The Hermit crabs were not safe on the beach this afternoon.
We are anchored at Nukuhifala Island, one of the tiny 'motus' at the outer edge of the reef surrounding Wallis Island. It takes barely half an hour to walk around, and is uninhabited except for a chapel. These abundant Wallisian chapels have been a main point of interest everywhere we go, startling architecture in such an idyllic place, and highly decorated. The chapel here has a plain white exterior, but inside the ceiling is covered in brightly colored cloth and dozens of silk flower arrangements adorn the alter.
Our Christmas present to ourselves last year was a set of Boulles (Bocce). We had enjoyed playing this game with another cruising yacht we had spent time with, Anesthesia, whose main rule was that you had to have a drink between ends. There are not too many other rules to the game. The team who's turn it is to throw the 'Jack' gets to define the play area. This can make things very interesting if there is a proximity to water (such as on a beach) or there are obstacles involved on a beach. Then it is a matter of tossing a set of four balls per side as close to the Jack as possible. This can be made more difficult if the Jack lands behind an obstacle, such as a log, or in a hole so that it can't be seen. The beach crabs are rather large here, so there was the ever present danger of losing a ball down a crab hole. Several times the game stopped to dig out a Hermit crab that had inadvertently been crossing the beach in the path of one of these missiles. And there were distractions such as the discovery of a pretty shell, or a shoal of fish jumping out in the lagoon.
By sunset, the beach was covered in circles (drawn around the Jack to define the play area) which looked like either an alien had landed or some pagan ritual had taken place. We have decided that the UFO theory seen in circles in cornfields was just a big game of Platanque.
