Friday, March 8, 2013

More than 80 years ago, Oskar Speck, a 25-year old German, starving and out of work, decided to leave Germany. He had heard there might be work in the copper mines in Cyprus. He had just enough money to equip his tiny "Faltboot" (folding boat) which he took to Ulm by train where, beside the Danube, he put the frame together, pulled the rubber-and-canvas skin over it, loaded up, and, without any fuss or farewell from anyone, set off to paddle down the river in the direction of the Mediterranean Sea.

Seven years and four months later, on the 20th of September 1939, he coaxed his kayak through the surf and on to the beach at Saibai, an island 60 or 70 miles north from Thursday Island. It was two weeks after the start of World War II - but Oskar didn't know about that. At his bow, often smothered in the flying surf, fluttered the tiny Swastika which he had brought from Germany with him. Three Australian police were waiting for him to berth his kayak. If this was the German invasion, these cops could handle it. “Well done, feller!” they said, shaking his hand warmly. “You’ve made it—Germany to Australia in THAT. But now we’ve got a piece of bad news for you. You are an enemy alien. We are going to intern you.” Read the full story here.

You don't have to do any paddling as you wing your way aboard a modern jetliner towards VILLA MAMANA on tropical Telekivava'u.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

 

Kon-Tiki was the name of a tiny balsa-wood raft, constructed by Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl. It was Heyerdahl's contention that pre-Columbian Polynesian natives had regularly made trips across the ocean in similar rafts. To prove his theory, Heyerdahl set sail in the Kon-Tiki in 1947, successfully completing a 4300-mile journey from Peru to Tahiti. Filmed en route with 16-millimeter camera equipment, Kon-Tiki was originally released in Sweden in tandem with the publication of Heyerdahl's book about the expedition.

You don't have to build your own balsa-wood raft to travel to the very heart of Polynesia. All you have to do is book into luxurious VILLA MAMANA on tropical Telekivava'u.

Sunday, March 3, 2013

 

Terms of venery, or collective nouns, were all the rage in the Middle Ages. Derived from the sport of hunting, they indicated collections of beasts and birds. And as anything fashionable is then adopted and adapted for other purposes, special collective nouns were invented for and applied to things and people. So what do you call a collection of islands?

Gavan Daws calls his book about famous people whose lives were linked to islands - Paul Gauguin, Robert Louis Stevenson, Walter Murray Gibson, Hermann Melville and John Williams - "A Dream of Islands", and what an aptly evocative description it is!

Your dream of islands will become reality when you book into luxurious VILLA MAMANA on tropical Telekivava'u.

 

Spiral Island is the name of two floating artificial islands in Mexico built by British artist Richart "Richie" Sowa. The first was destroyed by a hurricane in 2005; the second has been open for tours since 2008.

The first Spiral island was located in a lagoon near Puerto Aventuras, on the Caribbean coast of Mexico south of CancĂșn; Sowa began constructing it in 1998. He filled nets with empty discarded plastic bottles to support a structure of plywood and bamboo, on which he poured sand and planted numerous plants, including mangroves. The island sported a two-story house, a solar oven, a self-composting toilet, and three beaches. He used some 250,000 bottles for the 66 feet (20 m) by 54 feet (16 m) structure. The mangroves were planted to help keep the island cool, and some of them rose up to 15 feet (4.6 m) high.

The island was destroyed by Hurricane Emily in 2005. In late 2007 and 2008, Sowa built a new Spiral Island in the waters of Isla Mujeres, the "Island of Women", also near Cancun. It opened for tours in August, 2008. It is referred to by Richie as Joyxee Island.

The new island was initially 20 metres (66 ft) in diameter, which has since expanded to 25 metres (82 ft), and plants and mangroves are already growing on it. It contains about 100,000 bottles. The new island has three beaches, a house, two ponds, a solar-powered waterfall and river, a wave-powered washing machine and solar panels. Volunteers helped with the project. Sowa will continue to make improvements to the Island, so it will always be a work of art in progress.

You won't need to collect empty bottles to live on your own island. In fact, you need to do nothing more than book into luxurious VILLA MAMANA on tropical Telekivava'u.

Friday, March 1, 2013

 

 

Tom Neale chose to live alone on Suvarov, one of the remotest atolls in the South Pacific Islands, because life there moves at the sort of pace which you feel God must have had in mind originally when He made the sun to keep us warm and provided the fruits of the earth for the taking.

These days you can follow Tom Neale's example by booking into luxurious VILLA MAMANA on tropical Telekivava'u.