Following up after a long weekend, Mr. Moore eased our worries about Rush Hour on Tristan da Cunha.
…Don’t be upset – the rush hour is a bit of a joke. Although there are now about 100 cars on the island, there is no such thing as 2 cars on a road at the same time.
The island truly is an amazing place. The scenery is beautiful, the people are courteous and friendly (and shy), [and] it is a wonderful environment in which to grow up and live…
Rick Moore, in an email to Open Source, July 4th, 2006
Some of us here are a tad obsessed with the lovely and mysterious Tristan da Cunha. We’d like to know if you have any tiny-place-obsessions. Have tiny Micronesia or endless Fiji always enchanted you, or is your dream-place a hidden pastry shop on a river in Southern Holland? Did you discover an island in a National Geographic in the sixth grade and keep to yourself all of these years? Are you still, perhaps, holding on to the hope that one day you’ll drop it all and book a one-way cruise ship ticket to get there?
Rangiroa is the farthest away from civilization that we could manage (so far). Rangiroa is part of French Polynesia, the Tuamotu Archipelago an hour’s flight from Tahiti. Basically it’s a submerged volcano with a lagoon 16 by 42 miles.You arrive on the more developed strip of coral and sand and there you might stay but we took a little putt putt motor boat with an awning across the top the 16 or so miles to stay on a very tiny strip of sand (a motu) across the lagoon. There you live very primitively ( a la sauvage) but for that, in some style as well. No electricity, very gracious hosts, “home cooking” -five huts and a main dining hut (built out of a lot of coconut) for a maximum of 10 folks. When we went, there were only 5 of us: one interesting lone Italian traveler and a couple from Alaska. After a kerosene lamp lit dinner, one of our hosts (the one who brought us across and speared our fish dinners) sang the local songs strumming a banjo type instrument, his pal joining in. The music of French Polynesia I find joyful and calming and even infectious. You take it away with you as the spirit of the place as much as the openness, warmth of the inhabitants and afterimages of the land and seascape.
At night we were given our own freshly filled oil lamps to find our way to our lamp lit “porches� with their hammocks.We slept in scrupulously tucked mosquito net covered beds.
No roads of course, no cars. Too small, you can walk everywhere. Sand. Hammocks to sink into here and there, plenty of breeze to catch while Jeremy went harpooning for dinner. We swam and snorkeled amongst smaller harmless sharks… went on hikes… boated over ( Jeremy again) to other strips of sand and hiked there. The sun beat down on us unmercifully. J went up a carefully selected coconut tree, hacked us some green coconuts, cut them open for a welcome (and delicious) drink.
It was kind of scary to be so far away. That was farthest we had ever been from the trappings of civilization… so quiet. You stare at the horizon. Then you look down at the tiny things, or close your eyes and listen to the water.
It was a memorable few days, but I don’t know if I could take a very long stretch of it. I would go back though in a flash. (What a trek though!)
I forgot to say that at night we looked up at an immense southern sky, noticing the constellations.
Before this thread get submerged
Check this animation out on Wikipedia about how an atoll is formed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atoll