Maamalni - Suwarrow # 4: Did Hitchcock Visit? Could de Laurenti capture the es

As this is a National Park, it is required that the caretaker accompany any visitor to the outer islands. This had been made a requirement when after some unaccompanied visits, hundreds of dead birds were found without a natural explanation. Fortunately this was not a hardship as John has an intimate knowledge and palpable love of the archipelago and its marine and land eco-system. He took groups out to some of the outer islands for bird watching and of course to various snorkeling spots.

When it became our turn, John took us to Turtle Island, which was about 2 ½ miles west inside the lagoon by dinghy. We anchored off the coral beach and waded ashore and were allowed to wander along the beach where hundreds of thousands of birds were nesting and flying about. They would alight like swarms of grasshoppers literally filling the sky with flapping wings and shrieks of bird noises. Left protected under the branches of the scrub brush were the newly hatched chicklets all flouncing about in their dresses of down and mouths wide open screaming for a something to eat. We were agog with the number of these little flightless downy critters all shouting for their moms. We waded along shallow tide pools and could even walk along the reef line on the outside shore as the waves broke into the lagoon. There is no way that a camera can possibly capture the colors of the reef, the lagoon, surf and tide pools. What an experience!

After this, John took us to one of his favorite snorkeling spots that turned out to be one of the most beautiful underwater gardens we have ever seen. There had to be 50 varieties of coral - brain coral, tree coral, branch coral, feather coral, fire coral, black coral, cabbage coral all combining into magnificent monumental coral heads - No prize winning multi layer garden of the land can hold a candle to this stunner! Add to this the tremendous variety of color, white, orange, red, yellow, purple,
green, scarlet, blue and emerald. This must be the place that Mr. Pantone developed his color chart. And the coral was simply bursting with life forms with lively reef fish darting in and out of their protective locations. Suzan exclaimed that this was the best diving she has ever done - and she has been a lot of places!