching for a dove, crake or sandpiper. When we were nearly all the way round I heard a coo coo coo. I pointed to the source of the sound and Barry walked into the bush. Next thing I hear is, "Got it! Got it! BINGO!" I followed just in time to see the tail end of a dove flying away. That's it! That's all I saw. Tame, my foot! Weak flyer, my foot! (I told him next time just coo quietly to indicate he has seen a dove.) But Barry got photos - backlit, but good enough to tell it's an Atoll Fruit-Dove. I will say that what the motu lacked in dove, crake and sandpiper it made up for in nesting Brown Boobies and Red-footed Boobies. Wait until you see the photos! When a booby flies over you, it really stares at you staying totally focused. The head is therefore stationary while the body pivots around it.
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| Coconut husking |
From Barry: Late morning, I went ashore to burn trash. Next to the spot I picked was a coconut husking station. Wanting some coconut juice and meat, I started looking for a suitable coconut. There were hundreds lying on the ground, but they were all really old and dried out. And it takes a really long time for a coconut to dry out, assuming it does not sprout first. It took me 15 minutes of picking up one likely coconut after another to find one that still had juice in it. The necessary implement is usually a sharpened stick with the other end buried in the ground. This one was a sharpened piece of ¾" rebar 10 feet long resting on a branch with the other end lying on top of the coral rubble. The husk is impaled on the stick and the coconut twisted to pry the husk off. The locals can totally husk a coconut in 30 seconds with three hits of the coconut on the stick. It took me 20 minutes with a wobbly piece of rebar. I obviously need some training on the fine points of coconut husking. After using a corkscrew to make a hole in one of the three "eyes", I drained the juice out. It was still good. The next task is cracking it open. I hold it crosswise and hit it with the back side of a machete. If you know the orientation, it only takes one hit. Since I do not know the orientation, I hit, rotate, hit, rotate, hit and BINGO! We have a cracked open coconut to nibble on for dessert tonight.
Midday, I deal with the fluorescent light fixture in the head. It started blinking last night, then quit for good by this morning. Of the eight that we have, this one is sealed up with silicone RTV for use in a wet environment. I take it down, scrape off all the silicone and put in a new bulb. It works! I reassemble it, seal it up with silicone again, connect up the wires and screw to the ceiling. It still works. By evening, the silicone has hardened and it has stopped working. DANG!
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| Clam |
Mid-afternoon, we dinghy over to snorkel a nearby coral head with lots of giant clams. Giant here means up to 10 inches, although so far they have maxed out at 6 inches, and lots at that size. Where the two shell halves meet, the shell has a sine wave pattern. (The shells meet in a zigzag pattern in a different variety that we have seen in Fiji.) The lips of the clams come in a variety of colors - turquoise, tan, violet, brown, purple and several shades of blue. The color is due to other organisms that live within the lips and special lenses which concentrate the color. Amazing! Of note here was that many had black lips, which we usually do not see. In addition to the color, the lips are speckled and absolutely gorgeous. These clams can see, because they pull their lips in if you get too near them, and will not extend their lips again until you leave. You can be very still, but they know! They bury themselves inside the coral with just the edge of their shells protruding. Some how, they get the hole they are in to grow in size as they grow. How they dissolve out the hard coral is a mystery to me. We also saw some delicate oysters about two inches in size buried inside the coral formation. They had vivid violet lips. There were bright orange Christmas Tree worms. When extended, their gills are about 1 ½ inches long and look like a Christmas tree. We have seen them everywhere in tropical waters. The 5 remoras are still hanging out under the boat. Also, under and next to Sunrise are these groups of tiny fish that form themselves into various fishy shapes. They are like the nanoparticles in that Michael Creighton (wrong spelling but the guy who wrote Jurassic Park) book called Swarm or something like that.
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| Christmas Tree Worm |
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