First thing this morning, John, the caretaker, called and asked us if we would like some fresh fish they had just caught. We said “sure” and headed over to shore. They gave us a ziplock bag containing enough fish for two dinners for us. There was tuna, rainbow fish, and something else. Much to Christi’s delight, the fish was filleted.

We had brought some food to exchange with them. The caretakers work six months a year. We had been told they are dropped off at the beginning of the work period with a bunch of supplies, and no one comes and brings them supplies again. Sadly their freezer was broken and had limited refrigeration, mostly due to limited fuel for their generator. We were told they are appreciative of perishable foods, especially meat, so we brought over most of our fruit and veggies — a pampelmousse, bananas, and an apple, and a bell pepper (capsicum for non-Americans). We also brought a can of peaches, a dozen papaya-pineapple muffins, and some lollipops. When Eric pulled the pampelmousse out of the bag, Veronica’s eyes lit up. We chatted with them a few minutes and asked permission to go to a nearby motu. No one touched anything we brought. As soon as we turned to leave, we heard the kids excitedly scream “bananas!!!!”

Our plan for the day was to go to the next motu over on the reef, Monkey Island. Monkey Island is actually connected to the motu the caretakers live on by low lying solid reef. In low tide you can walk from one motu to the other. Right now, low tide is near sunrise and sunset, so walking over wasn’t going to happen. We would take the dinghy. We had been told that the water was shallow and there was a lot of coral around. This meant we needed to take Kosmopolitan (our hard dinghy), and the motor was not quite right. It was not engaging the transmission properly.

Eric decided to change the gear oil (transmission) and the regular oil. Eric spent over an hour searching for the gear oil he knew he had somewhere in the spare parts bins. No luck. Since the little two horsepower motor barely uses any gear oil, he took some from the bow thruster, which had plenty of oil in its reservoir. Oils in hand, he headed to the top deck to get to work. But it was quite windy. It was not a fun clean up as drips of oil sprayed the dinghy and Eric.

By the time we were ready to go, it was high tide. The motor was engaging in gear better, but still was not back to normal. Turned out the more we ran it, the better it got. The 2hp Honda has a automatic clutch that engages at higher RPM. A part of the clutch system was probably wet, and was now drying out. As we approached, we could see there was a definite reef line surrounding the island. We rode the length of the island and could see no break to get in. The motu is mostly lower land, with the high points only a foot above the waterline, descending to a few inches below the waterline. There were scattered bushes and trees. There were a few birds about — different ones than what we saw on bird island, but we didn’t get close enough to identify them. The surf pounded into the shore on the opposite side of the motu. We rode back down the length of the island and still saw no break. We gave up and headed back. Even though we didn’t get to walk around, it was still a nice ride. The island is pretty and the colors in the lagoon around the motu are just amazing — an absolute rainbow of blues and greens. The water clarity is even more amazing. You can clearly see the bottom at 100 feet.

Back at Kosmos, we decided to invite the caretaker family over to watch a movie. We watched “Princess Bride”, one of our all time favorites. They left as soon as the movie was over. We enjoyed a nice sunset. As the sun was dipped below the waterline, to the east, the sky along the horizon turned a pretty aquamarine blue. Above it, the sky was lavender. It was subtle, but really neat.

After sunset, Christi made the tuna for dinner. Christi, sadly, didn’t wash the fish prior to cooking, so it was a little fishy. Too bad. Fresh tuna is so good.