Saturday 17 January – our predicted sunny day turns into a huge squall

We had a breakfast, and because the forecast was meant to be a nice day, Rowan was itching to get going for a snorkel as soon as we had finished eating. I was just getting ready when I said to him I didn’t like the look of the dark clouds in the distance. I established it was coming towards us, we agreed to let it go by. It was a huge squall that got bigger and bigger as it rushed towards us. We got the awning down just in time and saw the wind peak at 35 knots, the water got whipped up into big waves, amazing how fast it all happens. It lasted much longer than anticipated with loads of rain. We abandoned snorkelling as the sun never really came out again until late afternoon.

We needed to stretch our legs so late afternoon we headed to the little town a few islands away. There were big waves pounding their beach, very sadly it looks like their island is sinking. Many buildings look perilously close to falling into the sea. Parts of the main street has been eroded, they’ve put rudimentary sea defences in place, a line of sticks, but I’m not convinced it will last that long. We could see via the satellite maps that there must have been a big resort on the island, it has all been totally abandoned and overgrown. The kids who we had given biscuits to along the way did not follow us into the area area. There were some signs up but of course we could not read it, nor communicate with anyone, so we walked a little way round the island, I found it a little spooky. We turned around and walked the other way through the town. It is very neat and tidy with some lovely gardens, really baffling why they have such a problem with litter. The whole way back we picked up the wrappers from the biscuits we had bought the kids, just zero comprehension when we tried to get them to pick the wrappers up. Their school also looked very neat and tidy, with loads of kids about, but not at school on a Saturday. The town has one paved road with houses either side most the way around the island, but never more than one house deep into the island. I hate to think what a Tsunami would do here, judging from the 3 enormous volcanoes nearby, it is not so unlikely.

Back to PolePole for the most magnificent sunset, going from bright orange to dark pink, it didn’t look real.