11 Mar - Six Waterfalls Hike Pohnpei

Since arriving on Pohnpei we have been hearing about the Six Waterfalls hike. We have been saying, yeah yeah, we'll get to that. Well with our time quickly running out on Pohnpei it is time to kick the 'bucket list' items into touch. Grouper dive last weekend, Six Waterfalls this weekend. With the kids safe and sound with their favourite babysitters off we went with a group of about 15 others. It was dry when we started, but not for long. That's life in Pohnpei..... Here we are at Waterfall Number One. A welcome sight after about an hours bashing through the bush.

Our friend Jamie and her Dad (visiting from the US of A) joined us as well. As with most things we do on Pohnpei it ends up being with people you mostly know. It's a small island.

Waterfall Number Two.

Nic arms out in the middle of the photo. There was no where to hide from the rain. At least it wasn't cold.

Waterfall Number Three. Just a little wet and I hadn't even been swimming yet.

In between the waterfalls there were plenty of really pretty sections of the river system.

Waterfall Number Four.

Waterfall Number Five.

Lets just call this the 'before' photo. Remember this one as you'll find yourself scrolling back up the blog in a second or two.

The last waterfall was a swim up entry were you waded out to the centre of the river first. Quite the adventure.

Glenn was up ahead of most of us. This photo shows him swimming back from the waterfall.

Once you swam through the section in the previous photo this is where you came out. Needless to say it was a pretty hard swim just to make it through the gap.

The rapids feeding into the photo above.

Waterfall Number Six.

This if Waterfall Number Five on the way out. It had been raining for about three hours and what a difference a short amount of time makes. In the half an hour we were at the last waterfall the river came up about a foot and all the waterfalls had at least double the water flowing over them compared to when we went part them the first time.

Glenn and Steve had finished up at the last waterfall before everyone else and positioned themselves on the side of the river we walked in on. Little did they know that we were leaving via the mountain on the opposite side. There is no comfortable or safe way across that river boys.

This is the 'after' shot that is linked to the photo above. The river changed from pretty much benign to a torrent in half an hour.

Our local Pohnpean guides had their work cut out for them getting Glenn and Steve back to the group. One of the young lads swam across the torrent (read gradually making it across while being swept a hundred metres downstream and not impaling himself on a river rock) with the safety line and one at a time escorted the lads across.

Slightly damper (if that's possible) than the rest of us but safe and sound.

After a great adventure at the waters edge it was another hours hike out back to the cars. Nothing hard about the day, slow and steady and it was great fun. No doubt if the river had of been high at the start we wouldn't have seen Waterfalls Four, Five and Six but luckily the rain didn't really affect the day too much. Glenn and Steve may disagree.

Another great day on Pohnpei. Enough of this hiking and diving. Time to kill some fish...... That's next weekend, maybe, hopefully.....

10 March - Alexander's Birthday

We spent the afternoon at a 'Superhero' birthday party for one of our little buddies Alexander.

'Zander' turned three and is still a little shy when it comes to posing for photos.

Jamie (Zander's mum) and Nic kept the food coming.

There's way too many girls on this island. Jaxon's going to have to adjust when he hits Perth in January.

Baby Batman Harrison.

Still trying to perfect those 'Gangsta' moves.

Jamie left out a mat and paint (very brave) for the kids to add their own little bits of art to.

Spidey is always a favourite.

Jaxon and Indi are best of mates which is hopefully going to work out well when Indi reaches 15 or so.

Sandie busy cutting up pizza with sissors for the kids.

No chance of blowing these candles out. It made all the kids quiet though, for about 10 seconds anyway.

Yet another great afternoon on Pohnpei.

04 March - Triangle Mountain

Definately feeling a little weary from the two dives the day before I had second thoughts about climbing up this bad boy. I had committed to it though, so packed the back pack with water and bananas. I met up with Lori, Rick and Glenn and our local guide at the Surf Club. We drove up to the base and then headed on up.

They don't call it 'Triangle Mountain' for nothing.

At least it wasn't raining and it even held off right until the end. The start of the trail definately wasn't too bad.

It changed pretty quickly though.

Definately a rain forest adventure. The most dangerous part were the thin vines on the ground that wanted to wrap themselves around your feet and the rotting tree trunks that gave way when you put any weight on them.

Having a short break half way up. Lori was starting to think it wasn't such a great idea. Since it was her idea in the first place we kept her going.

The ferns are amazing and will grow anywhere they can find purchase.

At the top after one and a half hours of pretty hard climbing.

The view made all the effort worth it. This is Pohnpei Harbour with the township of Kolonia, the Nett River and Sokez Rock in the photo.

After a 15 minutes break it was time to climb down. And we thought going up was hard.....

03 March - Grouper Dive

Saturday 3rd of March saw us repeating the dive that we did just before our holiday off island. On the previous occasion I had forgotten our BCs, the underwater camera and the current was about 4 knots. It was never going to be worse than that this time. When we arrived there was a bit of surface wind and the current was definately there. Luckily it wasn't as strong as last time. Straight down to 35 metres for me. I had the camera and I was determined to get some photos of these awesome fish this time. They were there in numbers once again and at that depth I was pretty much in the middle of them. Fantastic. Their colouring obviously helps them blend in to their surroundings which makes taking a great photo a little difficult but I managed enough 'okay' photos to show you what we saw.

Saw this one on the way down. The first of our two dives had about 3 knots of current that was making the water a little murky, but still great in comparison to most dive spots in the world.

Nic is really getting the hang of diving now. The rest of the group stayed at about 20-25 metres on the first dive.

Kind of hard to make out, but there is probably about five or six 30-50kg grouper in this photo. They all come to this part of the island for about a six week period each year to spawn. Last year there was reports of two monsters estimated at 200kgs each. That would have been a sight to see.

The first dive was only about 30 minutes long as you really go through the gas at that depth. We waited an hour, had some lunch and them suited up and went again. Luckily (we planned this way) the tide was on the change and we had minimal current. The water really cleared up and made the second dive one of the best dives we have done on Pohnpei. We followed the bouy line down and I found these two and the clam right beside the mooring point.

Soft corals aren't really prominent in Pohnpei but when you find them they are magnificent.

Big Mumma just resting her fat belly on the coral. Must hard work doing all this spawning.

Clear as a bell. These guys were at least 30 metres in front of me. Great diving conditions.

I decided to just sit in one place and see if they would approach me. Well it worked, kind of. I got close enough for some better photos if nothing else.

Another soft coral. The variety of things to see on one dive here is amazing.

The ever present pacific clams.

Out Pohnpean boat driver, Jerry, came down to check out the action. They grow up spear fishing and Jerry didn't have any problem at all coming down to 15 metres.

Nic and Brenda doing a decompression stop after another plus 30 metre dive.

Gradually getting through our bucket-list of things to do on Pohnpei.