Aitutaki is the second most visited of the Cook Islands, and it’s completely different than Rarotonga. It’s more lagoon than island, with a land area of less than seven square miles compared to the lagoon of 29 square miles.
That’s a lot of lagoon.
There are no eroded volcanic peaks, just a range of low hills with the highest point less than 400 feet. You can drive from one side of the main island to the other in less than ten minutes. In addition to the main island, there are 15 islets called motus.
From the summit of the highest hill, you can see much of the island and lagoon.
Polynesians from Tahiti probably settled Aitutaki in about 900 AD. The first European contact was on April 11, 1789, when the Bounty, under command of Captain Bligh, stopped there prior to the mutiny. During WWII, American troops built an airfield on the north end of the island, in case the war spread further east. It never did, but the airfield, much improved, is still in use.
From 1940 to the 1960, Aitutaki lagoon was a refueling stop for TEAL (Tasman Empire Airways Limited, the forerunner of Air New Zealand) flying boats on the famous Coral Route.
The only reminder of those days is the remains of a jetty where passengers and cargo were disembarked.
The Coral Route connected New Zealand to FIji, Samoa, the Cooks, and Tahiti, with connections to the Pan Am China Clipper service to San Francisco. It was one of the world's last long-range scheduled international flying boat services.
I have always loved these beautiful aircraft and was interested to see the bit of their history that remains.
If Rarotonga resembled the Hawaii of fifty years ago, Aitutaki is like Rarotonga must have been twenty years ago. Its population is only about 2,000. While facilities for tourism are reasonably well-developed, the numbers of tourists is still rather small. The result is a laid-back, uncrowded paradise with good food and good accommodations. I loved it.
I stayed at Rino's Motel. My room was on the second floor, right side of the picture.
The motel is a bit old and funky, but quite clean and comfortable. And it's right on the beach. I saw some awesome sunsets from my balcony.
And from the beach.
I had to share the beach with hundreds of these little red-clawed crabs.
The Cook Islands offer only limited economic opportunities for the locals. Aitutaki's population is dwindling as young people move to New Zealand and Australia in search of a better life, or at least a more lucrative one. It's sad to see many abandoned houses in the villages.
I was surprised to see every lot well manicured. They are mowed regularly to help keep down the mosquito population. The goats do their part, too, of course. Also, most yards feature a stylish shipping container. These are used for storage or sometimes extra living space.
In spite of the island's place in aviation history, many of the locals have religious objections to flying on Sunday, or indeed any sort of commerce on the sabbath. Liquor sales are forbidden on Sunday and most businesses and restaurants are closed, too. When I went out looking for dinner on Sunday, there were only two restaurants open on the island, and only one store.
There is only one dive operator on Aitutaki: Bubbles Below. We met at their home office, and they shuttled us to the harbor in the boat by tractor, because their truck had a flat tire.
I had two good dives with them. The coral was rather disappointing, but the sea life wasn't. We saw pipefish mating, were followed by a giant Napoleon wrasse, spotted a posse of eagle rays, and disturbed the slumber of at least a dozen large hawksbill turtles.
The divemaster took GoPro footage, but could only provide it to me on DVD. Since my MacBook Air doesn't have a DVD drive, I'll have to wait until I get home to post the video. Stay tuned.
I was skeptical about taking the lagoon cruises that were advertised everywhere. They seemed too crowded and more than a little tacky, but the lagoon snorkeling I was able to do off the beach was not very interesting, unless you are thrilled by the sight of hundreds of sea cucumbers lying inert on the sand, so I decided to sign up.
It turns out that the best snorkeling is not around the main island, but out in the more remote parts of the lagoon. I found a cruise operator that takes only small tours: Teking. Their boat holds a maximum of ten people. There were seven on my cruise.
We started by visiting the most remote of the motus: Maina and Honeymoon Island.
The snorkeling was amazing. None of the sites are more than about 15 feet deep, and most are substantially shallower. The water is exceptionally clear and warm.
We first snorkeled around the wreck of an old freighter that sank in a storm in the 1950s. The waters around the boat were crowded with giant trevallies and Napoleon wrasse. As we jumped in, they swam past us repeatedly. From the surface, they looked like big fish. From underwater, they were enormous and rather intimidating-150 pounds of fast-moving, hungry-looking muscle.
Back in the boat, we found out why the were hanging around when the captain tossed them a bucket of chum. Watch what happened then.
Next, we returned to Maina where we enjoyed a delicious barbeque: grilled tuna steaks, eggplant, and breadfruit accompanied by plenty of ripe papayas and bananas.
After lunch, we cruised to our second snorkel spot: a giant clam farm. Aitutaki lagoon used to be teeming with coral and sea life. Unfortunately, in the 1950s and early 60s, a few Europeans decided that the island would be the perfect place grow fruit for the New Zealand market. The native plants were cleared and the slopes of the now-bare hills were planted with oranges, pineapples , and tomatoes. In order to maximize yields, the crops were sprayed with the miracle chemicals of the day: herbicides like Paraquat to keep down the weeds, fertilizers, and pesticides.
Aitutaki is a very small island, so the residue from all those chemicals got flushed immediately into the lagoon, killing much of the coral and fish life. And since there were little or no controls on how the chemicals were used, the island saw a spike in cancers and other chemically-caused health problems among the native population.
Luckily, this agricultural experiment proved to be unprofitable, the foreign crops were removed, and the island began slowly to recover. The giant clam farm is a part of a poorly-funded, but important effort to restore the reef. The clams are huge indeed; some are over three feet from side to side. I remember seeing movies as a kid where divers would get their arms caught the closing shell and drown, so it was great seeing so many of these colorful monsters close up.
The last snorkel spot was a patch of purple coral. Most of the coral here is hard coral and is fairly monochrome. This coral looks royal blue from a distance, but changes to a deep purple as you get closer. the area is also home to hundreds of colorful fishes of many different species.
One Foot Island is a major stop on the lagoon tours. The story is that a man and his son were fishing in waters claimed by another tribe. Chased by that tribe's warriors, father and son paddled furiously to a small motu. Gaining the land ahead of their pursuers, the father instructed his son to hide in a thorn tree. The father then walked in the son's footsteps to create a single trail and lead the warriors away from his son's hiding place. The father was killed, but his son survived, and since then, the motu has been called One Foot Island.
I definitely recommend the lagoon tour.
The next day, I decided to find out more about the lagoon reclamation effort, so I visited the Aitutaki Marine Research Centre.
It was rather less grand than I was expecting.
There was no one around, so I wandered through. It was quite interesting, but I wish there had been someone around to answer my many questions.
The shallow tanks were full of giant clams in various stages of development.
These mature specimens were about two-and-a-half feet wide.
While the babies ranged from less than an inch to about six inches wide.
The colors are exceptionally vivid, almost electric in intensity.
It took me a bit to adjust to the slow pace of Aitutaki. For most of the trip to this point, I have always had things to do. Here I had a chance, once I'd done the lagoon tour and diving, to just be for a few days. It was a harder transition than I would have thought. I'm usually pretty good at just relaxing, but I found that I was restless, wanting to get on with, well, something, anything.
Once I recognized this, I was able to let it go and sink into a couple days of just being alive and in paradise.
It turns out that Aitutaki is a wonderful place to just do that.
P.
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