Last weekend, we took our first trip to another island called Nugu.  The boat ride took about an hour and a half. During that time we say flying fish and a school of about 30-40 dolphins.  They were beautiful jumping out of the water and showing off.  Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of them because the boat driver didn’t bother to slow down.  

You arrive to 4 straw huts on the beach that contain beds, lights, a porch and a fan.  It is very basic and run on generators so electricity goes off around 9:30.  The kids wanted to go straight in the water and onto an old rope tied to a tree to swing in to cool off.  Of course the masks and fins came out shortly and the sea life was abundant.  The highlights would have been the giant clams and clown fish.  The clown fish were quite territorial and would swim straight up to your mask as it to say “stay away from my anemone”.  It reminded me of the scene in Nemo where he gets caught by the dentist.  

After that, a little bit of kayaking was in order so we took turns paddling around another small islands that the kids thought resembled Jurassic Park.  It was fun to pretend a T-Rex might jump out at any time.  

We also walked through the village and the local kids showed us their school.  It literally consisted of a wooden building with classrooms that consisted of a black board in the front and planks of wood for desks and seats.  Since there is only a few solar panels in this village the fun consisted mostly of soccer, singing and a game played with rocks that was kind of like Jacks. 

Dinner and lunch usually consisted of rice with freshly caught fish in some kind of coconut milk.  Dessert was always fresh bananas.  I was asking myself why are they not serving a beautiful cake made with fresh coconut, bananas and pineapple.  Andrew reminded me that most people here would not have ovens and if they are making a sweet it would be over an open flame which makes it harder to control the heat.  So they tend to make a boiled pudding for special occasions.  

This of course has inspired me to start looking up coconut, banana, and pineapple recipes on line.  I bought my house Mary a coconut scrapper at the market and the baking will begin shortly.  This of course blows my theory that I should lose weight here because it is too hot to eat.  Once the sun goes down and it cools off you can eat coconut cream pie til your hearts content.  

Our accommodation for the weekend. 

Beautiful Island girl. 

Local village school. 

Girls playing game with rocks. 

Kids sucking on sugar kane that grows in the yard. 

Kayaking. 

I will write more next week when the kids have had a week at school.