Mokil Trip

The recent Rotary quiz night saw Nic and I emptying our pockets for a good cause. Between answering the quiz questions (not that well mind you) we bought raffle tickets and purchased some items in the 'silent auction'. One of the things we bought was a couple of plane tickets to one of the outer lying islands named 'Mokil'. Mokil is about 85 miles as the crow flies, due east. It is a three island atoll with about 80 - 100 living there permanently. So with Eleri at home with the kids we headed off to airport at 7am.

 

The plane is only small so everything, including passengers, is weighed prior to departure.

A six seater; this was going to be fun.

The pilot/owner is one of my fishing buddies so I got to sit in the co-pilot seat. Very cool. The first thing I did was read through all the placards that were in front of me. The one that stood out the most read "No Acrobatic Manoeuvrers, including spins, approved". Happy with that.

Nic was snug in the second row, heaps of leg room though.

Yep we're flying..... At a max speed of 130 knots you had heaps of time to take it all in. Next stop Mokil.

The sun was less than two hours high at take-off so, combined with the clouds that morning, we had some pretty specky views.

Heavenly.

Our first sight of Mokil. It's only 85 miles from Pohnpei so 48 minutes, airport to landing strip.

Can you see the landing stip??????

I'm sure Nic was just waiting to die.

Our compound back on Pohnpei wasn't much shorter than this landing strip. There were heaps of skidmarks within two metres of the start of the strip were Alex (pilot) punches the plane down hard so he has time to stop before falling off the other end.

Safe and Sound

We had no real plans and were content to just find a beach and hang out for the four hours or so we had before the plane came back.

But the day went from good to great. Alex spoke to his airline contact on the ground and this guy (Don Johnson) looked after us for the entire time.

So a short boat ride from one end of the island to the other saw us at Don's house for some supplies.

The lagoon inside the atoll was cystal clear.

Don's young one. They don't see too many white people here.....

Don made husking coconuts look easy. Six in under a minute.

 

First stop was through the one small passage out of the lagoon for a snorkel on the outer reef. There is no real effect of the rain run-off that we have on Pohnpei so the water was gin-clear. You could see further than I have ever seen under water before.

Nemo. Now who would have thought he'd be here too....

Schools and schools of fish. I guess feeding 80 versus 35000 allows some fish to survive to adulthood.

We saw five turtles during this first short snorkel. We even saw one before getting out of the boat.

Next stop was on Picnic Island. We had a relaxing walk along the beach. We also saw one of the rare monitor lizards but Nic's screams scared it away before I could take a photo.

Relaxing after a sandwich.

On the way back to Don's house we stopped inside the lagoon looking for more turtles. No turtles but heaps of beautiful coral.

Fish and corals, corals and fish. Magnificent. 

 

After mooring the boat we walked through the township back to landing strip. No power generation on the island except for solar panels on each house - all donated by the French government.

It's a basic living but they take great pride in their houses.

Always be on the look 'up' here in the pacific. More people die each year around the world by falling coconuts than shark attacks - fact.

Yep, they're here too.

Here piggie, piggie, piggie. Next Christmas me thinks this one won't be so friendly.

Pandanus. Kind of like breadfruit. Sweet breadfruit.

The path was a scenic and peaceful way to get back to the plane.

Ferns everywhere.

I'm sure the take-off was harder to get through than the landing. Once we were up in the air and breathing again Alex flew us over for a couple of really cool pics.

Alex had refuelled and took us over the historic ruins of Nan Madol. An unexpected, fantastic bonus to what had already been an awesome day.

The pass beneath this little island on the route we normally take to Nan Madol via boat. We often stop here for a snorkel.

Another island we have to pass by in the boat, and another great place to snorkel.

As we prepared to land we flew over the anchorage where all the fishing mother ships stay.

Now that's a runway.

Safe and sound on the ground. That's a great feeling.

 

A massive thank you to Alex and Mary for donating the opportunity to do this to Rotary. And another for Alex for making sure we were looked after on the island and the extra trip over Nan Madol. It certainly was a highlight of the last three years.