Hiking in the Heat

Tried to head out for an early hike, but spent 45min trying to clean out my newly infected ear. Too much swimming! Got a late start at 9:30A, and was already too hot. Early or late hikes are key in this humidity. We hiked the ridge out to Fitiiu point on the NE side of the island. We hiked to some old WWII guns and a concrete bunker. A nice tower of rock looking like a natural Tiki was on the way. A couple nice views, but otherwise the “trail” was overgrown and was hard to see much other than bushwhacking. There was a huge garbage dump on the north side of the peninsula where they were burning stinking trash, the smoke filtering though the jungle for half of our hike. Still some awesome views of the rocky island center, and what looked like a cave nestled near the top.

Sat in the car after the hike for 5min with our heads in the AC blower regaining consciousness. Went home and showered after the drenching sweat of the hike. It’s fine lounging around the porch or beach, but not easy for any serious physical activity out in the sun and humidity after about 9A till 4P. But the sun rises early (~6:30A) and sets early (~6:30P). We should have been hitting our hikes in the mourning rather than snorkeling.

Hiking in the Sweaty Heat

Had lunch at our over water palace, and then headed to the main city center for more business (Completing reservations for upcoming islands, email, blog, bank, flight changes, grocery) phew, wasting good snorkeling time! Got back to the house just in time for a hurried race to a snorkeling spot Frank (the house owner) had recommended in email I just got – this was an awesome place we swam out to from the house, with more coral heads than we’d seen here before. There were lots of anemone out there, with pink undersides, and exceptionally large (6+ in) clown fish characteristically hiding in their tentacles. Saw a couple large green morea eels hiding in some of the heads on the way, a sea turtle, ray, and scorpion fish among other myriad denizens on the way back. It was really clear, but the sun had just set, and we kept tooling around till dark.

Isabelle had brought some fresh bananas by earlier, and we made some tropical drinks with them in the blender. BBQed some skewers of beef and fish. Have used the BBQ here every day. Trying to squeeze out the last of our stay in this terrific spot, we stayed up late.