Commodore
January 29, 2021

Great snorkelling at Endeavour Bay

It was a very early start as Rowan had organised in the fishing village to go diving with a local diver, they arranged a pick up from PolePole at 6:30am. They had appeared quite casual and certainly ran to island time only arriving at 7:30am. Three rather dubious characters arrived in their wooden boat, the first sign that things were going wrong was when they asked for our tanks. Lack of communication, they thought we had tanks and just wanted to go out on a fishing boat diving for lobster. They persuaded Rowan and Phoebe they could still snorkel and see good things so the two of them went off. Twenty minutes later they were back. It was a complete joke, they had sped off into the middle of the ocean, where the guy jumped over to dive for lobster. Rowan said the depth was at least 40m and there was nothing to see. They demanded to come home, so that was the end of their diving excursion!

Sunrise with the full moon at 6am

We tried in vain to hire a Mule but apparently there isn’t a single one to be had on the island. We were actually very happy to walk as we need the exercise. It just meant walking with all our snorkelling gear. We went over to Endeavour Bay with me promising Phoebs we could get lunch at the cafe there. Sadly we discovered when we got there that a couple of cases of Covid on the island has closed the cafe . It was however another lovely beach and we had a magnificent snorkel over good coral and saw a fish we have never seen before, a flying Gunard, it has huge wings that it flaps about. We also spotted some big barracuda, and had a lovely swim with a turtle. We took advantage of the cafe’s sun loungers and enjoyed the afternoon there.

We were just leaving when we spotted a couple from Virgin days, Gordon McCullum took over Rowan’s role as head of corporate development when Rowan started Virgin Money. We had a few holidays at Necker Island with them when the kids were babes, very interesting for us all to meet our grown up children. They have had a house here for 12 years and are extending their stay here because of the UK lockdown. They have invited us to supper tomorrow which will be fun to get the inside scoops of the island.

Gorgeous blossom on these gnarly old trees

Island school

The famous Cottonwood hotel sadly all closed

Endeavour bay with great snorkelling

Phoebs got a lift home as her knee is hurting, Rowan and I did a very pleasant walk back. We passed the islands only church made out of bamboo, lovely and airy. We passed the statue of Glenconner at the top of the hill, the man who bought and founded the concept of the island. An eccentric volatile character who had great vision. Further up the hill we came across an enormous sculpture of some mating tortoises! The island has hundreds of tortoises, everywhere you look there are ambling tortoises, enjoying the manicured lawns in particular. We have decided we needed a bit of clean living after all our meals out, so salads on board with no sundowners!