Last week of December, 2015.
It's been raining for days. We haven't
been able to conduct our last banding station of the month, which
perches on the southeast ridge of Olosega and is only reachable by a
slick hike up a crumbling cliff. But Bobby and I are starting to get
cabin fever, so at the first hint of slacking rain, we decide to go
scout the trail, make sure it still exists, and that we remember the
net lanes we set up over a month ago. Halfway up, it starts pouring
again, but we soldier on and check things out anyway. The trails are
decent, though the nets are weirdly placed and I become aware of how
much we've learned about setting up a banding station since then. The
way down is a little more treacherous, as any seasoned hiker should
expect, its harder to keep your balance on sliding earth as you stare
past your feet at certain death hundreds of feet below.
We round the corner overlooking the
point, a dragon's tail of towering basalt cliffs that curls out from
the southeast tip of the island. The view beyond is nothing but a
sheet of steel grey stretching from sky to shore, engulfing the
hunched silhouette of Ta'u eight miles southeast. It looks more like
Scotland than 14 degrees south of the equator. As if knitted out of
the cloud wool, graceful shapes materialize above us. First a
frigatebird; lazily drifting through the howling wind, its crossbow
wings appearing to contort and curl with each new degree of
perspective. Then brown and red-footed boobies, unfazed by the
storm's rage, loft and lean into air currents with the enviable ease
of seasoned surfers, sometimes whooshing by our heads, staring down
their huge bills at us, before being sucked back into the grayness.
The only hues rebelling against the monotone are the waves, glowing
glacier-blue as they pile and jostle into form from the gunmetal
swell, then explode against the basalt tower with rumbling force,
shattering into whitewater that shudders and boils its way to the
rocky shore.
Suddenly a cacophony erupts in the air
in front of us – two aptly named Blue-gray Noddies, barely larger
than robins, are shrieking and tap-dancing on the wind as it races up
the cliff face. Then they tuck their dagger wings and dive down
toward the section of shoreline hidden far below our feet. Seabirds
are amazingly adapted to this steel gray world of the ocean at its
fury-est. They live for the weather that sends us ducking for cover,
searching for safe harbor, craving clam chowder. I watch a pair of
Brown Noddies sheer along the crest of a curling wave, zip
effortlessly up as it crashes, and shimmy the salt spray from their
tails, while a frigatebird calmly reaches its face back toward its
foot, to attend an itch in midair. A Brown Booby eyes a tastey morsel
beneath the roiling surface, folds its wings back origami-style, and
drops like a torpedo into the swell. It rises back into the air with
a few easy flaps of its enormous wings.
Beyond, I suddenly notice a white wall
blotting out the southern horizon and marching straight towards us.
My instinct is to run for the truck, but I am mesmerized by this
god-sized curtain advancing quietly over the roar of the surf. Within
moments, the view of Ofu to the west is obliterated by white. The
curtain gathers its folds around the point until we can see raindrops
slanting against the black cliffs. Then it hits us. Instantly
drenched, soaked to the bone, what's left of my vision blurred by
splattered glasses. We hold our ground, chests out to the ocean,
shirts glued to wet skin, grinning. That rejuvenating moment when you
realize its summer and rain doesn't kill you, so you jump in a
puddle, raise your face to the heavens, and let it pool in your smile
lines, sensing the moment with your whole body like a child.
But then the wind smacks us out of our
reverie, sending rare goosebumps up our sleeveless arms, launching
more and more water at the cliffs below and above us, as if furious
at our lack of terror. We bumble down the slick trail, still beaming,
absentmindedly slicing at the vines with our machetes, dreaming of
seabirds. Those bad-ass motherfuckers. We strip down to our underwear
before getting in the truck, to the dismay of the modest constituents
of Olosega town, who are out walking and playing cricket and
volleyball in the rain as we drive through.
When we get back to Ofu, we are
informed by Scott, the NPS super, that the great white curtain is
actually a hurricane, passing just south of Ta'u as we speak.
Cyclones have been devastating to these islands in the past –
Hurricane Olaf hit the north side of Olosega just ten years ago,
destroying an entire village that now, crumbling and abandoned, is
being taken back by jungle. We set up a banding station there, our
trails cross through the windows of now-roofless houses and past
laser-embossed granite headstones tossed aside broken graves,
everything carpeted with moss and choked by thick vines like a set
from Indiana Jones. But Scott doesn't seem to have an apocalyptic
attitude about this hurricane. He's mostly worried that his plane
won't leave tomorrow. Looks like we won't be banding for a few more
days.
