Wanderung 33

We were up early for the approach to Mare Island, although in some sense there wasn't much to see. Mare is another of the "uplifted coral" islands and having seen several by now, I recognized the prototypical "layered wedding cake" type of shape where you have broader layers of coral down toward the base of the island, which I presume is a joint result of the gradual uplifting tectonic process combined with the continued growth of coral in the shallow waters surrounding the island at each phase of its development.

On closer inspection, however, there were some interesting things along the shoreline. Around the headland to the left of the landing pier located inside an L-shaped breakwater, I saw a small beach with a shallow cave at the back which looked quite interesting. Clearly the coral reef surrounding the island was growing in the latest and widest ring of coral reef yet, and I could clearly see that odd aquamarine color of some of the shallows near the shoreline.

After a leisurely breakfast, we gathered our sunglasses, bug spray, sunscreen, cameras, hats, and cash to take the tender to shore. Once on shore, we paused to hear a local choral group doing some really fine singing, and then checked out a small swimming hole located directly adjacent to one side of the pier. There was even a yellow-painted ladder to safely get in and out of the pool, which is a big thing as a problem on these coral islands is that the shelf along the beach is raw weathered coral and extremely rough and hard on your feet and hands. We even saw some "Sergeant Major" fish down in the pool, but we hadn't brought our swimsuits along so we proceeded up to the street to walk through the town.

Turning right we ambled along enjoying the shoreside street, taking to the shoulders when the big tour busses roared by. Pretty much around every bend in the village street we saw something interesting either on shore or out to sea. Out to sea we had just fantastic views of the ship across the unbelievably clear, aquamarine waters and the fantastic, rough coral formations of the uplifted coral reef that formed the shoreline itself.

On the landward side, we saw both a World War I memorial and a memorial to an inter-island passenger steamer that had sunk in 1953, with a loss of all the crew and passengers. Both memorials listed the names of the victims, and I liked that as it seems important to me to correctly remember and honor the dead.

Walking along we saw diffent type of houses, native style and modern. We also passed a bank and a Post Office, both of which featured ATM machines that presumably provided the Pacific area French Franc used as local currency. Since we had not seen anything in the marketplace that we felt we had to have, we eschewed that opportunity.

But the surprise of the walk was a military helicopter being refueled from 55-gallon drums on a clear spot of land across from the local Police Station compound. They did not, however, agree to give us a flight around the island, even though I offered them American money and told them it was a missed business opportunity!

However, as we worked our way back, we saw that this island did have 50cc motor scooters for rent!! The price was $30 US for two hours, and $50 US for four hours. That struck me as a reasonable price, and if I had it to do over again, I would get on shore really early before the tour busses arrived for the day, rent a scooter for 4 hours, and go zipping around the whole island just to see what was there. Since the ship charged $16 apiece for the shuttle over to the good beach, two people renting a scooter for 2 hours for $30 to drive to the beach would actually be slightly cheaper than what the ship charged! Yay! However, one down side to this Plan would be that you would have to limit your beach visit to an hour or so to leave time for the drive over and back. The other down side is that it would be hellaciously dangerous to be riding 2-up on a 50cc scooter, as I found out previously when I drove around Bermuda on a 50cc rental scooter with Monika. (That is NOT, repeat NOT a recommended thing to do in Bermuda unless you are a VERY EXPERIENCED motorcycle driver!)

We were, however, doomed to disappointment on buying a local beer. We had been charged $3 US in Lifou and thought that was a fair price even if the fruit and flower flavor of that beer was very odd. In Mare, the local vendor wanted $5 Australian, which was high, and $5 US, which was even higher. Since they didn't come down to $4 US, which would have been acceptable, we gave up the negotiation and continued on our way. It wasn't that we couldn't afford the money, of course, but merely the principle of being charged what we considered an unfair price. That said, to be fair to the vendor the logistics of shipping beer across the vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean, and then procuring and providing it to us tourists may actually justify the $5 price.

Continuing on to the other side of the village, the local folks had blocked off the main road to all tourists, even to those of us just walking along, which surprised me. This was the first instance of our trip where we had an indication that the local folks were distinctly unfriendly. We did, however, see Shannon and Denise there, who were just starting their walkabout, so we chatted a bit before we split off to go back to our ship and they wandered back down the road.

Denise noted that the quality of the meals in the dining room seemed to be going down steadily, and she cited the steak Diane dish as an example. While I agreed that the quality of the dining room meals was just mediocre, I thought that may simply have been due to the number of days since the ship`s departure from Seattle and the fact that some foods, such as the eggs, were just simply getting old and stale. I recalled our conversation later that afternoon when I had lunch and picked up some saltine crackers which where still in their cellophane packaging, but they were nevertheless distinctly limp rather than being crisp and fresh as they ought to be.

But then we were tired and hot and took the tender back to the ship and lunch. Afterwards we watched the helicopter leave, the last tenders coming back and being hoisted back up to the ship, and the island receding. After we sailed past the end of island it was 'on to Sydney'.

During dinner we discussed some of our experiences, and Sylvia agreed that it might have been fun for the four of us who knew how to drive motorcycles to rent one of those 50cc scooters and zip around the island for a couple hours. But Gretchen had actually seen the aftermath of a couple who had spilled off of one of those scooters, so clearly there was an element of danger involved also, particularly if one was not used to driving motorcycles. As Shannon said, driving a strange vehicle in a foreign country with unknown driving customs could combine to be a dangerous thing--of course Shannon and Denise will be following this cruise with a long drive through New Zealand, which will be his first experience of driving on the left hand side of the road, so they may be in exactly that kind of situation rather soon! Since that can get tricky in emergency situations, I wish them luck.

But our excitement of the evening was getting GOLD COINS from the casino! Apparently, the casino folks had noted our continued absence, and they offered a gold-colored $1 slot machine token to entice to try our luck. We dutifully went down and claimed our GOLD COIN tokens, and Monika immediately plugged hers into the nearby slot machine. It whirled and gurgled and flashed lights, and that was the end of her GOLD COIN. I concluded that the gurgling was kind of like a death rattle for GOLD COINs, so I paused and thought about it. Was having pretty flashing lights and a brief but catchy tune for a few seconds really worth my GOLD COIN?? In the end, I decided to rather keep my GOLD COIN as a souvenir of our trip (see pic). Some day I may have my GOLD COIN assayed for purity, and I rather doubt it is real gold, but until then I will preserve my illusion of the wealth of King Midas!