June 2, 2019
Unlike all the other places I’ve been so far, Nuie is chilly.
Still, nothing like in Canada. This is the cold season and the nights are as warm as Nova Scotian summer afternoons. In November-December we would think zero to three degrees Celsius was warm and took off our coats to play. But me being in the sweltering range for most for so long has gotten me accustomed to it.
Nuie is a beautiful island. It’s mainly limestone and as limestone slowly dissolves with contact with water, there are multiple caves and underwater tunnels. Yesterday we went swimming at the Limu Pools. Pools might be misleading. When someone says pools you might think of small freshwater lakes next to each other. God forbid you are thinking of a man-made pool filled with Clorine. The Limu Pools were saltwater, for one thing, connected to a channel to the sea, and very enjoyable. There was a small scattering of reefs around the edges. The water was warm, but colder than other islands. The last island’s water temperature we went to was said to be like (I didn’t swim myself, Pavel likes swimming more, and I dislike snorkeling most days.), you would jump in and when you got out you felt the same before you jumped in. The water here was refreshing.
Today we went on a tour. Most of it could have been noteworthy, but was something that I’m just too young to appreciate. We swam at two places. The first was on the tour, this valley filled with water (kind of like a fjord), that was a medley of fresh and saltwater. It was cold at first because the sweetwater (fresh) was colder than the saltwater, and fresh is light so it stays on top like oil on water even though both liquids are water.
At home our babysitter has a beach at her house that we swim at often during the summer. It is near a river so during the summer it was bearable to swim in. The freshwater was warmer than the saltwater.
Just like we are in a different Hemisphere (southern, the reverse of the northern,) the water is too.
We had fun there and eventually the tour was over.
All the kids (except the three kids from Charm,) grouped up at the crane. The crane is important as the tides and corals make it impossible to just tie up to. So you use this crane-like mechanism to lift your dinghy in a parking lot. There wasn’t much you could do with the crane, two buttons on the control panel worked (up and down), and you used a rope to swing it side to side. So we all had the genius idea to swing on the rope. We probably played for an hour, just jumping off/swinging off the warf.
Eventually a riptide-like current arrived like it always does and we couldn’t swim anymore and we all went home.
Farewell,
Catherine from
Rubicon IV