Anuta, also called Cherry island, viewed from the air (Google earth). Anchorage faces small bluff in the center of the island on the western side. The island is 65 m high.
After two weeks of sitting at anchor, the sail to Anuta was rather enjoyable: a close hauled run in flat sea and light winds but it soon turned a series of squalls after midnight and the wind died completely in the morning, 3 miles away from Anuta. Anuta was in sight though, and after a night up, I motored in to hurry drop the pick and rest!
I dropped the pick further out than the previous visit in 15m of water. The KUNA sat nicely perpendiculat to the wind, rolling heavily in the somewhat small swells! I dived and confirmed the holding ground is only hard rocks but at least there was a lot of fish.
Shortly after anchoring, 2 canoes crossed the bar and 6 pikinis jumped on the boat I was summoned to come to the island quickly: everyone was waiting for me to come and show the Tribe video. Anuta is famous on television: in 2006, another BBC film crew came on yacht Margarita and stayed with them for a month to film an episode of Tribe, a doco where the presenter has to live with the locals and adopts all their customs.
Two years later, we were the first bringers of many letters and the DVD, which could only be read on my labtop.
It took three sessions to satisfy most of the population of the island.
In the meantime, I was affectionately grabbed tight by three or four young girls. I was surprised at first as none of the young girls on Tikopia had approached me in such a manner so the Anutans definitely were not shy. Maybe because they had the chance to interact with another white woman two years before.
They gave me a tour of the island, which covers only 0.6 of a square mile. The island is covered in gardens, not a single inch square is free from cultivation. Anuta is the smallest populated island in the Pacific and managed to sustain its population of 300 people. On such a small place, densities are comparable to that of Bangladesh, though the houses were only on one side and the island did not feel crowded at all.
Though the cemetary looks busy!
The reef extends 4 or 5 miles all around the island, at about 20-30m depth. The Anutans seem to have a sustainable resource of fish but they need to work for it with various techniques. They also have much larger and stronger canoes than Tikopia as the passage through the reef edge is rugged with heavy breakers and they sail go much further form their island.
The Anutans also look after their canoes as Tikopians do and some are over a 100 years old, but they do not have the trees to build canoe houses so they use coconut leaves.
Because the island is so small, it may not recover from a cyclone so the islanders put food aside under the ground for a few years, in what they call mar pits. The manioc fermentates, enclosed in banana leaves and turns into the equivalent of a strong cheese which locals make pudding out of.
This frigate bird is raised as a pet and fed by its owner every day. Frigate have become accustomed to roost and breed in the village. The bird is a mean of survival if its owner gets lost at sea, it will follow it and can become food if needed!
The next day, when departure time came, we were greeted on board the KUNA by a choir singing in english "will I ever see your face again..." With so few ships (less than one a year) going to and from the island, the ones who leave may not come back for several years.
As the island was disappearing in the background, father Nomleas gave another example of his fishing skills and drove his canoe with outboard a very long way out to give us a Wahoo for the road. In the process he banged the KUNA and broke his mast, but the kid kept bailing and his gift made us feel how much part of the community us visitors had become. The wahoo fed us for the next three days!
