Tales from Tern Island: Written Friday 25th December: Mele Kaliki Maka!

On Christmas Eve we got a half day off, so we spent the afternoon decorating the Tern Island Christmas tree. There was a real (plastic) tree in the storeroom, but no decorations, so we were forced to improvise with whatever was lying around. Consequently our tree ended up festooned with strings of bird bands, feathers, old fishing floats, flagging tape, smooth bits of glass that washed up on the shore and, in a slightly macabre twist, some bird skulls. It was every bit as gaudy as any traditional Christmas tree, but just a little bit more creepy.

Decorating the tree.

Christmas, Tern Island style.

Christmas day was spent mostly lounging around on the beach, swimming and feeling sorry for everyone wading through the deep snow back home. If you have seen aerial photos of Tern Island you might have noticed that the entire south shore is made up of a beautiful, idyllic, golden beach gently lapped by the azure waters. Unfortunatley we humans are not allowed to lounge around on that beach. Sadly for us, the endangered Hawaiian monk seal also likes to lounge around on the beach, and will happily spend the entire day snoozing there, only occasionally waking up to belch and fart. To avoid disturbing the seals we have to maintain a respectful distance of 50 metres at all times, and since there are usually at least a dozen seals spread out along the beach, it is effectively off limits. So, much like the stereotypical German tourist, the monk seals have got there first with their beach towels and taken all the best spots. We humans have to make do with a much smaller and less picturesque beach next to the boat house.

Beautiful South Beach, off limits to humans.

Spoiling it for everyone else- a Hawaiian monk seal.

Despite having their own private beach, this seal chose to sleep on the boat ramp.

Christmas dinner was a lavish affair, which everyone helped to cook. The piece-de-resistance was a large tinned ham, bought especially for the occasion. Pete got a bit annoyed when I kept refferring to it as the Chrismas Spam, claiming that it was a much higher quality of tinned meat than spam, and indeed he was right.

"That tinned ham was pretty good," said Pete after dinner. "We should have got the tinned chicken* for New Years".