Camping at Ant

Camping, a time to experience the great outdoors, well I have experienced it, and now that it is over, shall we move on? Why exactly do we do this to ourselves? We want to rough it, see how far we can really push ourselves. I’m sure that you all have been on a camping trip before, perhaps you aren’t much of a camper, which is fine…you don’t have to be. But for those that like to read, sit back and relax while I entertain you with this weekends events.

Friday morning I awoke earlier than usual. I had gone to bed late, but I knew that in order to be ready to go, I had to be up at 5:55 a.m. My list was long, but I slowly checked everything off. I was done with 30 minutes to spare and I was rather proud of that fact. I lugged my gear down to the little thatched hut to wait for the yellow truck to come back. I talked to Raymond and we both waited. About 30 minutes later the truck bounced into view. Rusty suddenly appeared out of no where, he and Raymond took charge…Rusty is funny in that way…he is a great guy, always taking charge…which is probably a good thing, cause usually most of us don’t have any idea what is really going on. Once the truck was loaded, all of us piled in, actually we kinda had to squeeze in…there were so many bags, buckets, water jugs, and snorkel stuff packed into the back of the truck…made me wonder what the rest of the trip was going to be like.

Whenever we go anywhere in the boats there is always a decision to be made. Which boat to ride in and who do I want to drive the boat? Actually I don’t really care…the small boat is really fun, but harder to handle and more dangerous then the big boat when in deep and choppy water. But as usual the choice was made for me…I would be riding on the smaller boat. I sat down on the bottom of the boat, I had to smile…I was sitting on top of a yellow and a white boogie board…see my parents weren’t thrilled that I was going camping on an island roughly five miles from the main island of Pohnpei…I mean I could totally see their point…it was a crazy idea…I told my dad that I would keep a boogie board next to me just in case…and what do you know, my seat was made up of boogie boards.
Our driver was Mikey (Mr. B’s son), he usually drives the small boat, Mr. B is always looking out for the little boat, you can always see him looking back to see how the smaller boat is doing. Maggie and I were seated on the boogie boards (I was telling Maggie scary stories about how big the waves were going to be outside the reef and how the small boat was going to act out in the big waves) Amy and Becky were perched on the sides of the boat…they were facing each other, Joan was front and center sitting on a bucket, Mark was sitting next to Mikey and he spent the entire trip staring at the floor, his baseball cap was pulled way down over his eyes…as salt water drenched him at every bounce of the boat. As we neared the open water we began to situate ourselves…Joan called Raz and told him a few things…then Becky, Amy, and Joan joined Maggie and I on the floor. We tried to situate the luggage in the front, but then we made the front to heavy and had to move things back farther. When we hit the waves our little boat bucked and bounced about. Joan yelled out to us “This is when you start praying!” the wind caught her words and swirled away into the open sea. We saw Mr. B way ahead….he was waiting for us…when we slid up next to his boat Mr. B climbed on and Mikey clambered over to the bigger boat. Joan informed us that the smaller boat was more likely to bounce around wildly or even flip in choppy water; Maggie whimpered slightly from the salt stinging her eyes and curled up next to Joan on the floor. I looked over at Amy who was turning positively green…it didn’t take too long before she was curled up in a ball…throwing up into a plastic bag. Mr. B continued to steer our little boat through the waves; the waves really weren’t that bad, yes we bounced and slammed down a wave or two, but the waves were rather small considering how big they were when we went to black coral. But as we rounded Ant, the water changed and became a lot smoother and less bumpy. We enjoyed looking at the amazing blue water and the pretty island.
Once inside the channel we were able to take a good look at the brilliant blue water and the coral underneath…There are many islands that make up Ant, their width is small, but their length is long, the islands are in a circle and where there is no island to continue the circle there is coral…it seems that an underwater volcano made these little chain of islands. The island that we camped on was small, but very nice. The sand wasn’t soft, but it was sand…and certainly something that we don’t see a lot of on the main island. Becky and I wandered with are gear to find a nice place to camp, we found a little clearing in the trees that besides the abundance of coconuts and sharp coral would make a great place to set up camp. Becky and I don’t have much knowledge in setting up tarps, we both had different ideas, my idea was to make it tent shaped so that the water (when it rained) would just run off. Becky wanted to lace the two tarps together, but something about that idea just didn’t seem to quite work in my mind. We tried a lot of different things, then I spied Gene and called him over to help us, he had set up his tarp and we definitely needed the help of someone who knew what he was doing. With the help of Gene and Raymond’s machete our camp site was set up.
Gene and I were talking in front of my campsite when I noticed something about a foot long swimming around in the water. It took about 10 seconds to register what it was, a reef shark! It was a baby black tip reef shark and it was so cute and little. We watched it swim in the shallow water and when Becky came we took our cameras and took pictures of it swimming around in the water. It was just so cute, just swimming around…getting flipped over in the small surf. I had to do a few things back at camp and Becky decided that she would go and swim with the little shark…I knew that I would have enough time to put my camera away and not miss anything because it had disappeared from site. About five minutes later I heard a lot of shouting out on the beach, I walked out and to my horror found Rusty in the middle of all the girls showing off the little reef shark to the boys (they had been talking about spearing a reef shark…and Rusty apparently saw the little shark and thought it would be great fun to spear it)…The cute little shark that the girls had already named Lester, had three holes going through its’ body, and it was wiggling around wildly and trying to bite the hand of its’ captor. Rusty took the little shark away saying that he was going to use it as bait, but later he told us that he let it go…and said that is was fine (sure until something bigger smelled the blood and ate poor little Lester) None of the girls were very happy with Rusty.
After that Gene and I decided to go snorkeling, there really wasn’t much to see…you had to go really far out if you wanted to see anything…the water was really choppy and my snorkel kept filling with water. Finally Gene and I swam back to the beach. We decided to take a walk. We walked all the way to the other end of the island, we were going to walk around the entire island, but Gene’s slippers broke and going barefoot across coral isn’t the smartest thing to do. So we went back and that is when I spied a whole bunch of baby black tip reef sharks. They were just playing in the surf…I walked out into the water and watched them swim around my feet. “Why aren’t you the cutest little things ever…I just want to pick you up!” It is amazing how cute sharks look when you are not swimming with them, when I am snorkeling and I am a great distance from shore…the last thing I want to see is a shark…especially if it is a big shark. But these sharks were just so cute and little that I just liked looking at them and watching them swim…I mean if they did bite me it wouldn’t hurt much…they were only a foot long.
When we got back to the main camp site it was supper time, after we ate Becky and I went to take pictures of the sunset, it was rather cloudy and so the pictures won’t be as beautiful as they could have been. Once the sun was down we saw that Mark was making a fire, so we all migrated over there. We watched him make spaghetti and battle with the fire (for it had rained that afternoon so everything was wet) and then eat his dinner…soon his fire died down and he left his camp site and started making another fire out on the beach. So after a little while we left his campsite and went to the other fire…Mark informed us that he would be leaving the fire in our hands, he was going to go back to his own camp site, rebuild his fire and read his book in front of the fire. Well Gene, Eric, Becky, Allie and I decided that the fire wasn’t going to go out anytime soon…we walked around and found dead palm branches and dead tree branches…true the wood was wet but soon we had a big fire going. Gene and Eric found this huge log
and they carried it all the way to the fire. After awhile we all collapsed on the ground and looked up at the stars and moon that were just starting to peep through the clouds. We talked about different things…until there were only three of us left. Then Becky and I decided that we should go to bed.
Becky and I both don’t get a lot of sleep when camping, so we decided to make sure we got at least 8 hours of sleep…Nyquil is great…I slept until 6:30 in the morning…I woke up and looked out at the sky…I knew that I had to get pictures of the sunrise…I mean how can you go out to an island and not get pictures of the sun rising. Once it was up I said good-bye to Maggie (who was also up to see the sunrise) and we headed back to our own camp sites again to get some sleep…for it was way too early to be up. I enjoyed a very lazy morning…actually I didn’t leave my hammock until somewhere around 12:30 or 1:00. The sky had clouded over and Becky and I went to see what other people were doing.
It didn’t take long for me to decide that I wanted to be in the water, so around two I joined Maggie, Carrie, and Jennifer in the ocean…but soon I knew that I just didn’t want to sit in the water…I wanted to swim…so I got my snorkel gear and followed Raymond and Eric out into the water. I decided that Raymond would be a good one to follow…he was looking for shells and I was looking for interesting fish…I stayed a pretty good distance from him but kept him in sight just the same. I dislike swimming alone when I am in the ocean…it kinda scares me. Soon Raymond and I ran into Raz, Cabel, and Mikey…they were looking for claims and then trying to pry them off the rocks…I surfaced and looked over in their direction and then continued swimming around the reef. For some reason I kept swimming in the wrong direction…instead of going towards the island I would swim out to sea…mainly because the coral was a lot prettier the farther out you went. I would lift my head out of the water and suddenly notice that I was going the wrong direction…so I would quickly swim back towards where Raymond was, I knew that I had to stop trying to follow the pretty fish that I found…so I started looking for shells…I saw this totally beautiful shell…I knew that I would have to dive down to get it, but that wasn’t the thing that was stopping me…no it was the fact that the shell was right in the middle of fire coral and I dislike pain…and fire coral isn’t something that you actually want to stick your hand into…and although I knew that I could probably pull it off without getting stung by the coral…I didn’t particularly feel like risking it. I circled around it several times…I kinda felt like the squirrel in Over the Hedge where it is so excited when he smells the cookie that the Raccoon shoves into his face and then becomes disappointed when the cookie is thrown over the hedge… “But me wanted the cookie” But in my case I really wanted the shell…but it was just out of my reach…so I swam off half heartedly to find Raymond. As I was swimming along I looked hard at the sand and coral trying to find something interesting…I was like “hmmm….coral, sand, fish, oh pretty blue fish, coral, shell, coral, Raz…wait a minute RAZ?” Raz had come out of no where…actually he snuck up on me and then swam under me and then flipped over on his back and was able to enjoy my surprise. I shoved at him and surfaced…he was laughing and I was laughing. Raz said that I should have seen my face…it was full of surprise and puzzlement…I was like… “I can only imagine.” After that I couldn’t decide who to follow…there were so many places to be at once…at one point I lost Raz and Cabel and almost ran straight into Raymond and Mikey. I couldn’t figure out what they were looking at…then I noticed it. A Sting Ray…we watched it quickly glide across the reef and we followed it at a safe distance…it didn’t seem to like us being around and increased its’ speed…all at once it nearly collided with another Ray…this Sting Ray looked a little different…but it was still round with light colored spots on it…I looked around for Raz, I think Cabel saw the second one…but Raz was off somewhere trying to pry a claim off a rock. The second Ray silently glided out of sight. I asked Raz if he had seen the rays…and since he hadn’t I told him about it…we all went back under and started looking for claims
Periodically we would surface and look up at the sky, which was turning a dark gray…the dark clouds were threatening to dump gallons of water on us at any given moment. Suddenly the heavens opened and the rain came down…people often say that it is raining cats and dogs to describe heavy rain fall…but I think a fire hose would be a better way to describe it, because rain here in Pohnpei comes down in torrents. I personally think that it is fun to swim in the rain, watching the rain drops hit the surface and then bead up or just bounce right back up into your face, and looking up when swimming in water and seeing the rain hitting the surface of the water is just amazing and I love it. The five of us surfaced, removed our masks and snorkels and looked up…the cold rain pelted against our faces…after a few minutes we all decided that submerging ourselves in warm ocean water would be much better then returning to the island to stand cold and miserable under some tarps. The water wasn’t all that deep…sometimes it was up to our necks other times it was only to our waists. Mikey said that we would be safe as long as there was no lightening…at that point in time he was standing on a rock and Raz pointed out that he was now the highest object, but then again if lightening hit the rock we would get electrocuted (standing in water and all). Now the funniest part of our whole expedition in the reef was the fact that Raz and Cabel were hunting for pearls…now I don't know much about clams...but I am pretty sure that clams don't produce pearls, in fact I think that oysters make pearls. so if you were going hunting for pearls…wouldn't you want to find oysters instead of claims? And if you were looking for oysters wouldn't you want to find the Pearl Oyster or the Black-lip Oyster? (By the way if you are curious about oysters that make pearls, go to Wikipedia.com and you will learn all about them...that is probably a site that I should direct the boys to)...because the boys were pearl hunting, and what they were digging up looked suspiciously like clams. Mikey could have told them that…but since they never asked he never told them…until Raz broke Mikey’s pocket knife…there was an awkward silence and then we all had a good laugh. Raz and I decided to swim back to the island, he was freezing and I was just cold. When we got back…none of us wanted to get out of the water cause it was cold on land…but after 20 minutes we all crawled out of the ocean and prepared to meet the night that was quickly approaching.
I changed out of my wet cloths and surveyed the damage left by the rain storm. As Becky and I found out tarps don’t do much good when rain comes in sideways. Then I wandered back out on the beach. Some people were trying to make a fire and others were just watching them try. There were a few huddled under their tarps and still others were out fishing. When a fire was started we all gathered around it and tired to warm up, while rain soaked us. This is the part of camping that I hate, I hate being wet and cold, I hate the sticky feeling that salt water leaves on your skin when it dries. I hate being miserable when camping…seriously why do we put ourselves into these situations?
Now that night was very unpleasant, and I would really like to forget it. So I will just tell you that I slept very little and was cold the entire night and probably until 9a.m. Sunday morning. Actually Sunday was a very hot day, far cry from the previous day where it rained all afternoon and night.
In the morning one boat was going back early and then it would come back and the rest of us would leave. There is always a fight to see who will be apart of the lucky seven that will go back early. I decided not to fight for it and stayed, I figured that going in the second wave wouldn’t be a horrible thing. I hung out with Gene for awhile and then I found Raz and then Jennifer and Joan joined us. We went out to the beach and lay on a tarp in the shade until Mr. B came back. Then we loaded everything up and climbed into the boats. The ride back wasn’t all that enjoyable, it was a little rocky and I got really wet. We did some fishing and then Mr. B dropped most of us off near a little school, because he said the waves were too big for a boat loaded as much as ours was…that might have been true, but I think he and the boys wanted to do some fishing, they didn’t get back to the school until like a half an hour before sundown.
The camping trip was really fun, but I was really glad to get back. I am really sorry that this was so long, but a lot of stuff happened so I had to write a lot.