Chapter 222: Day 221

Day 221,

We’re taking a break on the beach of a small island.  As it turns out, the second day of rowing is harder than the first as the previous day’s strain and exertion catches up with you.  I’ve tried taking more shifts from Lin to ease the burden on her, but the truth of the matter is I can’t even go half an hour without getting shaky and short of breath.  Not if I’m going to keep pace with Maiko anyway.  That said, slowing our pace is something we might seriously need to consider.

The island we’ve stopped at is interesting, but unfortunately difficult to properly explore.  It’s a smaller one, we could probably do a lap around it in the boats in ten or fifteen minutes but it’s tall.  Basically a pillar of stone sticking up out of the water two or three times the height of most of the buildings in the Village.  Only place for us to put in is a near-circular cove cut into one side of it with a crescent of sandy beach lining the inside of it giving a bit of walking space between the water and the sheer cliff face.  We could see trees on top from a distance and there are roots and vines visible near the top of the wall, but, like I said, we’ve got no good way up there.

The really strange part though is the thin waterfall draining from the top of the island into the sea.  You can’t see it from where we are now but if I listen for it I can hear it.  I can’t for the life of me figure out where the source for that waterfall could be coming from.  It feels improbable that the seawater could somehow be flowing up there as a natural spring.  Collected rainwater feels equally far fetched given that the waterfall would have drained it by now if it were anything short of the whole island being a hollow drum that fills up during the rainy season.  Perhaps some ancient pumping mechanism left by whomever or whatever built Cloud Tower?  But for what purpose?

A frustratingly unanswerable conundrum.  For now, I’ll distract myself with taking in the beauty of what I can see.  The beach is pristine and the water is amazingly clear.  If I stand up at the water’s edge I can see the coral reef that we passed over on the way in here in all its color and shining, swimming residents.  Pretty as it is though, we’ll probably need to get moving again before too long.  Once the tide goes out, getting back over that reef without scraping up the bottoms of our boat might be an iffy prospect.

Going to take a little bit of a walk to stretch my legs again before we leave.

 

Another night, another campfire, another island.  We’ve got company this time though.  This place is full of tiny, round, long-beaked flightless birds with seemingly zero fear of predators.  They look something like kiwis but with brighter plumage.  Not that that comparison is going to make any sense to a non-outsider.

But as I said, zero fear.  A few of them actually tried pecking at us before just going about their business ignoring us once they determined we weren’t food.  Our actual food was a bit trickier to keep them out of until we realized that they can’t jump high enough to get into the boats.

Lin and Maiko didn’t find much suitable to eat on the island save for the birds.  There was some debate about that option but ultimately we decided against it and went with what we brought with us.  What it really came down to was Lin found the birds to be cute and Maiko didn’t want to upset her.

And they are cute.  As I’m writing this now, sitting cross-legged with my back against a tree, one has nestled in the space between my legs.  I think they like the warmth.  Once the sun went down and we made our fire, more started coming out of the woods and gathering around it.  Maiko keeps picking them up and gently tossing them a short distance away as they try to huddle around her, much to the rest of our amusement.  It’s the chickens all over again.  That thought seems to have occurred to Maiko as well because she’s already declared that she’ll be spending the night in her boat.

That’s not a bad idea honestly, but unfortunately the other boat’s not well suited to that and I don’t think we can fit more than one person in Maiko’s.

Well, I’m going to see if I can get up and join the others without disturbing this little fellow too much

 

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