“Adventures of an IMP” Part XII: A “one-of-a-kind” Day

Sunday 13 January 2008
7:25 pm

           IMP's longest voyage.
       We went under the foot-bridge,
              against the tide,
   floating back up the estuary with the tide.
After this J13, J12, K10 jumped off the foot-bridge.
             Whananaki harbour.
             Average temp. 24°C.
                 No clouds.
                   Calm.

So much has happened today that we will write a list first so as not to forget anything that happened, then we will write in detail. (We are writing in chronological order).

1. Camping on the beach last night
2. Jumping off the ledge
3. Rowing out to sea
4. The sighting of a boat
5. A visitor

Here is how the day started:
“Wake up…everybody, wake up shhh!” whispered Second Mate. He was pointing at a group of seals that had flopped down in front of our tent the night before, after swimming around in the water all day. Last night had been very interesting because of the seals. They had got used to us being around them and didn’t pay that much attention to us, so we were able to camp down on the beach, which was quite an experience!
While we were looking at the seals we noticed that they “snored”, well actually they snuffled, but snored sounds better. Finally we exited our tent from the back entrance and walked up “The Ledge” and along to where it dropped straight down a good three meters into deep clear water. We, having tested the depth of water beforehand, knew the water to be about three-four meters deep. In we all jumped. The water was cold and it really woke you up!!! The sun had just risen over “The Ledge” allowing us to see to the bottom, where a school of snapper was swimming….
…Now onto the rowing. Rowing out of “Seals Cove” was difficult, due to the in-coming tide. Once we were out on the open sea it was very calm and visibility was excellent. We dropped our lines over the side and waited for a bite….. Two hours and only one nibble. We were looking over the side watching our hooks when a shadow passed nearby turning on its side, and turning white as it did so. A SHARK! I didn’t think that the Captain and First Mate could row as fast as they did when they saw the shark; that was, until they saw a fin following us. WOW! We flew through the water…but…the fin was gaining on us. And then something very funny happened, though none of us saw anything funny at the time. We, in our fright, had taken a seal’s nose for a fin. How we laughed about it later! (We had seen a shark, though). We had a mind to stay on the water, but one thought of that shark put us all off.
“No use being eaten if it can be avoided,” said Second Mate, shakily.
Sitting on the sand warming up the oldest member of “The Crew” was looking out on the horizon when he thought he saw something. Remembering the whale incident he said nothing, but watched in silence until he could make out the outline of a boat. In a flash he was up and putting fresh bamboo on our small fire. The signal being let off, we watched the boat approach with caution. S-l-o-w-l-y she came closer until we could make out the “number plate” as Ship’s Baby said.

M.V. 156
N.Z.

Translation: Motor Vessel, 156 (registration #), New Zealand (country where registered).
As we watched a man came up on deck, saw us, and said, “Here, catch,” as he threw a rope to us. Tying the rope to a nearby tree we waited as another man came up on deck. He was probably the captain. “Is it all right if we come ashore?” enquired the first man.
“Yes, it’s fine, a good stroke of luck you came by,” replied our Captain. After introducing ourselves the two men introduced themselves as Mark (the captain) and Philip (the navigator). Ship’s Boy was puzzled and Philip could obviously see that, so he asked “What can I explain to you?” “Well,” Ship’s Boy said, “I thought that the captain usually was the one to navigate.” “Yes that is the way most people do things, but if the job is split we seem to get to our destination a lot quicker, so it has only taken us one hour to go from Tiritangi Bay to here, Lighthouse Island.” “And how far is that?” said our Captain.
“Why, that is about 60 km, but…I…I thought you would have known that, you being the captain and all…,” replied Mark looking at Captain strangely. Captain explained and with the help of IMP‘s crew he retold all that had happened the last two weeks.
“So you see, we wouldn’t be here if we knew what island this was to start with,”
said First Mate. “So…we are the first people that you have seen and you would like us to rescue you, although by the looks of things you don’t really need rescuing as it were?!” asked Mark. “Yes to your first question and only if you want to, to your second….,” said a very cheeky Ship’s Boy. “But if you don’t feel that you want to rescue us, would you mind telling Mr. and Mrs. Bear (they are our parents) of #25 Herring St, Tiritangi that you know where we are???”
Mark and Philip both looked at each other and then at us and said “Is your father’s name Andrew?” “Yes,” we replied, “but how did you know?” “We went to school together and haven’t seen him since, although he did mention to us in a letter that he had 8 kids!”
And so it was aranged that Mark and Philip would tow us back to Tiritangi Bay and at the same time visit Dad, tomorrow.

“Adventures of an IMP” Part VII:In which pigs roast and crabs snap (sort of)

Tuesday 8 January 2008
4:26 pm

Looking across from “The Harbour” you could see a very long mudflat that stayed above the level of high tide, and to the eye it seemed very straight. When Able Seaman saw this she said, “I think that we should call that mudflat “The Spit”, because it looks just like a spit waiting for a pig (or more fitting to our situation, a wild boar) to be roasted on it…so what do you think?”
No one objected to this, so “The Spit” was named. On “The Spit” lived HEAPS of little crabs. It was fun to poke twigs down holes and then pull them out with a crab hanging on the end. After searching for crabs (which was not that hard to do) we cast our rods, which IMP‘s crew had made, off “The Spit”, managing to catch five snapper about 75 cm in length! We filleted the snapper. Then skewering them on a stick, we cooked them over a fire. Delicious! 

**********
T.B.C.

“Adventures of an IMP” Part II: Exploration

Thursday 3 January 2008

3:20 pm

    Second voyage. 
   Whananaki estuary. 
      High tide. 
Slight off shore wind.  

 After a night of being eaten alive by some UFI (Unidentified Flying Insects), The Crew decided that we should catch some fish and burn them; they had heard that insects of any type do not like the smell of burnt fish heads. There is a stream running through the island and crayfish and trout were plentiful. We tried tickling trout. It worked; we caught 10 trout. We cooked the trout, wrapped in leaves, in the ashes. We ate the trout, keeping their heads for insect repellent and also two bones that are sharp on one edge for knives for if the Captain’s pocket knife broke. Thinking we had done a good morning’s work, we rested. It was about this time (round noon) that the barometric pressure dropped suddenly, as it is wont to do on any island, desert or not. When this happened the sky was clear blue, but to the southern horizon there was a grayish haze. As soon as the barometer dropped it was “All Hands On Deck” as we ran about putting the coconuts we had picked that morning under our tent alongside the left-over boar meat (we had dried it) and palm tree roots (which taste like potatoes). After this was done the haze was still a ways off so First Mate, Second Mate and Able Seaman went to gather bamboo poles for fishing rods, while Captain, Ship’s Boy and The Crew picked extra coconuts so we could twist the fiber into a fine rope for fishing line, Ship’s Boy being excellent at this!!! This done, all helped to find twigs, suitable for bending and whittling into fish hooks. Half-way through this task we heard thunder. Immediately all the birds and monkeys were silent. Quickly we made our way back to the tent with Second Mate telling us how to make umbrellas with banana leaves. On our arrival we found Ship’s Baby counting coconuts. “There are 52 coconuts”. She informed us. Now the rumble of thunder was more frequent and we could see lightning and rain approaching. You could even hear the rain dancing on the sea. And then…..it was upon us. All the rain and thunder and lightning. Watching the light and sound show was spectacular and then it stopped as suddenly as it had started two hours before. 
When retelling our story people have asked “Why didn’t you row back home?” Well, we had told Mum and Dad that it was only a test row we were going for and we would only be gone for an hour, so when we didn’t return they would (we thought) alert the sea rescue team. Also, we didn’t know where we were except that we were W.S.W. of our home country. One final reason being we had lots of food on the island to last a long time.
Here is the plan we had:
If you see a boat on the horizon you need to put fresh bamboo on the fire down on the beach; the effect was tremendous. First came a bang that could be heard for miles and then smoke that was red and acted as a flare would do. 

**********

T.B.C.

camping: the Kiwi way

These last two weeks we have been camping at Whananaki, down by the estuary.
Part of the time with the T’s, the R’s and S….and Grandpa came too.
We spent the days kayaking, playing cricket, washing dishes :-), boogie boarding and swinging on a huge swing at Moureese’s Bay, jumping off the bridge (the longest footbridge in the southern hemisphere) into the estuary, visiting the cousins and uncles and aunties who were camping at a farm nearby, biscuiting, fishing, playing games, eating, watching the donkey, walking along a track that runs by the estuary, adventuring through the mangroves, talking with the other people at the camp, rowing in IMP (an inflatable row boat we were given for Christmas from the A’s), going to look at The Stone Store, Kerikeri Mission House, Te Waimate Mission, Pompalier House, Haruru Falls and Matakana Chocolate Factory, going on the ferry from Paihia to Russel (two different captains let us steer the ferry; only at the start and finish did they steer the ferry!)
Out of the 12 days we were camping there were only two days of rain (and two of drizzle), which was just as well since Dad forgot to put the rain jackets in the trailer!!

Here are some photos:

    
    
  
 
  
   
 

   

goneFISHING

Da big kids have gone fishing…so Mama needs to do da blog again.

Look here!!!

Maybe there will be fishing photos to update this with later. I hope so, or it will be “chips” for dinner instead of “fish-n-chips”