Aloha!!!

Photo: Jesper Mortensen

Fanning Island sunset - in an earlier post I tried to describe the sunset from our  boat, anchored in the lagoon of Tabuaeran Atoll. Well, this was what I was talking about... amazing!



ALOHA FROM HAWAI'I!!!  After 17 days at sea I have arrived to land. Ahh, it feels so good to be vertical. I'm staying with my nani (beautiful) friend Arielle on Maui. It all happened pretty quickly, we arrived to a Honolulu sunset, stayed the night on the boat in port, and the next day I flew to Maui. Anyway, will write more about the trip soon, but just wanted to get some pictures up. Theres been a lot of writing going on with this blog and not so many visuals, so enjoy....

Photo: Chad Hamilton
Life on Sea Dragon - dinner at 20 degrees poses oh so many fun challenges. Be careful for waves over the bow of the boat or else chicken and veg becomes salty chicken soup .

Photo: Rachel Morrison
Mother fishing boats anchored off the main beach on Christmas Island. Was a huge shock to be anchored next to these beasts. I don't think it matters what light these vessels are portrayed in, they are still horrid and so out of place.

Photo: Hannah Spyksma
Just a typical scene at the wharf on Christmas Island - the stench of drying, rotting fish could quite often be found  lurking through the streets. Refrigeration is hard to come by here, so fish was dried and salted for preservation. Tasty? Not to sure...

Photo: Hannah Spyksma
Customs and immigration, island style. This boat of 'officials' rocked up to Sea Dragon an hour and a half after the agreed time. We couldn't leave until they handed us departure paperwork. I think their tardiness has something to do with the fact it was a Sunday morning after payday... so they were all rather inebriated. Was an experience.

Photo: Hannah Spyksma
The rough and beautiful windward side of Christmas Island.  Instead of rocks, the beach is lined with coral and an unfortunate amount of washed up plastic. 

Photo: Cathy Romeyn
We were invited for a traditional Kiribati lunch by the teachers of a local school. This maneaba  (meeting hut)  is raised about a metre and a half off the ground. It's built completely using local materials including pegs and string made from coconut palm trees.  Principal Raine Aretaateta sits to the left. In Kiribati society, women can hold positions of power in the workplace, but men are still boss at home.

Photo: Hannah Spyksma
Lagoon view - taken from the back of a truck driving along the (only) road on one side of Fanning .

Photo: Hannah Spyksma
Kia Kaha New Zealand 2010 - see if you can spot it. Fanning Island is literally in the middle of nowhere so when we arrived to see this, it was pretty darn cool. The lagoon had two visible shipwrecks in it, they just become part of the scenery after awhile. Aparently wrecks are a pretty normal sight in plenty of the other atolls the Pangaea crew visited as well.

Bula!!

It's 30 degrees in Fiji - welcome to the Pacific! 

After calling to check my flight details at Air Pacific's office in Auckland and casually mentioning that I was in the media industry, I was upgraded to business class and am also enjoying the business lounges in New Zealand and Fiji. Although I'm making the most of this (of course!!), I do think it's quite sad that in general, so many problems go unfixed until somebody says they're from the media and then organisations pipe up and don't want to make themselves look bad through subsequent possibility of negative publicity. I've seen it happen a few times in my short stint so far as a reporter.

Anyway, speaking of business, tomorrow things are really going to get exciting. Everything I've been planning for the last few months should come together when I arrive, hot and lacking sleep, at 6.30am to the largest coral atoll in the world. Wahoo, finally!!!

Tomorrow I'll hopefully have pictures of this largely unknown paradise and will no doubt fill you in on the boat, the crew and all that jazz.


For now though, I'd like to draw your attention to the links on the right hand side of the page. While I've been doing my trip research, trawling the net, these are some the organisations and websites that have stood out. All have a pacific or environmental focus in some way, but I guess what's cool is that I don't think they force their views down your throat - they are more just interesting insights and valid observations.

Also, big ups to Sustainable Coastlines - Pangaea Exploration's New Zealand partner organisation - who just won an award at the Ministry for the Environment's Green Ribbon awards evening. The guys from SC work really hard to let Kiwi's know the importance (and fun of) cleaning up our beaches.

In a later post I will piece together an interview I had with Camden Howitt, one of the key Sustainable Coastline members, who went on the second leg of the Pacific survey trip around Rarotonga.

Bula for now!

No adventure starts with things going to plan..

It's 7.15pm. My flight left at 2.30pm. Well... it was supposed to. But, “due to engineering problems” or so the loudspeaker keeps saying, I’m still sitting in Auckland Airport’s departure lounge. C’est la vie I guess. Since when have adventures ever started smoothly anyway! That would just be predictable.

One thing that being stranded here does is give me some time to put this trip in to perspective. The build up to leaving has been crazy hectic, and sometimes it's easy to forget the bigger picture of why I signed up for this crazy-holiday-type-thing in the first place.

So, after pondering and walking round in circles at the airport for a little too long,  I've come up with these goals for the next four weeks:

- Take every opportunity on offer, even if it scares me a tad!

- Chat with as many people as possible to get a broad view on conservation issues in the Pacific.

- Link what I learn back to New Zealand and its association with the broader mare pacficum

- Blog everyday where possible, with a mixture of interviews, pictures, stories and personal excerpts.

- Not miss my certain someone too much

- Send postcards (I'm so bad at that!!) 

Oh and it would be nice to come back with a tan that replaced the Auckland winter shade of white. hehe.

Just before boarding at 1pm when thing were still going to plan! 

Seventeen days on a (not so leaky) boat

Mare Pacificum, the Latin name for the Pacific Ocean, means peaceful ocean. Calm and peaceful conditions on the sea are what I'm hoping for when I set sail from Kiritmati Island - a coral atoll in a far flung corner of the Pacific - on a trip that will lead me up the remote Line Islands then across enough open sea to make me feel a little nervous, with the end destination being sunny Hawai'i - aloha!

Kiritimati Island is the largest coral atoll in the world. Photo: dxing.at-communication.com 

Leaving tomorrow, it'll be a 28 day trip altogether, with the first few days to acclimatise (yes, that's what I'm telling myself!) in Fiji, before flying to Kiritmati Island on June 14. I'll be spending a week on Hawai'i after arriving on the boat on June 30.


But what the frick are you doing? I can hear you asking. Well, back in February I got a little excited and decided it would be a good idea to invest all the pennies I've saved since starting work as a graduate journalist, in this 17 day trip. I'm going as crew on 72-foot yacht Sea dragon, which has been making its way around the world on a research expedition surveying the state of our oceans and their islands. Click here to find out exactly what the boat will be researching...

Satellite image of Kiritmati Island.

Photo: Oceandots.com

I must admit I'm a little nervous about the whole trip. The thought of so much ocean slightly scares me, and I'm not even sure if I get seasick (I know, slight issue). But I guess there's no point in worrying.


Along the way I plan to blog about my experiences. The hope is that I can convey the issues - such as plastic pollution and overfishing - that Sea Dragon and its crew are exploring, in a way that makes it relevant and interesting to everyone back home.


The republic of Kiribati straddles the equator - it's the only country in the world to lie across the north, south, east and west hemispheres. Photo: www.climate.gov.ki

When I think about all the sea I'll be covering, I feel like a tiny little drop in the ocean. But sometimes its the small things that make a difference - every drop counts towards creating a consciousness of the issues our oceans face. Keep checking in to this blog for updates about the trip; for interviews, photos, and research info; and to find out if I actually do get seasick... I really hope not!