Here's John & Veronica taking us fishing. John is the caretaker of Suwarrow, which is a national park. Scott's on the left with pet bird, "Sabel" sitting on his head. Sabel is a juvenile sooty tern (Sterna fuscata)

We found that John, the caretaker, was very knowledgeable about the flora, fauna and marine life of the atoll. He also has a real heart for the preservation of the life there. It is well known that many northern islanders eat (and decimate) many of the birds and turtles in the Cook Islands. John took us on a tour of one of the bird motus. It was a real treat!

The male frigate bird (right) is well known for its red breast. The great frigatebird (Fregata ariel) build their nests on this motu and Mom and Dad take turns sitting on the nest. However, should a human appear they will leave their next unattended. This creates easy pickings for people who are looking for an easy answer for tomorrow's breakfast.

Here's Mom (left) sitting on her nest, but you can see that the eggs are often left unattended.

You can see that the birds and their nests literally just cover the ground. This might give you the idea that since there are so many what does it matter if I gather a few dozen eggs. The truth is that you just don't see this kind of nesting population at other atolls.

We saw lots of baby frigates here at Swarrow (left).

Here's a baby boobie (Sula sula) (right) on his nest waiting for Mom or Dad to bring him his next meal.

And a baby tropicbird (left).

Here's what his Mom looks like (right). A red-tailed tropicbird (Phaethon rubricauda) sitting on her nest. Pretty red tail isn't it!

There were many sooty terns (Sterna fuscata) and this one wasn't happy about us getting too close to his/her egg (left).

You can see that this was quite an amazing day on Suwarrow. And on the way back to the anchorage we decided to do some fishing. Having a successful catch resulted in inviting the cruisers back to John and Veronica's house for grilled fish and cruisers bring everything else. This was more than anyone would expect. You can see how hospitable John and Veronica were as you see John bring refreshing coconut water to everyone on the right of the photo (right).

Another day we took a trip across the atoll to a hole in the reef (left) where the water from outside comes welling up into the inside of the lagoon. Here we saw many different corals and tropical fish. We had brought an underwater viewer which everyone enjoyed - especially the kids.

We went on to another atoll (right) and met up with the dinghies from several other boats in the anchorage.

Here we saw many land hermit crabs (Coenobita perlatus) (left) as well as some large coconut crabs  (Birgus latro) (right).

It still doesn't seem right that these crabs should be colored blue!

It was getting pretty hot and humid in this jungle so John climbed a tree, cut down and prepared coconuts for each of us. (left) I'm telling you it was really refreshing and thirst quenching.

This scene on the right is just one of dozens from that one more day in paradise.