Aitutaki – kites, coconuts and tsunamis
by Richard
Tim Lewis, of the Leatherhead Lewis’s in Surrey, told us last year about a great book entitled “Where to go when”.
It was here that I came across a pacific island, described as a Technicolour Paradise, but which still retained the simplicity of island life reminiscent of Hawaii 50 years ago.
The vibrant colours of the tropical fish darting in and out of brilliant cyan and magenta clams below the water, were matched above it by the island’s heavenly lagoon, where every kind of blue melted together and reflected upwards tingeing the clouds with an iridescent colour which could be seen from the island’s interior.
“Four weeks!”, exclaimed the taxi driver on Rarotonga, as he sped us along to the airport on the Cook Island’s main island. “What are you going to do for so long? I get bored after 4 days there!”.
We already knew. After 5 months of trekking through steamy jungles, across vast, rugged, wind etched landscapes and the bone chilling, lung rasping “alto planos” in South America that we should have a month long break in the pacific in order to rest and recuperate.
As we descended through the cloud layer we caught our first glimpse of “home” for the next month.
It was not the sunniest of days…but that would soon change, and we had a warm reception at the airport with a local guitar player serenading the arriving guests and Jason waiting to take us to the beach hut.
The chalet “Tangikaara” was perfect! The holiday home of two New Zealand couples we were able to negotiate a decent monthly rate and were spoiled with a lovely kitchen, proper bathroom, TV, microwave, comfy bed, two kayaks and our very own quad bike….what more could we want?
We learned that we had to burn all rubbish out the back as only plastic and glass bottles are collected.
All food scraps we carried over to the neighbours pigs. I now know why they say “greedy as a pig”. These chaps almost knocked us over with eagerness to get at our offerings.
As we sat on our little terrace we saw humped backed whales leaping into the air as they performed courtship dances just beyond the edge of the coral reef.
We sought out the Laurel Eastman Kite Boarding School, where Laurel introduced us to our fantastic instructors Al and Kelly, who would patiently take us through the fun of handling a big kite over the coming weeks and become our good friends too.
above: Kate, Kelly and Al demonstrating the shaka!
Kite surfing has moved on a lot since Al started 15 years ago. The harness takes all the strain and the bars are rigged up to be easily depowered if the wind gets too much for you.
Nevertheless it’s pretty tricky to handle that Kite ……..and that’s before you even think about trying to stand up on the board.
Below: Kelly and Al launching the Kite.
Kelly shows us how easy it is to launch and go!
The lagoon has perfect shallow waters over the sand flats making it an easy place to learn Kiteboarding. After 6 hours of being dragged through the water, sideways, backwards, and upside down, we managed to actually stand up on the boards, and it was amazing to see Kate racing across the lagoon like a natural.
I was unfortunately still suffering from the parasite Girdia ingested in Peru. The local doctor thought it was just travellers diarrhoea and told me to drink 7 coconuts milk each day. So I learned to de-husk coconuts from our neighbour and soon became expert at wrenching off the tough outer shell on an iron spike and extracting the big hairy nut.
On Al and Kelly’s day off we all jumped into the little locally made sailing boat and sailed over towards “one foot island” on the other side of the bay with a picnic and in last minute the kites and boards….”just in case there might be some wind”, grinned Al.
At the end of the day Kelly realised that she had forgotten her jeans shorts on a rock, spread out to dry in the sun. They were never seen again!
All was going smoothly until the 29th September when we turned up at the Kite Surfing school only to learn that an earthquake at Samoa had produced a Tsunami which was headed our way. We hurried back to the beach house and turned on the TV. The single channel had been taken over by an Aitutaki emergency broadcast warning of an imminent tsunami strike and advising all boat owners to get their boats out of the harbour.
We rushed around the room frantically packing our treasures into waterproof bags. I stacked the patio chairs in front of the glass sliding doors to absorb some of the impact of the waves as I envisaged them smashing through the house.
Then with hearts racing, we grabbed a bag of essentials each and jumped aboard the quad heading out for the highest point on the island, a 124m high hilltop, from which we could look back and see the white roof of our neighbours farmhouse.
Here we waited with baited breath, constantly scanning the horizon for the 40foot high wall of water which would devastate the island and sweep us all out to see. After several hours in the baking mid day sun we gingerly made our way back down and approached the petrol station to find out the news. Here we met Jason who, supressing a giggle, told us in his casual way that the tsunami had passed by hours ago.
So we had been needlessly bricking ourselves on the hilltop as the waves passed the Cook Islands by, with the only effect being the sucking out of all the water in the Rarotonga harbour which left some boats lying in the sand. At least we had these lovely views whilst we were waiting for the end to come.
As soon as we could, we emailed our families and found out that they had all been very concerned, but had rallied together to share news and reassure one another that we would have headed for safety.
Aitutaki is a honeymooners Mecca, and with good reason. Many of the beach hut boutique style hotels costing $350-$1800 per night are perfect in every way, and several play host to cook island dancers who are reputed to be the best of Polynesian dancers. Their fire show was particularly impressive, with several audience scaring moments when it looked as if torches and spears were heading our way.
We thoroughly miss our Aitutaki island now and wouldn’t hesitate to go back again. From the quirky little market with only one lady, the several DVD rental shops with every movie in the world, to the police station which was always empty whenever we tried to get our compulsory driving licenses. The islanders are always very laid back and happy-go-lucky. This can be frustrating for anyone working there but is part of the old fashioned charm of the place.
Kate will remember it as a month long Sunday morning.
Sunset view from the Tangikaara.
Tags: Aitutaki, cook islands, kite boarding, kite surfing, pacific, tangikaara