January 8, 2011

Determined to restore my honor I got up at 5:30 to go fishing. I grabbed one of the plastic kayaks and headed for the boulders two islands down the beach. I had made sure to put aside a piece of French bread at dinner yesterday, which would be my bait.

The counterwind was strong and the waves surprisingly high. I kayaked like a hero and got a good morning excercise. I had only put on a bathing short and a t-shirt, so I didn´t care that I was getting completely wet. It stil felt counter-intuituve but I was starting to get used to the fact that wet is not a problem in this climate.

It took me well over 20 minutes to reach my destination.

Catching fish was easy, the small ones took the bread immediately. Once I got a small one I used its flesh as bait and got fish a bit bigger. Just like the Polynesian scouts I could return home safely with the wind in my back. After a morning shower I could proudly show the food I had caught to my dear Jane:

Alas, when I tried to give them away in the kitchen I was turned down. Even though I was told yesterday they eat all the fish here, these fish were an exception. Obviously fish that small didn´t count as fish. Standards were different here than in the Amazon. Oh well, I grabbed some breakfast, determined to do better tomorrow.

At 9am we left on our day excursion organized by the owners of the bed & breakfast. We were joined by three other guests. First we humped and bumped for an hour over the lagoon.

We had all forgotten how bumpy a fast boat ride can be, especially when there are waves.

We arrived at the island of Eden and found a small community we had not expected to find on Tikehau:

In 1997 a self-proclaimed prophet, Elijah Hong, came here from Taiwan (just like the Polynesians). He is the leader of an obscure sect called the NTC (New Testament Church). It has its roots in the Pentecostal Church and was started by a Hong Kong movie actress, Kong Duen-Yee after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer in the 1960s.

They are basically luddites and follow the age-old idea that modern technology is a bad thing and that we need to get back to nature. Elijah Hong travelled around to search for a place to start their Eden Homestead project in 1997. When he came to Tikehau he said that he felt that God meant that this was the place. They then purchased a motu and here they live off the land in cooperation with nature.

They claim to have around 5000 members of the sect world-wide. Their goal is quite ambitious: “The ultimate goal is to terminate the systems of the human kingdoms, end the history of men, accomplish God’s plan of salvation, usher in the new heaven and new earth, and bring all creation into the perfect realm of Eden to enjoy God’s commanded blessings.” Somehow I was glad these people did not believe in active conversion of others nor had weapons of mass destruction.

We were shown around by one of the permanent residents here. Ha had lived here since 1998.

He told us they were only 5 permanent residents and the 5 of them do almost all the agricultural work. They get visitors, sect members, from all over the world on a regular basis. Often they have children here on a kind of camp.

It was impressive what they have managed to do on a coral island. They had many different kinds of vegetables and fruits.

They made their own salt from seawater

They also made their own fertilizer by fermenting fish, which seemed to work well. They had pigs and chickens

Everything was clean and in good condition. Actually I have never before been to a place with chickens and/or pigs which smelled as little as here.

Even though it was back to nature they seemed to accept modern inventions like nylon cord, concrete, metal plates, plastic sheets and metal cooking ware. Their income to purchase these came from a steady food surplus which they sold to the inhabitants of Tikehau. In fact we had had excellent pork meat during lunch yesterday which came from here.

Some of the visiting sect children were making beehives. Iseline didn´t understand their purpose, until we mentioned that she had seen them at Hal´s place, then she lightened up:

This is their main meeting area:

There were posters on the wall in the front. Where do you want to be?

We went back to our boat. The harbor they have built looks very nice. It was completely destroyed by the cyclone which hit Tikehau a year ago and they had rebuilt everything.

This is where the permanent residents live, not completely back to nature, I guess:

Our next stop was bird island, a small island inside the lagoon which the birds have completely taken over.

The boat stopped by the reef around the island and we walked ashore.

Wow. What a place. This was the kingdom of the birds and they acted like we were not there. There were nests everywhere.

 

Next we went over to an uninhabited motu and had a beach to ourselves

We had brought the underwater casing for the camera and Adrian took some good photos with it:

As you can see there were many sharks around us. Self-portrait:

Lunch was being prepared

Great meal!

Adrian and I fished some small fish using bread and fed them to the sharks afterwards. Leftover from dinner was also thrown to the sharks. There must be around 20 sharks in the water on this photo:

Sharks here are protected since they are threatened by extinction. It is actually difficult to fish using pieces of fish as bait since the sharks try to take the bait all the time.

The sharks were not afraid at all and would come very close to the shore to get the food we tossed to them. At one point Hervé (he is the owner of the bed & breakfast business) managed to grab one by the tail and gave us a photo-op before releasing it again:

We humped and bumped our way back. Iseline had been a bit afraid on the way out, but this time she discovered she could stand in the front, feel the wind and sea-spray and have a good time. She did.

Not a soul was dry when we arrived.

Eirik

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