A walk on Long Bay

On Tuesday we left the flat about 2 pm to get to the beach at low tide. And it was so low!

This is facing north but we decided that we needed to walk south to see if we could connect with Torbay. That was as far north as we had gotten.  We walked for well over an hour going south but we are not certain that we succeeded in making it far enough south. We will have to wait for another opportunity to drive to Torbay and park there and walk north to see if we can connect.  I think we were on the north end of that beach where we had only walked as far as the south end of it. There is a plaque which we will have to find to verify.

There were lava rocks that were covered with barnacles and some sort of sea weed. It was soft to walk on. But this is all there was and then bare rock. We saw very little sand.

We had spectacular views of the harbour and of the islands and boats as well. There was a lovely sail boat that was at full sail which was fun to see. 

This is one of my favorite photos that I took that day.. It was just so fun. I think there is a restaurant on the top of that cliff. There were other houses that we saw as we walked further. Every so often there would be a cracking sound and rocks would fall from the cliff.  A bit scary the first time it happened. We were not sure how much of that cliff was coming down up top of us!

This is another one of my favorites for the day. It was just such a great day for a walk. We were so glad that we took the time to do this. We only saw one set of footprints after we left where we started in the first photo until we had walked the hour. There was one very small stretch of sand with a set of prints.  And this was all the sand that we saw!

It was like we were the only people around at all.  We did see two fishermen at the point that we stopped going south. And in the same spot we found evidence of others who had been casting their lines as we found tide pools where they had cleaned their fish and rocks covered with fish scales. Not a very nice thing to leave behind but as the tide came in it would certainly take care of the leavings of someone who was not very polite. 

This was taken after we had turned around and were headed back north. Certainly a camera cannot capture the beauties of the sky and the meadows in the background. I loved the chance to be outside and to be walking on the beach again. I have missed it. There were no shells to share as this is a marine reserve and it is against the law to take anything other than photos and there were not shells on the lava stone. I did find a neat shell right when we started but it had a creature in and so I returned it to the water.  

Hope you like the snaps!

Super moon

I have been fascinated with the tides and the moon since we got here. There are a couple of great websites that I use to see how the tides are when we walk. It was not a big deal when we got here and we would just walk but when we began our efforts to walk the coastline of the north island I began to look for a good site that would tell me when the tides were going to be acceptable for us to get around the points. The one thing I realized (which I probably should have learned while I was in school) is that when there is a full moon the tides have their highest highs and lowest lows. I had never known before that there would be a difference but there is and at times it is dramatic.

Take yesterday and today as an example. The low tide for last night was at 11:18 pm and it was at 1.9 feet. I am not sure what they use as a measure. The high tide was at 5:13 am today and it was at 9.2 feet so the difference is 7.3 feet. On Tuesday of this week, 25 June the low tide will be at 2:30 pm at .5 feet and the high will be at 8:37 pm at 10.6 feet for a difference of 10.1 feet.




The reason there is such a high and a low this week is because there is a super moon. That means that the moon is closer to the earth on this cycle that usual. It will appear 12-14% larger than normal. I guess that it does this at other times in the year but they do not coincide with a full moon so it is not noticeable. So if you get a chance look at the moon your Sunday night to see the sight.

Besides a super moon there is a blue moon.  There are several different definitions for a blue moon. One is that it is the second full moon in one month. So if a full moon was on 1 July then the next would be on 29 July.  The second would be a blue moon. Another definition is a bit harder to understand. Each season is three months long but at times in those three months there will be four instead of three full moons. The third of the four is referred to as a blue moon also.  There is a third blue moon and that occurs when the moon actually appears to be blue. That only happens when there are certain dust particles in the air and all sorts of other things have to line up for that to happen. This kind is not predictable and would not necessarily be world wide.  So to say that something happens once in a blue moon, they could be right.

Bali Ha'i

This last week we watched the movie South Pacific. We have seen the movie before and also have seen it on Broadway. This DVD had an extra disk and as we watched it I became intrigued and downloaded a book about it. It is taken from the book Tales of the South Pacific written by James Michener. It was the first book he ever wrote and he wrote it while stationed on the island Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu. It was so fun to read about all this happening in our back yard. I had always heard about John F Kennedy being a war hero when his PT boat was shot out from under him and he got his entire crew to land. That was in the Solomon Islands in the area they called the Bottleneck in the movie and the Slot during the war. When someone told him he was a war hero and would receive a medal for it he told them that it was a totally involuntary act, they sunk his boat and he had no choice. 

The small island Aoba off the coast of ES is his Bali Ha'i. (It means half of two I think.) Most of the characters in the movie are based on people that he come to know and love while living there. And they are not all from ES. He visited 40 islands during his WWII assignments. In the movie there is the lady named Bloody Mary. She was a real person and she was Tonkinese. I have found that Tonkin was the northern most part of Vietnam. In the 19th century it was protected by France and people from there were exported as indented servants and she was one of those. The coast watchers were real men who would track enemy movement in the waters around the islands and would report it to headquarters. Their live span was very short as the Japanese worked hard to find and destroy them. 

Michener was not the first novelist to work from the islands. He said there were a group of men, he called them islomanes or nesomanics who are people that cannot get enough of the islands and who prefer to live here. People like Robert Louis Stevenson, Herman Melville, Joseph Conrad, Jack London and himself. He told of an interesting experience he had.  

He was going to New Caledonia to see Admire Halsey who was headquartered there. He said "the runway at Tontouta was none too long and ended at an unforgiving range of mountains. Even in good weather, landing was a challenge." He then goes on and describes  landing during a thunderstorm which provoked sheer panic. He said just as they were to land on their first approach the pilot suddenly pulled up and out over the sea. A second approach was aborted like the first. On the third approach the pilot was able to sit the plane down on the slick runway and they stopped just short of the mountains. That night James could not sleep so he went back out to the runway and walked along it, wondering what he would do with the remained of his life. He loved what he was doing in the pacific as a young vagabond but he had no center, no goals. He decided: I'm going to live the rest of my life as if I were a great man...I will erase envy and cheap thoughts and tackle objectives of the moment." He said he did not say "I'm going to be a writer" but determined that he could do better with the writing he was doing on the reports and that he could write better than most of what he read. 

From then on he would write every night with the goal of recording what he saw simply and honestly. He used the people he had met and the experiences he had had to form the characters and events of the book.  

It was a pretty fun thing to learn that this area was such an important part of WWII. It is amazing to me also that there were great battles on some of the very smallest of islands. Kiribati is one of them. 

When the war ended the US was then left with the problem of what to do with all the equipment that had been shipped over to support the efforts. They offered it to the French to purchase but the French knew that they were not going to move it all back so they had no incentive to purchase what was going to be left there anyway. Quoting from the book: "They lined up all the jeeps, bulldozers, ambulances and other heavy equipment near the Segond Channel. The line stretched for three-quarters of a mile. Ignitions were switched on. Bricks were placed on accelerators as the equipment rambled down a ramp into water forty feet deep. Desks and office furniture were also dumped there...Later the area became known as Million Dollar Point, and to this day it is a major diving attraction on Santo." 

Seems like government waste has always been an issue! 

A bit of the tongue....

I often find myself scratching my head as I listen to conversations between the locals. Some have gotten to where they stop and tell me what it is that they said while with others I have to ask the question. I prefer when someone explains without asking. Makes me feel like they really do care that I know what they are saying. So...I thought I would share some of these new words with you. I hope you laugh at times and at other times see the logic in the word.

The first word is redundancy. This is what happens when you are laid off or when there was a cutback at work. You received your redundancy.  And then when you are looking for a new job you do not send out a resume but you provide a curriculum vitae or a CV for short.

The next is The Crown. When we are talking about someone having dealings with the law and a trial will would say: The Court said.  Here it is The Crown and when you work out a deal instead of a plea bargain it is called a divergence. 

Certainly one of the funniest words is whop whop. This means that you are really in the outback or the bush. If you are on one of the islands like in PNG or Vanuatu you could be in the whop whop.

One that I thought was so funny...we have a friend, Tessa who is from South Africa. She is in our ward and she is the assistant/secretary for Elder Pearson and Elder Watson. Her daughter is separated from her husband and she and her twenty-month son have moved in with Tessa and her husband. She said that he loves his grandpa. She called him her husband's underpants.  We would probably say he is his shadow.  Follows him around in the morning like they are joined at the hip. And the baby only wants his grandpa to change his nappies which are diapers.

The one that fascinates me is a plunket. This is so cool. This is a service for a new mom. After a lady has a baby and is home a woman, called a plunket will come and visit. She helps the new mom to adjust to being a mom, gives her advise on feeding the baby be it to breast feed or bottle feed. If the baby is awake and crying all night then the mom can go to the plunket's place of employment and they will care for the baby while the mom gets a good nights sleep. Dad said that when he was working with Watties they tried to be on real good terms with the plunkets and their organizations because they made baby formula and wanted them to recommend that new moms use Watties formula and baby food. This is all supported by the government. Wonder if this can be part of Obama Care?

And that is all I have to say about this!

The Changing Skies

On the same walk on Tuesday I snapped some shots to show you how changing our skies are. There are three photos and I stood in the same spot and just rotated a bit as I took the shots.

Looks like the skies are going to open up and just drench the world below it! But....

But then...

And then....how quickly it changes. It is one of the things that we love the most about this little island!

I Found One!

I have kind of made it a rule that when we go walking I need to find or see something that I have never seen before or learn something from the time spent. As you have seen I have found some amazing things in our travels. Tuesday was no exception to that rule. We have worked through so many of our P-days that we decided on Monday that we were going to take part of Tuesday and walk. It was a lovely day and just the perfect temp to take a stroll along Takapuna Beach. The tide was way out and so we wandered for awhile south of where we usually go.  

When the tide is in it is all the way to where the lady in the white jacket is standing. Well as we wandered and walked I made my first find for the day. A five dollar bill!  I had never found money on the beach before. I really peeled my eyes to see what other treasures I would find. After going south for a good bit (down passed the point you can see to the left) we turned around and walked towards the boat ramp.  Just as we got to the ramp I found it!  

You may remember a few posts ago I told you about sea scallops and that  you would almost never find the a matching top and bottom because you only find one or the other. Well, I found a whole sea scallop!

When the tide is so low the boat ramp has three steps that go up the side. They are long and each step is about 18-20 inches high. I found this right where the first step started. I was so excited to show it off that I ran across the step to the end of the ramp so I could walk up the ramp instead of making that huge step up. As I rounded the corner, in my excitement I went right into the water up to mid-calf but that was ok. I was so excited!

Here is a terrible picture of the connecting joint.  Hard to take a photo with one hand and hold something with the other...anyway it is hard for me. 

It only took me a second to realize that I would not be able to keep this particular shell. There was no way to get the critter out without breaking the shell and that would defeat the purpose of having it. I could have broken it open and cleaned it out and then kept it as a matching set but I could not imagine myself cleaning it out! I took pictures and examined it carefully and committed it to memory. And then... I threw it back into the harbour. 

Farewell to a good friend!

In one of our conversations with Elder and Sister Rowe as they were telling us about our assignment here they mentioned that they drove a Toyota Prius. We were a bit concerned about that since we had never driven one and did not know anything about them. Well, we have loved this little car. It is small and gets great petrol mileage. We fill up about every 6 weeks and can go between 700-800 kg which is about 480-500 miles. Part of the sentiment is that our friends the Nally's drove it first. He was the IFR when they moved the area office from Australia to NZ. They had the car first. They had our furniture first. They were the first senior couple to live at Shoalhaven where we live now. And we know them. He was in the MTC presidency when we started in the district presidency and he is now the MTC President. We love the Nally's. Anyway, the powers that be decided that it was time to get us a new car. We have been flying quietly under the radar since we got here because 1) the car is old by lease standards. I think it is an 08 but purchased in 07. 2) it now has 60,000 kg on it. So on Wednesday we get a message that it is time to service it and here is your appointment time. Then Grant Stone comes to see me and says: what color do you want? He was showing me new cars. I told him the black convertible. He did not even chuckle!  Then he said: come see this car in the car park. I did, it was nice. Five minutes after I got to my office he came in again and handed us the keys and asked for the other ones. 

So, we have bid farewell to our little silver prius and say hello to our new Holden Curve. Holden is the GM name here. We have driven it a total of 6 kg since we got it. We will take it for a longer ride this evening. 

For your enjoyment:

Word Art

The largest number of tattoos we see are words. They are names of schools, family names, grandparents, rugby teams...you name it and it is on the body somewhere. Again, some are very crude and poorly done while others are very nice looking. To make a comment here for anyone reading this who might think a tattoo would be a great thing to get...they are expensive if they are done well, they can cause disease like Hep C (which can kill you)  especially in areas that are less than steller and they hurt to get.  They bleed! Just to be sure none of the Grands think it is a good idea!

This was done in memory of his grandfather.

This is a family name.

To us it is a clothing line but it is also the name of a rugby club on an island. 

Interesting enough this is the family name as well as what they are. They are fishermen and sailors. 

Family name.

I have not seen anyone that has not gotten a call because of a tattoo but then I have not seen anyone with one of their face etc. I would think that might prevent a call from coming. We have had questions about some tattoos that might indicate involvement in habits that are not in keeping with the standards of the church and we have had inquiries about what the words mean, especially if they are in a different language. I have only had one person who was not required to send in a photo. We had a senior sister in her 70's who had a tattoo on her chest. She described it and asked that she could be excused from providing a photo and they agreed. But it is not common for an exception. We had another senior elder who had a tattoo on his arm and it was stretched and ugly and all because he had senior arms but they still required a photo.  Some missionaries are told that they will need to wear long sleeved shirts their entire mission and others are told (those who are serving in Samoa especially) that they cannot wear the lava lavas that many elders wear there because their tats need to be covered. It is an interesting cultural thing.  

More Artists Work

To continue with the tattoos, the next group are of flowers or bugs or whatever. I could not find the scorpion tat so I will just show these.

This is in memory of a grandmother I think. It is the only one I have seen with color and it is not a very good tattoo anyway.

This one is typical of many that we see. He had a large scar and so he got this tattoo to cover it up. You can see that the body of the bug covers the scar. 

This one is a butterfly and the name of the boyfriend. Wonder if he still is the boyfriend?

Body Art?

We heard on the news last night that Air New Zealand has a "rule" that has been unspoken until it was broken to the public by a young man looking for employment as a flight attendant. For this culture it was somewhat shocking!  The reasoning behind their policy is that on internationsl flights many people are not comfortable with flight attendants and tattoos in such a confined space as an airplane. They do not hire anyone with a visible tattoo. And when you see tattoos on virtually EVERYONE, who do they hire? I have seen so many of them since every recommendation asks the question: Do you have a tattoo? If so send a photo with size and meaning. I often get a note that "oh it is just little" or "you can't see it very well" or "it is on the middle of my back and no one will see it".  I then need to send a note to the Stake President and tell him that it does not matter how large, small or where it is a photo is required.  We tell then that in our office we have determined that we will not second guess the directions from the General Authorities and since they have requested it we are too.

BIG DISCLAIMER HERE. I DO NOT THINK THAT A PERSON SHOULD EVER GET A TATTOO!

It has been a great but somewhat twisted fascination of mine with this thing that is called body art. In fact, I began taking photos of some of the best. I have many pictures so I will group them together in a few different posts.  So first, let's look at what is considered traditional "island" art usually meaning Tongan and Samoan.  Although it is hard to tell with the way I did these but some of these are on sisters as well as elders.

This one, if you look carefully are boats on the waves with paddles. 

The logo on the top is his school logo and the year of graduation. This arm band art was not done by a greatest tattooist as you can see. Many of these tats are done by themselves or by friends and no by artists at all.

This is a pretty good one based on symmetry etc. 

Again you can see that this is not the greatest art. 

This is probably one of the best ones I have seen. 

If you notice none of these have all the colors that you often see in those on bikers and others I guess. The candidate often talks about why they got the tattoo in the first place and often the reason was their friends talked them into it or they were not members or their grandma died and they did it in memory of her. The most common is "it is my school name and year".

Happy BIrthday Queen Elizabeth!

We have a statutory  holiday on Monday meaning that it is mandatory and no one can work (except those having a big sale!). It is the celebration of Queen Elizabeth's birthday. I think she will be 87 this celebration. But the very interesting thing about this celebration is that it is not really her birthday!  She was born on 21 April but since that is early spring in England and usually cool and rainy in the northern hemishere she moved it to June so it would be a nice celebration and people would look forward to having a nice day in the sun. Now how is that for a royal proclamation?

We here in New Zealand are a constitutional monarchy which means she is our Queen. She is Queen of the Realm and all her other Realms and that includes us and lots of other places although she really has nothing to do at all with NZ or the government here. Her face does appear on our coins.  It was decided years ago that her official birthday celebration would be the first Monday in June. This is a big day here because it is the official start of the ski season, mainly on the South Island. There are many sales at the malls tomorrow. We might even check a few out.

The thing that makes this such a funny celebration is that all the countries in her realm get to pick the day that they will celebrate it. Talk about a birthday going on forever. In parts of Australia it is the second Monday in June while in Westeren Australia it is the first Monday. In Perth it is either the last Monday in September or the first Monday in October. In Canada it is now the Monday before 25 May. In 2012 in Fiji it was announced that they would no longer celebrate the birthday because in 1987 Fiji became independent of the UK but when the cancellation was announced there was a great protest and many petitions were signed and forwarded to the government because some people thought they should continue to have a party for her. Oh get a life people!

In Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands it is celebrated the second Monday in June. In Bermuda it was abolished in 2009 while in the Falkland Islands it is in October because June is the middle of the fall and winter like here since they are part of the southern hemisphere.

In all honesty, I knew that the UK was big and all but I never knew that Fiji and Solomons were or had been part of it all. Goes to show either how good/poor my geography eduation was or how much I have forgotten over all these years of living. Either way, this was a nice blog for me.

We should all have cake!