The Wonder of Life Still Vibrates in Faltering Vava´u
Holding in mind the gravity of environmental change that is happening in Vava´u, I´m now writing some of the easier things to say, about the wonderful living and natural things that I experienced there, just to give a small indication of all the amazingness that is worth knowing and being part of and preserving...
Vava´u is an island group of thrust up former coral reefs which have thus become fairly low-lying but steep-sided, undercut limestone islands full of caves, gulleys, crevices, tunnels and cracks above and below water, channelling light in the most magical ways and occasionally spilling out swallows who make their tiny mud-cup nests on the roof inside the caves.
One cave that the swallows have not occupied and where the light is channelled only through water is the justly famous and awe-inspiring Mariner´s Cave. Discovered by accident in a fairly blank face of rock way back in sunstruck Tongan history, it can be located today by a small splash of white paint on the cliff-face which shows the place where you must swim down through the tunnel to get into the entirely sealed cave whose only light source comes through the sub-marine tunnel.
It´s dim and mysterious! It´s otherworldly! Not only do you undergo the strange experiences of having your ears pop and watching the whole place mist over and then clear again, both due to the pressure change as a result of the water surge, but... yes!... there is a legend!
...Hundreds of years ago, back in the days when Tongans bashed each others´ heads in regularly to resolve conflicts, one noble family had fallen foul of somebody or other of higher rank and were due to all have their craniums crushed. Among this family was a beautiful young woman who was engaged to be married to a suitably ranked noble young man with whom she was, sadly, not in love. When the murderous intent toward her family came to light, another lowly but loving suitor, who would never win her hand, came forward and whisked her away to... Mariner´s Cave! He alone knew the entrance, and swam her through the tunnel and left her out of harm´s way, bringing supplies and company when he was able to without arousing suspicion. Eventually, after months, he was able to procure a boat to go to Fiji and he set out with some fellow Tongans who joked to him that he might find a wife in Fiji, to which he replied that, ´I might even find one on the way!´ Much to their surprise, when they paused for him to swim near the cliff, he not only disappeared for an impossibly long time, but re-emerged with a wife! They sailed to Fiji and... you know the rest... sigh...
Scrambling around in the dark of the cave wondering what lumpy ledge she might have perched upon made me reflect that, whilst it makes a wonderfully romantic story, it must have been a very uncomfortable love affair.
My ever-loved morning paddles on the kayak came with slow wonder, secretly enormous sunrise skies and the occasional great discovery. One morning was taking me around A´a island and I saw ahead a swarm of chattering and clicking swallows, which told me something! Yes, there was a cave. Only just big enough for me to get through at that state of the tide, the opening opened into a stunning, high chamber, with just the tiniest chink of light showing the island´s trees through the roof if I strained myself in its deepest recesses. ´Gail´s Cave´ had been discovered, and was the happiness of many more visits, swimming with the sheltered fish within and just enjoying the quiet seclusion.
The kayak took me to exciting passes,
pure momentary sand cays exposed by the tide,
reefs over which I could paddle or scramble.
Ramblings ashore stained me with Tongan dirt (the source of much yummy produce at the market),
introduced me to many new spicey smells at the botanical gardens, allowed me to breathe in the dawn-reddened motes of spray from blow-holes. Even at anchor on the boat, Vava´u touched me with magic: flying foxes (fruit bats) with big golden ruff collars filled the trees ashore, entertaining us with their larks, argy-bargy and general half-dangling, half flapping battiness; the very stars reached my world as their reflections danced on the glass waters around our little boat home on quiet nights.
Snorkelling always came with great discoveries, even if it was the sad discovery of yet more deadness. More usually though it was life, some life, life hanging on if not proliferating, and later we honed our search down and really did locate some places where the reefs seemed much more thriving, usually in passes or areas of much water movement. Just a few of the many thrills include: cleaner wrasse (that pick off pesky parasites from larger fish) that come and offer to clean me if I can hold my breath long enough at their cleaning station; anemone fish that come and almost head-butt my mask to warn me off their anemone (who must at least know from which part of me I am thinking, seeing to attack me there); turtles galore, one engaged in eating a jellyfish before lazily winging away from my rapt gaze; a slingjaw wrasse slinging its jaw (let your imagination free on that one); shrimp gobies alertly protecting the holes of the ever-digging shrimps; hawkfish and sand perches keeping an eye on their kingdoms, the kings of their own reef castles; huge gastropods making their slimy ways across vast tracts of open sandy bottom; sleepy zebra sharks cruising, napping, and even a few more toothy reef sharks; sponges that are whole communities unto themselves with fish and crustaceans living in their fold; beautiful corals,
some with nested bivalves or fan worms,
others with sheltering clouds of small, brightly-coloured fish, or even hosting anemones; swarms of benign jellyfish making their highly-directed, aimless way;
squid that would hang around in large numbers under the boat for days, always arranged in a gradation from large to small, with the small ones on the (dangerous) outside, ever spangling their luminescent colours;
trevally and barracuda hunting the ever-jumping bait fish in the shallows; the nudibranch to end all nudibranchs- a 25cm Spanish Dancer sea slug, who even danced for me, ruffling its red, white lace-fringed skirts through the blue tropical water;
bubble coral, fangblennies, thicklips, groupers, batfish, dartfish, banner fish, angelfish, butterflyfish, triggerfish, whales, more whales... One young humpback came to see us alone and I questioned whether it would make it back to its Antarctic feeding grounds if it really had lost its mother...
If I´m honest, most things make at least some effort to get away from me when I am close if they are at all mobile (obviously coral does not, for example!). On the one hand, this suggests to me that I am seen as a potential enemy, but even potential enemies are meant to be there, to some degree? In a social climate where it would be very easy to fall under the confusing spell that we are bad simply because we are human- humans are bad for the environment, full stop- I have to ask myself, is it all right for me to be in nature, to swim, to walk, to paddle, to engage? Am I part of nature, or simply upsetting and interfering with it? Mostly I don´t let my head get too involved and do simply feel myself one with my surroundings, and I dare say if a shark came and bit off my leg (a possibility to which one is definitely exposed in tropical seas) I would seem as ready a part of the food chain as anything else...
...Eventually nature started to tell us that it was nearing the time to move on: the mango trees started to hang heavy with fruit, the dangling kapok started to burst on its sparse branches, the breadfruit began falling and rotting through superfluity. Yes, the cyclone season is now approaching...
Click on the gallery below to see larger versions of the photos, with a few bonus extras:
