Tikopia is a very remote island (see www.kunayacht.blogspot.com for more details on my stay there. I spent two weeks anchored with the KUNA while BBC crew were filming on Anuta island, 75 miles away. Very few yachts get to visit (10 in the last 8 years) and so my arrival was greeted by extreme excitement. When the kids saw me arriving in the yellow kayak, the were jumping laughing and screaming and I did not even have the chance to jump out that they were already carrying the kayak 30 m in the lagoon, in a big splash of water!
In less than 10 second, the Komodo, now a single kayak, was carried up the beach by 20 kids into a shady spot covered with leaves (one cockpit was removed and left in Lata to make space for more camera gear in the KUNA).
The kids learned very quickly how to unclip the break down paddles and while I went to visit the chief, a plethore of them stayed near the canoe. What an attraction!!
Everyday, at the time of my visit, they would gather on the beach to help. Here they are helping me crossing the canoe above one fish drive wall (a coral stone wall that helps them drive and catch the fish into a funnel where they place their nets or wait with spears)
On Tikopia, traditional dug out canoes are very valuable and the only mode of transport as no motor canoes are allowed on the island (chief order). The tikopian have enough building material to afford building canoe houses along the beach, to protect their canoe, and insisted I parked mine in too!!
With a single cockpit, I could not transport my crew Patrick onshore, so we even used some reliable pikinini to shuffle the canoe for us. He loved it and was very proud!
Only one or two resupply ship visit per year (if they are lucky) so Tikopians have no opportunity to spend money on petrol. Cash they have very little of anyhow, being so far from civilisation. So they use the wind, which is great on the flat waters of the sheltered side of the island. They also use their canoes in the lake and I would have like to go exploring there with the komodo but the heavy weather did not allow travelling far inthe exposed side of the lagoon
