This video is awful, but you can kinda hear White Lady barking (this Killed me) every time I turn to wade further into the reef and away from the island, away from the pups who will now have to yet again scavenge by themselves on Stray Dog Island.

Sometime it’s very hard to just walk away… especially when your babies are barking for you to come back :((

The guardian of the island, Brown Boy running around while we wait for low tide.

Just waiting for the tide, more last cute moments with White Lady.

My island, my babies #2

Nowhere to go

Not quite Low Tide, um, ok, Shit

When we got to the point of the island, I was instantly hit by a wave of panic. I had planned out this entire trip somewhat foolishly and had to get back to the main island to catch a flight that afternoon to go to the actual main island to catch a flight back to New Zealand to pick up all my belongings from the Antarctica Center and then catch a morning flight back home to Portland. If any thing got delayed along this way my whole plan would be screwed and I’d face real versions of getting stranded. And this all started and depended on crossing the reef at low tide, something I had planned for with my hand written tide chart.

Well, it wasn’t completely accurate. There I stood at the point of the island looking across the reef and unable to see the sand bars which were exposed at low tide. Did I miss low tide? Was it receding? I had heard stories of people drowning in the strong currents and getting dragged along the reef when attempting to cross at high tide. I had no choice except to just sit and wait a while to figure out what was going on and where the water was going and if I was going anywhere. The dogs definitely weren’t going anywhere.

I hadn’t been walking more then 10 minutes, just long enough to be out of sight of the resort, when I heard them running. I turned around to see Brown Boy and White Lady chasing after me, they hadn’t understood our goodbye. I gotta admit that it made me happy to see them again, but I also knew I was about to lead them on a 45 minute walk away from the resort and then have to strand them on the beach.

When the moment came to say goodbye it was definitely real. I had found a nice little home in paradise and a couple of really loyal and sweet dogs. I actually can’t imagine how lonely/scary that time would have been out there if it weren’t for them. Plus there wouldn’t have been anyone to share the coconuts. So yeah, I had saved a bunch of crackers for the dogs, to give them one last feast, which I told myself was the best I could do for them. They ate so fast that the moment was over before it could even seem special. And then they heard some noise in the woods and ran off to chase it. I looked around and took that as my natural cue to leave. And like Tangata had 6 days earlier, I just walked away.

Day 6

A final morning, couldn’t have asked for a better one. White Lady sat by the hammock, we worshiped our Sun god.