It's 0630 and we are on the move again. This time just a short hop to the next island.
We will be parked up away from the beach, with a shuttle service of little boats taking us to the beach for a barby.
The beach is on an island. They call them motus. This one is a private island for guests of the cruise line.
I don't know why, but every island in this area seems to have a coral reef encircling it. The reef comes to about sea level, so you could easily miss it. The giveaway is the surf breaking on this imaginary line, a few hundred metres from shore. Must have been a bitch for navigating, but it creates a perfectly calm lagoon around each island, and protects the beach from the full force of the sea.
It's like these islands have their own geographical ring of confidence. They should be sponsored by Colgate.
A motu is basically a blip in the reef, a tiny island, with a few trees.
The one we went to is just spectacular. It's tiny. You could literally throw a stone across it, from anywhere. It's covered in coconut trees, so I guess you are always in danger of being clocked by one if you are sitting in the wrong place.
More important, the company has a set up a professional BBQ area, bar, and bathrooms.
It's difficult to avoid that whole 'to die for' thing again.
I call it our “gotu motu”. It really can't be missed. You arrive in a small boat (called a tender) that has a fold‑down ramp at the front like a WWII landing craft. It stops a few feet short of the beach, so you will get your feet wet. We were met with a bottle of water and a glass of punch as we waded ashore. Just to our left is a guy standing guard over a floating chilli bin, decorated with palm fronds, and overflowing with alcoholic nirvana. Did I mention that all drinks on this cruise (with a few top shelf exceptions) are free?
I'm sure Dunkirk was nothing like this, but I could definitely see the parallel. I guess some old geezers could come here with their zimmer frames to relive past glory. What a reunion that would be!
Anybody who wants to can borrow snorkel gear from onboard. There were quite a few people on our gotu motu with their faces under water, scudding around in the shallows, letting the current do the driving.
Here’s a cunning plan for any entrepreneurs out there. I can imagine that those doyens of good taste and design who came up with the baseball cap with beer can holders and a hose, could do something with the simple snorkel. Who wants to take that thing out of their mouths to take another swig of beer, or sip of an overly decorated cocktail? All they need to do is some kind of device to switch between breathing air and breathing Mojito.
There could be a bladder, like your mum used to drink her wine out of, strapped to the back of the snorkel, like a water-pillow. Always handy, and keeping the back of your head cool to boot.
As a safety feature, when they pass out through heat exhaustion, (it couldn't possibly be the alcohol), they can float around, face down but still breathing through the snorkel. The salt water keeps them floating pretty high in the water, so they will never sink. At intervals, the tender can drive around and check on all these floaters. If the booze bladder strapped to the back of their neck is empty, then they can use a net or a hook and drag them in for a refill or their wake up call. No more accidental drownings in shallow water.
Brilliant! The best way to mix alcohol and water sports since the invention of the ice cube.
Watch your step, folks. Here comes another bloody segue!
There are two things to know about me. First, I'm colour-blind. Not the Film Noir kind, where everything is in black and white or sepia, but the common or garden type, where there are issues distinguishing between colour groups. Reds, browns, greens. Reds, purples, blues. Basically anything either side of red.
This has two effects. First, when looking at any colour, while you are absolutely sure you know what it is, I am usually guessing. I make my guesses based on experience. For example, once when at school, I was asked to draw a tree. I had a set of colouring pencils, and managed to find the green and brown pencils for the trunk and the leaves. I chose the dark one for the trunk, and the light one for the leaves. Unfortunately, the pencil set had a dark green and a light brown. Doh! Bad example.
The second effect is that I don't see colours that should go together. Look at any colour blindness test and you will see a series of dots that create a pattern, a letter or a number. I can't see most of them. What this means is that most colours blend into the background for me. Except for blue. It must be the only set of rods or cones that perform as advertised. I love blue. I can spot any shade of blue from 100 paces. But I really love bright blues. Cobalt blue is my favouritist.
Now, the second thing about me. While on this cruise, I am reading the biography of Steve Jobs. From early in his career, both he and his machines have had a common tag line. I can easily use that same tagline to describe these islands.
"Insanely Great!"
Looking at these beautiful blue seas, under this beautiful blue sky.
Spec-frickin-tacular.
"Insanely Great!"
Blue, man, blue.
Now, be honest. Wasn’t that a hell of a segue, just to say that I like blue?
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