Hubble Bubble - The Witches Brew

Tuesday 26 December

Boxing Day

When we drew back the curtains this morning the sky was striped blue and white, with bands of cloud. But these disappeared as we ate our breakfast and it looked like being another hot day so we took ourselves off to the pool. There had been lots of arrivals overnight, (those from Australia and New Zealand would have left home on Boxing Day evening and arrived on Boxing Day morning) and we now had guests on either side of us, - the hotel seems about full (Toku, the activities man was right). We managed to get in touch with Dawn (Colin’s sister) at last and the parents were there too, so spoke to them as well. Just the boys to go now. But there are no public telephones in this part of the island, only in the main town, so will have to take another bus ride tomorrow and try and contact them then – we have these phone cards which are supposed to allow you an hour for NZ$10, (once you reach NZ$10 the rate is capped until you have been on the line for an hour for that one call and then the charges start again) but that seems very cheap to me, so we will see.

By the time we reached the pool all the loungers were taken so we found a couple of the large wooden chairs they use in the restaurant, on a ‘deck’ overlooking the sea, and under some palm trees for shade. The chairs felt a little bit like sitting in Ronnie Corbett’s big chair that he sat on in his programmes to tell a story – but they were comfortable. We read and puzzled for a while before needing to do something a bit more energetic – time for more kayaking. We collected paddles and dragged the large “floats” to the water’s edge. Climbing in is a bit ungainly – some people have legs long enough to straddle the kayak, and therefore can lower themselves more gracefully, but my legs don’t reach! We paddled around for about an hour, searching out all the different kinds of fish we could find – we tracked a canary yellow fish for a while, as it swam in an out of the rocks and coral below, and I spied a star fish on the sea floor, floated past it, but couldn’t find it again when I managed to turn my kayak through 180 degrees. We saw long grey eels slithering through the sands, as well as a plethora of multi-coloured fish like parrot fish, angel fish, and large guppies (?) with an electric blue stripe along their bodies. We haven’t seen any octopus though – there are supposed to be quite a few in these waters, red with long tentacles, but very shy, never venturing too far from the rocks during the day – I expect they live nearer the reef. There is a night time snorkel expedition advertised for tonight, but we thought we would give that a miss (we’re not quite Jacques Cousteau yet) – no one could tell us if you used a torch or a headlight to actually see the fish – you never know what’s lurking in the deep. Maybe next time.

We returned to the seats and rested for a while with a beer (Cooks Island of course). The sun by now was beating down strongly from the perfect blue sky overhead, although there were large bands of cloud on the far side of the reef, that seemed to be swirling in tornado fashion down to the ocean, and also dark swathes of cumulo-nibus had once more encroached the top of the mountains. Colin was getting sunburnt even through his Tshirt, so he returned to the room for a shower. I went back in the sea for a swim with the trevallies and mullet,that never stray far from the shore and then read and puzzled some more. The palm trees by this time offered very little shade so later, as I too was beginning to cook, it seemed a good idea to catch up with the blog, and I went in search of Colin. He was making a cup of tea (very refreshing), but very soon we after progressed to wine and some nibbles (we still have more than two bottles of wine to drink and only three days left – doesn’t sound a lot, but in the heat, red wine isn’t exactly what you are gasping for – but I am sure we will finish it.)

It was Manager’s Cocktail Party time again this evening, and the brew tonight was a dark green concoction (looked a bit like a Witches’ brew in fairytales), made from bacardi, blue curacao and red wine. The first glass tasted quite sharp – the red wine obviously hadn’t had time to breathe – but the second and subsequent glasses became more and more delicious. There were hoards of people at this party – so different from a week ago – and we all crammed into the room near the pool, as it had started to drizzle once more – at least it held off till the evening today. We stayed at the party long after most people had wandered off, chatting to new and old friends, so it was time for dinner when we finally departed.

It looks as if the ‘specials menu’ is repeated each week, and therefore Tuesday night is tuna with caramelized lemon crust and sirloin steak night. As we had the tuna last week, we gave the sirloin a try (we asked for chips with it – but they had run out, due to the excessive demand over Christmas!) The steaks were OK – not the best, but mine was cooked ‘very rare’ as requested. It came with roasted paw paw (which I still don’t like even when cooked) and pumpkin (which although looking similar, had a completely different taste and was delicious) and salads (which included more paw paw tonight – they grow freely on the island, so I suppose they have plenty). As it was still raining hard when we had finished eating, we went back to the room, and watched “Notting Hill” which just happened to be beginning its eighth showing of the day – but it is a bit of fun, and we laughed a lot at the goggles scenes as that is probably what we look like too when we go snorkeling.

Time for bed.