Beaches, Birds and Eagle Rays! Location: Christmas Island, Kiribati Day 16 - PM Snorkeling by Wayne & Karen Brown

Some of the Kiribati officials that came onboard this morning will be staying with us until we get to French Polynesia, because we be stopping at other islands that are owned by Kiribati. One of the officials told us that there are some good coral reefs are in front of Cook Island (named for Captain Cook). Cook Island is a protected nature preserve, but these officials have given us permission to visit this island and the reefs there.

Cook Island is a tiny motu in the middle of the entrance to Christmas Island's lagoon. No people live on Cook Island, but hundreds of thousands of seabirds do! There are no dogs, cats or rats on Cook Island that would eat the birds or their eggs, so birds from all over the Pacific come here to nest and feed.

We will be going ashore here to set-up a beach landing area for anyone who wants to go ashore and lay on the beach or watch the birds. As we approach the island in the sky we see thousands of black flecks swarming over the island. They look like a swarm of flies. As we get closer we can see they are actually thousands sea birds!

We can look into the water and we see large dark shapes below us. These are coral reefs! We have to be careful as we approach the island because some of these reefs are so shallow we could hit our engine propeller on the corals. That would not be good for our propeller or the corals!

We pull our Zodiac up on the fine, white coral sand beach. Back from the shore we see thousands of birds nesting the trees as others birds soar overhead. The birds we see include frigate birds, boobies, terns, and many kinds of gulls. We don't want to disturb any of the nesting birds so we only walk along the beach and not back into the trees. Along the shore we find some interesting sea shells, driftwood and bits of dead coral. Scampering across the sand we see a few hermit crabs that pull back into their shells as we pick them up for a closer look.

This is a nice island to relax on, but we really want to see the coral reefs here. Even though we could easily snorkel from the beach we know there is usually more to see, and the water is clearer, further from shore.

We hop back in our Zodiac and slowly weave our way back through a maze of shallow coral reefs. We stop about 200 yards (180 m) in front of Cook Island. Even though we are far from shore it is still fairly shallow here. We put our masks on a peek over the side underwater. I only looks about 15-20 feet (4.5-6 m) deep. The corals are beautiful and there are lots of fish, too! We carefully drop our anchor in the sand, away from the corals. (An anchor can very easily break and damage the corals.)

Now it is time to go snorkeling and see what's underwater. With our AQUA LUNG fins, masks and snorkels on we flip off the side of our boat. Underwater we see hills and valleys. The hills are corals growing on long ridges of old dead corals about 6-8 feet (1.8-2.4 m) high and about 8-10 feet (2.4-3 m) wide. The valleys are white coral sand, with scattered bits coral rubble, about 10-12 feet (3-3.6 m) wide. These hills and valleys stretch out toward the open ocean like the fingers on a giant's hand.

We notice that there are no huge corals as we have seen on our past expeditions in the Caribbean Sea. There are lots of small clumps of corals. We can see more corals than we saw in Hawaii (Day 6 & Day 7). Here there is no old lava for the corals to grow on. These corals are growing on other old dead corals. The corals here look healthy and in great shape. There is no algae covering the corals, as we saw at the Caribbean Island of St. Kitts in 2001 (2001: A Sea Odyssey).

We can see one of the reasons these corals are not covered with algae...Swimming right at us is a huge school of convict tangs! There must be over a thousand fish in this school! These fish are about 8-10 inches (20-25 centimeters) long. They are called convict tangs because they have black and white stripes like the clothes prisoners (convicts) wear.

This huge school moves straight at us like a flood, but instead of smashing into us the school parts, like Moses parting the Red Sea, and swims around us.

There are lots of other algae-eating fish swimming all around us, too, such as: parrotfish, surgeonfishes, and damselfishes. Of course, we see lots of colorful tropical fishes, like many kinds of butterflyfishes, too.

As we would expect, with a healthy coral reef we find lot of animals using the coral reef as a place to live. In addition to fish, we see worms, shrimp, crabs, and even moray eels! Many are hiding from predators or prey. Some (like the moray eels) are just resting in the shadows until night falls and then they will come out on the reef to feed. As we search for and identify various sea creatures on the reef the ones we really want to see we can't find..No clownfish!

As we swim further along the reef we notice a large dark shape moving toward us! Is it a shark? As it gets closer we can see it is flapping large wings...It's a ray! It is not a manta ray, like the ones we dove with in Hawaii (Day 8). It is a beautiful spotted eagle ray! It is about 6 feet (1.8 m) across!

Eagle rays get their name from the many white spots and circles on their dark backs. Eagle rays do not get as big as manta rays. Manta rays can grow up to 22 feet (6.6 m) across. Eagle rays only grow up to 8 feet (2.4 m) across...But that is still bigger than us! Unlike mantas, eagle rays are not plankton feeders. Eagle rays feed on mollusks that they dig up in the sand.

The eagle ray swims right by us, turning slightly to keep its distant from these strange creatures waving at it from the surface. The eagle ray is probably looking for some mollusks for dinner.

Speaking of dinner, it is time for us to start thinking about dinner. It is now late in the afternoon and we need to get back to Odyssey for dinner and continue our journey south across the equator

Tomorrow we have another day at sea. We will be crossing the equator. We have never crossed the equator by ship, only by flying over it in a jet plane. We have heard that there are strange things that happen on a ship when it crosses the equator. Join us tomorrow as we find out if the stories are true. Will something strange happen on this ship when it crosses the equator?

Best Fishes,
Wayne & Karen Brown

We have our Zodiacs pulled up on the beautiful white, coral sand beach at Cook Island.

Enlarge the photo and you can see thousands of birds swarming above the trees on Cook Island.

This big mound is old coral that has died, but has new corals growing all over it. This coral mound is part of the coral "fingers" that stretch out towards the open ocean.

This is part of the huge school of convict tangs swimming by us.

This 6 foot wide spotted eagle ray swims below us as it searches the sandy bottom for the mollusks it likes to eat.