I would not have anticipated it, but local animals were a big part of what we loved about Rarotonga. They were usually friendly, often adorable, and always entertaining. There were many dogs and cats around, especially on the beach. They didn't seem to belong to anyone, but they also looked well-fed and quite pleased with their lives on the beach, so it must work out. Add to that the native and tropical creatures, and it was fabulous.
J made friends with this cat at one of the beach restaurants we went to. Or at least, he thought they were friends. I'm pretty sure the cat just knew a sucker when he saw one, and plopped down in the chair, confident she was about to get a free meal. She serenely ignored J's many assertions that he wouldn't pet her until she jumped down from the chair, which was clearly the right decision, as he completely caved.
No one, least of all the cat, was surprised when he also then caved on his resolution not to give her any food. J is not usually much of a push-over, but cats are his weakness.
This is not an impressive picture of this enormous crab, but I couldn't resist including it. That narrow hole is at least ten feet through solid rock with ocean underneath, and I found it at the end of our quad tour. Everyone came over to look, and even the local tour guide said he'd never seen a crab that big. Can you see it? It's on the lowest curve of the hole in the picture, and it's got red legs and a purple-ish body.
Here is an up close image (thanks, Google) of what it looked like, although I'm not sure I found exactly the right kind. But that's the basic idea.
Speaking of crabs, we rescued this little guy from the tiled outdoor area of our hotel's restaurant, worried that she might be stepped on. We were entertained by the rather devious-looking smiley face on her back.
Little did we know, they do a Crab Race event as one of their activities, where they let go lots of hermit crabs and see which one gets to the outside of the rope circle first. It started just a few minutes after we saved our crab, and we were a bit concerned for the crabs' welfare. People were pretty nice about picking them up and putting them back in the bucket when they were done, and we were mostly willing to see it as pretty nonthreatening. But then they did it again, and this time they also had little crabs like the one we'd saved, and they run much faster than hermit crabs.
This meant that they ran further away from the rope circle and up through the restaurant, and then ran into stairs and couldn't figure out where to go. Meanwhile, people are walking around and eating their dinner, and the crabs' shells are not hard enough to protect them from getting stepped on on stone tiles.
The waiting staff were mostly careful and gently nudged the crabs away, and I only saw one get stepped on, but I, and many of the children, were very concerned for their safety. The Crab Race coordinator said they would find their own way back to the beach, but we weren't convinced, and another man showed us how to pick them up without hurting them or being pinched, so we went to work saving them. One boy, about 9 years old, was particularly determined, and we started chatting as we went back and forth with our rescued crabs. He told me how scared they must be, especially as they probably knew that people here love to eat seafood. Then, as we were finishing, he said, "You notice how it's only children who are helping? That's because when they grow up, they'll get used to stuff like this." I try not to get too worked up over tragedies like this one (so that I can continue to function), but when he said that I only just managed not to burst into tears and freak the poor kid out. Maybe it's naive of me, but I think people of all ages should care about tiny crabs.
On a much less heartbreaking note, this was my favourite of the many wandering chickens we met on the island. Look at the beautiful colours and patterns on her feathers! She was hoping I was a pushover like J and would share my fries, but despite the impressive power of her stare (she's glaring at my fries in this picture), I did not cave.
There were also a great many beautiful roosters around the island. A local lady we met told us that they don't belong to anyone, so if you catch one, you can keep it. We decided not to try.
It's hard to see, due to great camouflage, but right in the middle of this branch is a native lizard called a moko. Its tail is up, and its head is down. Click on the picture to make it bigger if that helps.
We also saw one enjoying the warmth inside this light on a cooler night. It was great to watch him crawling around in there!
One day, while J was taking a nap and I was on our balcony, I saw this beautiful little cat wandering around the garden. He was obviously young and enjoying exploring, trying climbing various plants and jumping on everything. I took this picture to show to J, knowing he'd fall in love.
Then, out of nowhere, a bigger cat came and attacked him! It got him on his back and fur was flying everywhere, and then he got away and bolted full speed up a towering coconut tree! Can you see him way up there? As soon as he got to the top, he looked down and got worried, meowing piteously and looking around for a way down. I woke J up, and then went to the bottom of the tree while J got dressed to come help. I tried calling the cat to climb down, and while he ignored me, a hotel worker heard me and called him by name (Charlie). He must have known her voice, because he started edging slowly down. I stayed under in case he fell, but he did very well and got all the way down by the time J got there. He was limping a little when he ran away, but we think it might have been muscle fatigue rather than injury. Poor little guy!
This beautiful lady was my best buddy in Rarotonga. She reminded both J and I of our dog, Holly, both in the shape of her face and in her personality, which was friendly and affectionate. And isn't she gorgeous!?
She accompanied me on many of my beach walks, and was as fascinated as I was by the many delights to be found in the shallow water. Also, I don't think I've ever seen a corgi-lab mix, which is what we think she was, and so her short legs were continually surprising and adorable.
One day I found her looking like she'd fallen asleep halfway through digging a hole in the sand.
Another day, I found a bit of shade behind a rock and laid down to relax, and she came and laid her head on my hand and went to sleep. I think we might be soul-mates. When we went snorkeling later on and I left my towel on the beach, she sat next to it the whole time we were in the water, and was there waiting for cuddles when we got back. It made us really miss Holly, but it was so nice!
So, speaking of the delights to be found in shallow water, check out this sea snake I found. And by found, I mean almost stepped on and then almost knocked over my dog friend jumping out of the water when I saw it. It was surprisingly unfazed by this, and hung out for a while so I could admire it and show it to some other explorers.
That same day, being much more careful of where I stepped, I also spotted this eel, and was just fast enough to snap a picture before it hid. It was quite cool, though.
We also saw lots of impressively vivid blue starfish. This was one of the smaller ones, as the bigger ones were further out, where I didn't take my phone. They were all stunning.
Here concludes my pictures of animals, and I again have Google to thank for the rest of these pictures. We didn't take or buy any form of underwater camera, but these photos are probably better than what we could have taken anyway. We learned that we know almost nothing about the names of tropical fish, but by combining our memories and Googling abilities when we got back, I believe that we now have names and pictures for our most frequent and/or favourite fish we saw while snorkeling. We also know almost nothing about them, and this post in unreasonably long already, so I'm mostly just going to share their names.
Bicolour Parrotfish
Bluefish Trevally (assumedly related to the Giant Trevally we saw)
Butterfly Fish (two of these were best friends with J and followed him around for an entire snorkeling session)
Lion Fish (very poisonous - we didn't see them while snorkeling, but in tide pools in the barrier reef)
Lagoon Trigger Fish (I loved these because we saw babies and parents and they were exact replicas of each other, just differing in size)
Box Fish
Sea cucumber (not exciting, but we saw about a million, so they should be included)
I would apologize for this post becoming so very long, but I can't, because looking at amazing animals never gets old. You're just lucky I didn't also include a million pictures of our dragons (Guinea pigs). But don't worry, you'll get more posts about them in due time. More on Rarotonga next week, though.
No comments:
Post a Comment