The reef islands: forested and heavily populated islands with several lagoons to go exploring...
After a fast sail to the Reef islands, some low-laying coral atolls displaying some limestone cliffs, we anchored the Kuna on a shallow bommie with the intention of only staying for a few hours. Sadly, because this island group would be great kayaking country! I had to go ashore to sched with Taumako island, our filming destination, 70 miles further east. So the easy way was to just launch one half kayak, which paddled quite well despite being a bit unstable.
The face of people looking at me landing with HALF a canoe is always funny. Not only it is bright yellow, made of plastic but it takes unusual shapes too!!
A day later, we arrived on Taumako island, we were received with traditional dances, flowers and speeches. And the Komodo of course got quite a bit of attention!
Due to lack of time (yes, filming deadlines!) it was easier to transport the komodo two halves in the motor canoe to get to the island. I later assembled it to return to the KUNA.
I deployed my komodo sail and was able to sail around the island in the 1m meter deep lagoon. Great sailing on flat waters and the front of the canoes was used to carry various cargo: bananas and a fishing buoy which I later used as an anchor buoy for the Kuna. The self tacking sail was brilliant: I did not need to control it from the back cockpit. And when it was time to pack up I just luffed into the wind and crawled at the front to retrieve it!
Better than the local traditional sail made of one coconut branch!!!
Our aim on Taumako was to film the Te Puke canoes, traditional sailing canoes that the islanders used to navigate between islands. They are rigged with an amazing claw shape sail made out of pandanis fibers weaved together by hand.
We also got the chance to shoot a little bit of kayaking underwater video!
No comments:
Post a Comment