A sweet blue Beveridge: take one ancient volcano place it in a deep glass of purest salt water. Sprinkle with coral larvae, stir gently and bake slowly for several million years until the rocky core is well done and beginning to subside back into the Earth’s mantle. Add liberal amounts of sunshine to encourage the development of a thick crust of living reef. Isolate from all other landmasses, ensuring that the surrounding waters are as clear and blue as possible. Finally, garnish with beautiful reef fish, dolphins, barracuda and sharks. Serve warm but not hot.
Today we made a unique mid-ocean stop at Beveridge Reef, an isolated coral atoll in the westernmost Cook Islands. From horizon to horizon nothing broke the surface of the sea except the surf that marked the position of the ring of coral; we were truly in a lost world. Flying high overhead and looking down from modern jets, atolls like this stand out as beautiful rings of white breakers surrounding turquoise lagoons that contrast sharply with the deep blue waters all around. But for earlier mariners these reefs were mysteries and great hazards, terribly difficult to see from the surface until the winds had nearly driven the ship up onto the deadly shoals. Charles Darwin began to solve the mystery and wrote about Beveridge in his brilliantly insightful theory of subsidence that explained how the reefs began around volcanic islands that slowly sank beneath the waves, leaving only the rising ring of living coral behind at the surface.
For us, Beveridge was a wonderful privilege. We launched the snorkeling platform and swam out to see for ourselves the beauty of the crystal waters, rich fish life and corals of this ocean oasis, floating at our ease over the long swells rolling into the reef from the sea beyond. I dove and deployed the ROV, recording video to give us a look at the deeper world of the schools of barracuda and grey reef sharks that make Beveridge their home. Some of the open water predators, wahoo and tuna, even made their way onto our plates for dinner this evening, the perfect accompaniment to a delicious blue Beveridge.
Today we made a unique mid-ocean stop at Beveridge Reef, an isolated coral atoll in the westernmost Cook Islands. From horizon to horizon nothing broke the surface of the sea except the surf that marked the position of the ring of coral; we were truly in a lost world. Flying high overhead and looking down from modern jets, atolls like this stand out as beautiful rings of white breakers surrounding turquoise lagoons that contrast sharply with the deep blue waters all around. But for earlier mariners these reefs were mysteries and great hazards, terribly difficult to see from the surface until the winds had nearly driven the ship up onto the deadly shoals. Charles Darwin began to solve the mystery and wrote about Beveridge in his brilliantly insightful theory of subsidence that explained how the reefs began around volcanic islands that slowly sank beneath the waves, leaving only the rising ring of living coral behind at the surface.
For us, Beveridge was a wonderful privilege. We launched the snorkeling platform and swam out to see for ourselves the beauty of the crystal waters, rich fish life and corals of this ocean oasis, floating at our ease over the long swells rolling into the reef from the sea beyond. I dove and deployed the ROV, recording video to give us a look at the deeper world of the schools of barracuda and grey reef sharks that make Beveridge their home. Some of the open water predators, wahoo and tuna, even made their way onto our plates for dinner this evening, the perfect accompaniment to a delicious blue Beveridge.
