My Blog

The green sea turtle

The turtle is fast and slick, it likes to have a dip

It glides through the water as graceful as can be, it’s beautiful you can see

As big and as heavy as a Chevy

The flippers are as strong as two men and that’s the end of my poem

TANNA VOLCANO

What I think it will be like

We are sailing to Tanna Volcano in Vanuatu.  It will be amazing.  There’s only a few volcanos that you can go climbing on.  I think there will be a lot of lava.  I am going to bring paper planes and throw them in and toast marshmallows.  I wonder if you have to wear special suits for the heat?  I am going to go looking for obsidian.  I am going to bring water and see how fast it evaporates.  I think it will stink because of the sulphur. 

Getting there

First I got into a car and I sat in the back outside of the car where I’m actually not buckled in.  It was very exciting on the way.  It was fast on the way up and it was very bumpy and dusty.  There is a village at the bottom of the volcano.  The houses were made of sticks and leaves.  At the bottom there was a treehouse.  The tree was about 200m tall and I think it would be very, very fun to play on.  At the top of the volcano there are a lot of rocks.

The Volcano

At the volcano there is a lot of rocks with white bits on them.  The dirt is actually ash.  We saw that sometimes the smoke turned black.  I can hear and feel the soundwaves as they hit me.  We walked to the outer rim.  There are three holes for lava to get out.  When lava comes out it starts as floating down and then it starts gaining speed.  My ears popped about 20 million gazillion trillion times it was so loud.  The volcano was like a roaring jumbo jet.  When I hear a plane I will remember this.

Cave swimming at Sawa-i-lau fiji

Sawa-i-Lau is special for all the caves that are there because you can swim in them.  The caves are made out of limestone.  A picture of the rock I am holding is of limestone I found around the caves.

This is how the limestone caves are formed.  When it rains, the water slowly dissolves calcite in limestone.  When water dissolves something it is absorbing it.  After that, “swallow holes” form.  They are holes that go directly down into caves.  I think they are called swallow holes because if you trip into them it will seem like you are being swallowed by the ground.  When the water goes into the caves, lakes form like in the cave I swam in.  It was unusual because it must have been a very high tide when the salt water got in because there is no salt in rainwater.

We took our dinghy ashore and walked up steps and down again.  We had a guide to show us the way, his name was Zac.  To get to the second cave we had to do a little swim under water in the dark.  Do you think it would be very long? It was actually only about three seconds.  When I got into the second cave it was very dark but we did bring a light.  We swam to the other end of the cave to see the swallow hole.  When we looked up we saw lots of limestone.  When we talked normally there were loads of echoes but especially when you shout.  We shouted “Bulla!” which is hello in Fijian and it echoed way more than just talking.  Even more than when we left our empty house.

Swimming in the caves was the most amazing experience ever.

MINERVA REEF

Minerva Reef is sort of in between New Zealand and Fiji but closer to Fiji.  It took us six days to get here.  Minerva reef is really shallow and the reef protects us from waves and swells and strong winds.  But it does make a strong current as the waves crash at the coral.

I found a flying fish on the boat as we were coming into Minerva.  I showed it to everyone and then threw it back into the water.

As we approached Minerva Reef I can see more and more boats anchored.  The reef was like a circle or an oval and when we got there the water was very clear.  I could see about 10 meters down or more.  When we got here we went for a swim around the boat.  I could see the rudder, propeller, hull and keel.  I touched the rudder for the first time and that was the first time I went under QuickStar swimming.

After that I went snorkelling around the reef.  I saw neon damsel fish.  We saw a baby white tip reef shark.  I wasn’t scared of the reef shark; it was actually quite cute.  We saw flex coral, crispy coral and brain coral.  Brain coral was just very pale green, crispy coral was dark green and light green and flex coral was yellow, black and very light blue. 

After we went snorkelling we went walking on the reef where it was shallow and we saw lots of clams and we saw pink coral.  The clams were about as big as an adult’s hand.  Some had green lips, most of them just had black.

I went to a party on a cruiser called Domino.  It was really big. It had an upper level and when we got there the most I counted was about 19 dinghies connected to the back.  I played with the kids from Carpe Diem.  We played hide and seek tip.  I enjoyed playing it, it was really fun.

Minerva Reef is really fun.  I wish you were with me!

NEW ZEALAND

Right now I am in Opua.  Before I was in Auckland.  Before we went to Opua the most fun thing I did was to slide down a grassy hill on boxes.  Every time I slid down I fell off and two of the times I flew through the air.

I am on QuickStar right now while I'm writing this.  On the second day I got to QuickStar I met a family with three kids and I played a game called Piou Piou.  In the water there are lots of fish.

Hi! It's Humboldt Squid

On Sunday (14/2/16) I touched the anchor while Quickstar was anchored. I had to go deep down. It was really fun. I did it twice. Later on, I also swam over 100 meters to get to the beach from Quickstar with Bousn Albatross. I didn't  have that long of a rest till I headed off again. Then Captain Aubrey joined us half way to see if we were to tired to swim the whole way back.  

Caring for the environment

We care for the environment when we live on QuickStar. This is because water, fuel and power are very precious.  Power is important because there can’t be a really long cable connected to the boat so we have to make our own electricity using solar panels and wind generators. We only have water tanks so we need to have quick showers, use less water and take care so that we have enough water to drink. We also have a desalinator if we run out. Instead of using petrol or diesel fuel we can use our sails and the wind pushes us along.

Our wind generator creates electricity when there is no sun

My photography