Postcards from Kure: As the pandemic circled the world, I spent eight months on a remote island

Well, Kure is the next island to the northwest and home to hundreds of thousands of seabirds; Laysan, short-tailed black-legged albatrosses, shearwaters, terns, masked boobies, brown and red-legged boobies, noddies, petrels, frigates and Hawaiian monk seals.

READ MORE:
* Saving whales also saves humans about $ 3 million per whale
* Investigators find a second warship from WWII Battle of Midway in the Pacific
* Paul Henry reveals he is ‘in talks’ to return to television

For eight months this year, it was also my home and just three other humans. Naomi and two Matts. That’s. There was no internet, no phone calls home, no photos of home, no social media, and nothing but short daily emails sent by satellite phone. He was going to live in one of the most remote places on the planet, complete and total isolation from everyone and everything.

The only way to get to Kure is via an offshore supply ship. It took me a week to set sail from Honolulu; I am the only kiwi and the youngest person to have been part of the habitat restoration and wildlife monitoring program led by the State of Hawaii, Department of Lands and Natural Resources, Division of Forestry and Wildlife and supported by the Kure Atoll Conservancy non-profit organization.

I will never forget having reached the lagoon with 200 spinner dolphins next to the boat that took us to shore. What a welcome that was!

My life in Kure, as you can imagine, was very different from life in Auckland. I loved my room, but it was pretty basic. It was in one of the three buildings on the island. I plastered the walls with photos of my home and a New Zealand flag and for eight months I slept on a mattress on the floor, occasionally sharing my bed with a reed spider or two. Look them up on Google – they are somewhat large, maybe as big as your hand, but they are harmless, so I enjoyed the company!

There is solar power and gravity running water in Kure and the shower was a water hose heated by the sun, which turned out to be perfect for the peak summer season. We ate like royalty and learned to cook very well, but all of our food was frozen or non-perishable. The first thing I ate when I boarded the boat back home in October was a carrot, an apple, and a lettuce leaf. The crunch of fresh food was surreal!

During the day we worked to restore the island and improve the lives of the nesting seabirds – long days and hot work, but the difference we were making made every sweat-soaked shirt worth it. There is a lot of plastic that is washed in Kure; lighters, children’s toys, toothbrushes, whatever. Albatrosses literally feed their young on regurgitated plastic; I watched the chicks throw it up and that’s an incredibly heartbreaking thing to watch.

At night, we would watch movies on a sun-charged laptop. Flight of the Concords It is a staple every year at Kure. And I read and read. I managed to read 59 books this year. And I counted because last year I think I only read one.

If you’re wondering how I managed without the internet or social media for eight months, I think it was because I just had no other choice. Strangely, from the moment I lost contact with the world for the last time, I felt like I was adjusting almost immediately to my new offline life. It was easy and I loved it. I think it rebooted me. Life in Kure was so simple and meaningful, everything I did had an impact and I had the privilege of doing it surrounded by the animals that I love so much.

Going back to the world earlier this month with the lights, the cars, the buildings and the people was quite shocking. They think that going back to civilization from Kure is a bit like coming back from space, and even though I haven’t been to space, I think I agree. I returned to a busy world that I had known all my life, but I felt completely lost.

Of course, I have hardly had a chance to be in between all of this because as I write this, I am still sitting in my quarantined Auckland hotel room. I returned to a planet that due to a virus had completely turned upside down and I missed everything. I have a lot to update.

Yet my 14 days are almost over, and I’ll finally be home, able to hug my family and sit them down for a night of photo slideshows of one of the most beautiful places in the world – my home away from home. , Kure Atoll, a place that will always have my heart.

Postcards from Kure

I have found beauty in the strangest places here in Kure. The most wonderful thing is when the albatross raise their heads, snap their beaks and begin to dance. Life flows in abundance from the tips of their ruffled feathers and drips like water from the hooks of their beaks. It rings in my ears with every trill, excited whistle, and holy lows that resound throughout the island. They touch their beaks and beat their breasts with their wings bent at all angles, their bodies held above the ground on the tips of their toes.

meEven in the occasional silence that is maintained between a couple, there is much in his deep gaze that we could not even begin to understand. Every nod and clack of bills is pure joy at its finest, yet it is a joy different from ours. Animal emotions are something I may never understand, but here I feel like I’m very close to sharing it with them. They feel joy and excitement without even knowing what it is, it is just a sensation that life offers them, and they live every moment of it with an unbridled passion that is not comparable to anything.

Sometimes I feel like my own spirit dances with the albatross chicks. It is as if I am part of the cycle of life at each stage. I am living, thriving and growing thanks to the parts of me that I have witnessed slowly fade over the past few weeks in my new home. Things that no longer matter to me give way to new connections and a deeper understanding of what I once thought was important, and what I now know really is.

So far, Kure has taught me that life is about teaching, growing flowers, dancing with your friends, singing towards the sky, and giving back to those around you at every possible moment. Life and death become one and the same in this way, and it is truly beautiful.

My old life seems to slip away

… with every passing bird and every breaking wave. This is a place so intact, so raw and so magnificent, that it fills my mind from the moment it touches my eyes. The air I breathe is fresh and new. It flows over the dunes and fills all my senses with its slight earthy smell and salty taste. When it settles in the valleys, it becomes thick and warm, like a soup of strong, permeating smells of wildlife and everything they leave behind. I’m not afraid to open my lungs to all this as it invades me.

But there is a side of isolation that hurts deeply: that we are here, witnessing nature in its truest form, without the ability to interfere with control. When my eyes find the track for the first time since Hurricane Douglas passed, they land on a white ball in the center.

Little by little I venture to investigate. Is it a rock? Debris? As I get closer, my eyes struggle to focus on him and he becomes blurrier like a bunch of cotton, but something black sticks out from underneath. It is a red-footed booby, probably taken from its nest in the naupaka that lines the long disused airstrip. With nowhere else to go, he has crawled out to where I am now.

There’s no way I’m still alive, not after the storm. Gently, I put two fingers on her back and drag them up her spine. Its down is pure white; a velvety cloud that fit in the palm of my hands, its black eyelids and its beak like pieces of coal stuck to the face of a snowman. As I stroke the lifeless creature, there is a sharp breath followed by a long, hollow croak from deep within its small chest. Still alive.

I wrap my hands around my knees and lean back, my heart rate racing as I think about what to do next. My subconscious already knows. I’m looking for a nest, fallen branches, anything, but I know it’s useless. The chick’s father will never find it again.

I sit on the ground and look desperately at the little being, chest heaving with an occasional squawk and blink. He knows what’s coming and I can’t do anything to save him. Moving him in the shade, out of the wind and sun, would only prolong his suffering. I want to take him in my arms and hold him close to me as he lives his last moments, but the human touch would only terrify him. I can not do anything.

“Go home,” I whisper, “go home, friend, go home to your parents.” Tears are forming in my eyes now. I whisper to the bird that lies in front of me, as it silently prepares itself for death. When I can no longer form the words, I get up and walk away from the chick and look at him one last time. It shines so brightly against the gray rock that it seems as if the storm has left a patch of sky in its wake. This is nature, I remind myself, it happens all the time. But that doesn’t mean it hurts less.

On Tuesday, November 24 at 8 a.m. M. Charlie will speak about his experience at Kure at The Breeze in Auckland, 93.4.