Even with dozens of South Pacific visions dancing in my head, my own island still dazzles. During a Lanikai beach walk at dawn last week — the first since my return — I watched great frigate birds and red-footed booby birds glide over my head, tripped over ghost crab sand pyramids and nodded hello to a dozen Homo sapiens come to marvel at sunrise on Oahu. Home rocks don’t get better than that.
Nor does my email. Because I was using a satellite phone program while sailing, I was unable to access my usual email and therefore came back to a treasure trove of comments from readers regarding my Pacific voyaging.
Thank you, everyone, for taking the time to offer encouragement, share stories and gently point out errors.
The mistakes that got the most attention were my misspellings of the place name Tuamotu and the wind force measurement Beaufort, as in the Beaufort scale.
My apologies to motu residents (a motu in French Polynesia is an island inside an atoll’s coral reef) and to Sir Francis Beaufort, the British Royal Navy officer who created the 12-category wind- and sea-state scale.
Another email topic among readers was questioning the lack of photos in my South Pacific columns.
When my underwater camera stopped working, Craig brought with him to the Marquesas a new waterproof Nikon CoolPix that I carried with me on every snorkeling occasion. It took fine pictures, but I couldn’t send them because my sat phone sends text only.
That’s another joy in being home. I can now share my favorite Tuamotu photos of a fish and a worm.
The fish is the 5-foot-long black-tipped reef shark that grazed my belly with its dorsal fin as it swam beneath me. The Christmas tree worm was one of hundreds that looked trimmed for a holiday, including its purple “hat,” the creature’s trap door called an operculum.
Besides enjoying Oahu’s reefs and beaches this week, I’m also loving my home office, where high-speed Internet sends pictures in a heartbeat and spell-checking is automatic.
Thank you, kind readers, for the warm welcome home.
———
Reach Susan Scott at www.susanscott.net.
