We set our clocks back this morning because Niue is an hour behind Bora Bora, and since we are so close to there, we thought Palmerston would be too. Andrew (Bob's son) was coming at 9:30am to pick us up and we wanted to be ready. Well it turned out that we were not yet in Niue's time zone, so Andrew showed up an hour earlier than we expected. We rushed around and were ready to go in a few minutes while he waited.
Then it was back to the island!
Here is the family's fishing gear. They catch mainly parrot fish with a net and a spear combination. They make most of their income by catching parrot fish and shipping them to Rarotonga for selling in their restaurants. Parrot fish are rare outside of Palmerston and sell for a good dollar, but the reefs here are just flooded with them.
After arrival on the island, Bob and his family served us some coffee/tea and biscuits and we chatted for a bit before taking a short walk to Bill's hose (he is the one who takes care of sailors' laundry and runs the 'Country Club' here).
Jan and I stopped to take a few pictures along the way, Gary kept gong to Bill's to drop off our laundry. Here is the east side beach looking out into the lagoon of Palmerston Atoll. The lagoon is much more shallow and so yo get very bright, turquoise waters when the sun is out. This is also at the end of the Main Street from yesterday's photos.
Then it was off to Bill's house where we were immediately offered coffee and tea again and these 'Tim Tams' (frozen cookie treats). He would not take no for answer and made me take two multiple times. We fond Gary sitting in a chair, taking to the family and up to his eyeballs in Tim Tams. Between the three of us, we finished a whole box of them. We chatted for a bit and Jan was showing off her flowers that Arthur (Bill's neighbour, who was building himself a new roof) had given her on our way to Bill's.
We got Bill's family to all line up for a family photo (they are looking t Jan's camera).
They then poured us some ice cold, fresh coconut water (nothing added to it). It was my first time tasting this stuff straight-up and it was delicious!
This girl was incredibly cute and was showing me magic tricks as she made her toys disappear.
To my surprise, she was just hiding them behind her back the whole time! We've got a real Houdini here!
Here is a picture of the great William Marsters.
Then they fed us ice cream (yo can see yet another Tim Tam in the bowl there).
After we denied food and drinks repeatedly, they knew not to ask this time and just gave it to us, haha. The hospitality here is unreal.
We then continued our walk to the south side of the island. The island is just a mile in diameter, so it doesn't take long to explore. Here is a shot of the administrative building.
And a short walk later, we were at the south beach, which also looked out into the lagoon.
Here are weird "sea poo" things that we found. We saw these once on a beach in Florida after a hurricane quite a few years ago (some of my friends might remember). Living though, they were even more disgusting. They would move around really slow and then had these spiky limbs that would protrude out, which wold further protrude their own collection of mini spiky arms that would sift through the sand. These things were all over the place too.
We ended up circling back to Bob's house, walking along the beach and saw a ton of cool shellsand crustacean remains along the way.
We finally got back to Bob's just as they were coming back in from catching us our lunch (fresh parrot fish). 
Here they are giving a new meaning to 'flying fish'.
Bob showed us how they clean fish on the island. A real master at his trade.
They served us a HUGE lunch of lightly-battered parrot fish, rice, noodles, and some little pastry things that resembled dumplings?
Oh, and some fresh coconut water!
After lunch they were happy to give us a family photo.
The little guy is Bob's only grandson, named Henry. Andrew is the eldest son on our right, his wife is Tuto and is in the yellow shirt. The other three are his daughters and I horribly cannot remember their names. But The one in black I believe is Mara and she has circumnavigated the globe on sailboats (one being the Canadian Picton Castle). The little one is his very shy youngest daughter.
Here is another shot on that rope swing just outside their house.
And some little hut I found while wandering.
Here are some more shots of the east beach at the end of the main road.
Here is the plaque outside of the school on the island. I got their mailing address and will be sending some school supplies when I get home.
We walked back to Bill's house to get our laundry. He showed us some of his freshly caught parrot fish (you can see why they are called parrot fish). The beaks allow them to chomp through coral to find all the goodies inside.
Here are the spears they use for fishing. The one with the three prongs are for catching parrot fish, and the barbs keep it from getting away. The spear without barbs, they sadly use to kill sharks that try to chew through the net to get their catch. They also told me they sometimes just kill them for fun and just let their bodies float away...that is the only thing I haven't liked on this island so far.
Here is the plaque for the 'country club' here on Palmerston (ie. Bob's house)
And this here is an absolutely stunning photo Jan took of Bob's shy daughter when she climbed into a little tree. I could transfer the photo to my iPad (the age-old compatibility problem with Apple products), but she is going to email it to me when we get to internet again.
We did some snorkelling before heading back to the boat. We didn't see anything too crazy, but saw a pair of rays swimming around. Here are the best shots, an old fisherman-style anchor,
and some more of those 'zebra' fish. They would all hide out in this sea-bush when I got close. Their heads would all peek out after a second or two to see if I had gone.
and I don't know what the hell this is, but it looked like something from Ghostbusters, some some sort of free-float amorphous ectoplasm. "It slimed me!"
And here was a fish I had never seen before. There were two that darted into a hole as I approached.
I think it's called a yellow-headed whitefish, scientifically speaking.
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