Little John escorting Ann to church (note all the women have to wear hats so Ann and Lisa were loaned a couple

After church with Reverend Tere Marsters

Sunday dinner complete with coconut drink

Sunday dinner

Sunday dinner

That was my impression at church this morning, but more about the service in a bit.

We got up early since Simon was coming out to the boat to get us in time for the 9:30 AM service. Ann wore a long dress with a shirt to cover her shoulders and I had to wear, ugh, long pants. All the women also wore straw hats and “our family” loaned Ann and Lisa very intricate straw hats they had woven on the island.

So, the men and women in their Sunday best filed into church. Lots of white button down shirts on the men and boys, very colorful, old fashioned island mumus with straw hats on the women and girls and as everyone filed into church there were those similarities with “the mainland”, but there were also the differences; everyone had bare feet, the church was built on coral and there were palms swaying in the gentle breeze outside with the ocean just a stone’s throw beyond.

And the singing! While the service was in English, most of the hymns were sung in traditional Maori and done with fantastic harmonies, no instruments accompanied them. The older women were leads and sang in a nasal, high pitch sort of chant while the younger women would start a harmony that the men would then fill in as well as add a baseline and beat. And it was loud. The church was literally bursting with the joy of their singing! Quite a service and afterward everyone shook everyone’s hand and the older women made sure to kiss everyone on both cheeks. We came away feeling very much part of the community here. Very welcomed-the minister even prayed for our continued safe passage. Of course now that we’ve been here almost a week, we’ve met almost everyone on the island in our explorations and have had time to chat with most of them.

After church and a walk through the coconut palms back to our hosts, we sat down for a delicious noon meal that included; chicken, rice, taro, meat stew, coleslaw and a wonderful coconut milk to pour on the rice. Each of us also received our own coconut with the top cut off to drink. Very refreshing! At this point in the day, most everyone retires for a nap before the next service. Most of the island goes to multiple services on Sunday. We went down to the beach and intended to read our books in the shade by the water, but I fell asleep in a hammock slung between two coconut palms on the beach and Ann struck up a conversation with Andy-a nice gentleman who is sort of stranded here until the next boat heading back to Rarotonga in about three weeks (his is a long story, so I’ll leave it with that). That’s how we spent the afternoon until it was time to get a ride back to the boat.

Once back on the boats, Orcinius and we decided to go for a snorkel on the outer reef. We’re anchored in 30 or so feet right on the edge of what literally looks like an abyss. There’s a sudden drop off right under out boats and all you can see is deep, dark, indigo blue water. The atoll just plunges off a cliff. But, from our boats, it’s only 50 or so yards over to the outer reef where it’s very shallow-as little as one foot and the waves are breaking. So we swam over into about the ten foot depth to avoid getting smashed on the coral by the waves and enjoyed the view and water clarity. We saw tons of parrotfish, some groupers, some “aquarium fish” and a white tipped reef shark. We decided if more showed, we would retreat, but with only one or a few we’d continue.

So, all in all a nice and varied day. Tomorrow is our last day in this paradise. We’re moving west again, this time to Beveridge Reef, a fairly uncharted reef on the way to Niue. It is about 280 miles, so we’re leaving around 1900 and expect a 2 and ½ day voyage. Beveridge Reef is literally just that. Some of the informal hand sketched charts we’ve seen say it’s hardly even visible-just maybe some waves breaking. We have a sketch-kind of like a treasure map-that shows a narrow, but reasonable entrance to a lagoon where you can anchor in sand, protected from the waves by the reef. We have three navigation resources as well as our official chart and each has the reef in a slightly different place. You can be sure we will approach it very carefully and only in daylight. But, it sounds like it might be fun.

One paradise to another. We’ll very much miss the wonderful people and beauty of this spot on the map, but are looking forward to another new one. The adventure goes on.