Death holds no fear after slice of life on heavenly Aitutaki
Ican die now. Religion softens the terror of that void by promising a heavenly afterlife. It works the other way, too – if you’ve seen heaven on Earth, your soul finds a peace that soothes all fear.
Mine is 45 minutes from Rarotonga. I first heard of Aitutaki yonks ago when interviewing director Yvonne Mackay about her kids-flick called The Silent One – think Whale Rider with turtle. They shot it in Aitutaki, and when I asked why, Yvonne sighed and closed her eyes.
On subsequent holidays to the Cook Islands, I was too cheap (or broke) to cough up the extra $500 for the flight north, figuring a lagoon is a lagoon, and I was already surrounded by a fine one.
The itch wouldn’t go away. On the latest trip to Raro, for my younger daughter’s wedding, her sister shouted me the add-on, nominally as thanks for caregiving her baby son, but probably because she was sick of me crapping on about this mythical Eden.
(Parental advisory: pestering works in reverse, too.)
Hence I’m on a catamaran in the enormous lagoon, sipping nectar from a coconut. The sea is turquoise, deepening to rich blue, laid over a sandy bed that looks like draped silk. Our motu up ahead is wearing a gown of seductive greens, offset with a yellow necklace of kayaks on the shoreline. Enormous butterflies, disguised as kitesurfing sails, dance on the horizon.
My brain mistrusts the signals from my eyes – the world has taken LSD.
Those pompous names they give colours on paint charts now make sense. Resene should produce a chart just for Aitutaki’s divine palate. Then again, customers would walk out of the store clutching armfuls of charts to use as wallpaper, rather than buying a can of paint.
Around me, fellow lagoon cruise passengers dry off from their snorkel with GTs – giant trevally, tamed by treats from the crew. That merry band take up their ukes for a sweet version of Over the Rainbow. (We’re already there, bro.)
The scent of a flower wafts from the motu, mingling with the aroma of marlin steaks and caramelised banana on the barbie.
Our companions are seasoned travellers. The honeymooning couple from Spain declare this better than the Seychelles. Two wan, middle-aged sisters from Estonia melt in the moment.
Best yet, not a cellphone in sight – I’d have force-fed it to any miscreant. E-zombies have no place here.
Ironically, we access this nirvana thanks to war. American GIs built the airstrip in 1942, as part of a chain linking Australia to Hawaii, well away from the advancing Japanese.
Some 850 US (and Kiwi) troops swarmed on to the atoll – boosting its population 50 per cent. Imagine going through boot camp and jungle training, hardening up to kill or be killed – then finding yourself posted to paradise, with a side order of heavy machinery to play on. It’s every boy/ man’s dream.
No sooner was the airstrip finished than it became redundant as the Japanese threat stalled further west. A handful of soldiers stayed for weather forecasting. The rest were shipped off, from paradise to purgatory in the vicious battles to retake islands such as Iwo Jima.
At war’s end, a US military historian predicted the airstrip would spawn economic development. He was half-right.
The Cooks’ first international airport was indeed sited on Aitutaki – without using the airstrip. Solent flying boats touched down in the lagoon itself, once hazardous coral heads had been dynamited. While the TEAL aircraft refuelled, passengers lounged ashore.
That Coral Route trip from Auckland for affluent passengers in the 1950s and ’60s, fine-dining while skipping across Pacific islands to LA, must have been (weather permitting) one of the all-time greats – never repeatable for either plutocrats or plebs in the era of origami seating postures and cellophaned cookies.
In 2010, Aitutaki had few defences against a bigger foe. Cyclone Pat smashed more than 60 per cent of the houses. Despite worldwide aid to rebuild, the population has dwindled by a third to 1500 locals (plus 200 castaways) as the young leave for jobs and bright lights. That might mean shivering in a farm cottage near Levin or Ashburton, huddled by the bright light of a TV screening pirated gorenography.
Back home, they grow 16 varieties of banana, but Ecuador now grows them cheaper. Nobody tops the scenery. Tourism is the lifeblood, and, unbelievably in the age of theme-park travel, it’s still low-key.
I’d happily immigrate if the pension is transferable. Cook Islanders are the loveliest people (violent pastimes aside). Aitutaki is mostly free of the Western trash culture seeping into Raro, and entirely free of those infernal island dogs. A paramount chief ordered every mutt destroyed after his daughter was mauled.
There’s still a cellphone signal – mauler of our own offspring. However, coconuts would make excellent artillery shells. The dark arts of Punk Scouting taught me that a plastic pipe and hairspray are the other ingredients for a ‘‘nut-zooka’’ capable of maiming a transmission tower.
I’ll trade a bottle of duty-free whisky for a rusty old step-through Honda that I can step through once my arthritis disappears. And no need for a helmet, since my hair will grow back miraculously in a dense halo.
Unsafe? I’ve seen paradise. Death holds no fear.
Now I can start to live.
I’d happily immigrate if the pension is transferable.