A Coconut Mystery Solved?
Traveling further down the coast, we are entering the nickel mining area of Grand Terre, and there is no missing that fact. Huge swaths of red earth have been moved as the strip mines cut away the mountains.
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The first mine we pass is at Ugue. Roads can be seen crisscrossing the mountain. There is an ore loading dock for large ships, but there are no ships around. We do spot a little activity. Several pieces of equipment can be seen moving near the loading dock and occasionally we see a truck lumbering down the mountain toward the dock.
Sunday, June 16th – We spent last night tucked behind a reef just over a quarter mile from the coast. There were houses nearby, and we could see and hear people. It seemed like a strange anchorage, but our trusty Rocket Guide said it was much better than the well-protected bay just down the coast. Why? Because the next bay is a mining center, full of noise, moving equipment and red dust that is hard to wash off your boat. Even though we doubted the current validity of those words, we decided not to tempt fate. Ignoring the advice in the guide might have us anchored in front of the only fully operational mine in the area. We anchored behind that reef.
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In the morning we start up and carefully go through a very narrow but quite deep reef passage. In no time, we are motoring by the next bay. It is a mining center all right. The mountain is heavily scarred, but mining equipment is parked neatly along the hillside.
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What we do not see is any sign of activity. No ore freighters waiting, no earth movers crawling, no men working anywhere on anything. We had read that mining was at a standstill, but we had not expected it to be this still. It is a Sunday. Maybe they are closed today, but we had also read that mining was a 24/7 business.
Further down the coast we stop in Baie de Kouro to explore. If we like it, we’ll stay. If not, there are other options further down the coast. As The Captain goes forward to drop the anchor where it was suggested in the guide, he is uneasy about shadows he sees in the water ahead of the boat. Calling off that attempt, he directs The First Mate to reverse so that we can anchor further back. Later, as we dinghy ashore, we are glad we took that precaution. The whole area is a mass of uplifted, keel-snagging coral shallowing quickly as we go to shore.
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Pulling the dinghy almost out of the water, we leave it there, for we know the tide is going out.
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We think we may have answered our question about why so many coconuts laying around on the ground have holes scraped or chewed into them. Who does all that work? Some kind of bug? A coconut-hungry bird? Rats seemed the most plausible answer, but we had never seen any of their kind. In fact, we had never seen anything going on around the coconuts that would explain the holes. Here on this island, maybe we have discovered the culprit.
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CRABS!
Now that may look like a snail shell in the coconut, but the snail is long gone. A small crab found it fit just right and is using the shell for protection.
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What a job that must be! Patiently, slowly, they must scrape through the tough outer shell and then shred the inner layers.
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We saw all shapes and sizes of crab-inhabited shells, for almost every green coconut had an occupant. Talk about bonanza! All that sweet coconut meat for just a few hours (days?) of gnawing and scraping. At least, from our observation, that is how we think the story goes.
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It was a scramble walking along this shoreline in between sandy stretches, sharp-edged rocks and slippery slabs, but it sure was great to be stretching our legs.
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Returning to the dinghy, the tide is further out as we knew it would be. That gave us a challenge with The First Mate trying to direct, The Captain struggling to pole the boat along with an oar, and the flat bottomed dinghy determined to spin rather than go straight. Finally, we got out deep enough to freely drop the outboard into the water and motored on back to Avante.
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Once on board, we decide to head further on down the coast. Enough with all this coral, and the setting isn’t all that pretty anyway. Baie de Canala is a very long bay which our guide somewhat warns us against due to the prevalence of mining works and ore boats, but we definitely have reason to question all that.
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As we enter the bay, the view ahead shows only the mountains and no mining work. We do pass a mining area which appears not to have been worked in years.
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The bay itself is deep and wide with only an easily spotted obstruction called Les Trois Frères. There is no missing them! We motor around them, turn left into Port d’Urville and drop anchor happy with ourselves for having ignored the mine warning in the guide.
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Monday, June 17th, –The weather is forecast to be rainy today giving The Captain reason to declare it a day of rest. Port d’Urville is a delightful spot even though there is no real opportunity for exploration. There is a village of some sort at the end of the bay, but it would take a good 45 minutes in the dinghy just to get to a dock from where we would have a 1 km walk on a flat and straight road to the main road into the village. The walk is not the issue, but using that much fuel is. The land around us offers no hiking possibility. With no trails, forging our way through the tropical bush is no fun. So, it will be a day of working on the blog for her, the log for him and reading for the both. Such is occasionally the life of a cruiser!
Comment (1)
Georgiann Carroll
Loved seeing you on Wednesday. How is the cold? Always enjoy reading your tales of adventure.
The Nickel Mine is the saddest thing I have seen.
I receive the Tucson newspaper online. Just learned that the federal court had overturned the forest service’s approval of an enormous copper mine south and east of Tucson. Reason: It was an open pit mine and all the excavated soil would be to be dumped on a close hillside making it a horrible eyesore for a long distance.
Hugs,
Georgiann