I took the next day off from diving and drove downtown alone where I climbed this high ridge overlooking town. Saw a bunch of Japanese anti-aircraft guns at the top, rusted amidst flowers. A nice view of the large volcanic Sokehs rock. View of the lagoon and the outer reefs. A flock of red parrots, the name is lory, was squawking at me from a papaya tree, I pushed into the undergrowth to see them better and spent a half hour surrounded by the cries of birds. There were four different kinds, all aware of my presence and making noise about it. Coo-coo-coo, squawk-whistle, gahr-gahr. One of them flew down to get a really good look at me, he was black and gray with a fanned-out tail.
It felt a little melancholy up there, a bit pointless and lonely, I was thinking about my time here in Micronesia running out, and was concerned that I wasn't doing the best possible thing, as this ridge was noise-polluted by some vast machine in the harbor, and had a radio tower on the top, civilization, ugh. An attack of tourist anxiety, the greed to engulf more and more. I could have gotten a guide to take me deep inside the island, but that had seemed too hard.
I drove around the harbor area after the climb, expecting to see some natural glens, but it was pretty densely inhabited, lots of people out and about, it's a Saturday, a lot of them are getting out of church. Some boys standing by the church drinking sakau (?) out of little wax-paper cups. I see more houses like open pavilions — what you might take for a public shelter, until you notice the bedding and the kitchenware. Actually, talking to a Pohnpeian, I learned that often these are cook-houses, and that the family also has an enclosed house where they keep their valuables and sleep when it's wet. The pavilion without walls is cooler; it gets very close in a house when it's hot and raining.
I went back to the hotel and rented a kayak, which was better, I paddled about a mile against the wind to get to Mwahnd Island, completely edged by mangroves. Here and there were breaks in the mangroves and I could paddle in through channels — which turned out to be entrances leading to native huts.
One hut's image sticks in my mind: painted two-tone, dark blue on the bottom half of the wall, light blue on the top, a roof of corrugated tin, with some patches of red-painted corrugated metal. A hill behind it covered with palms halfway up, and big leafy trees on top, maybe breadfruits. Above the trees a fat white cloud echoing the shape of the forested hill. The kayak quiet in the calm, silty water, mangroves on either side, quivering schools of tiny pale blue fish. A family is outside the house, a naked boy covering his crotch with both hands, the women in tropical skirts, the men working with their boats. Another entrance leads to what must be the village center, I hear voices chanting in unison — church? A group of girls peers at me from a porch glimpsed through mangrove branches, a bit like the way the parrots had peered at me from the papaya tree, profiling their hooked beaks as they eyed me. I wave to everyone I see, they wave back in a friendly fashion. I'm in a raspberry pink plastic sea kayak, wearing swim-suit, print shirt, my constant Tilly hat, my shades.
On the way back I tied up to a channel marker and wallowed into the water with my snorkel gear. My final farewell to the fish of Micronesia and the pale green, pale lavender, pale pink soft corals. A triathlon day: mountain climbing, kayaking, snorkeling.