The Aitutaki honeymoon. Kiteboarding escape.

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 After a long period of constraint, the governments allowed travel to resume. Aitutaki, honeymoon island inspires romantic thoughts for love blind newlyweds and kiteboarders alike. Think: tropical island, lazy days languishing in clean clear waters supping on a chill coconut or kiteboarding on a butter flat surface with steady sea breezes and performing every difficult trick that you never mastered before.
We had a false start with our airline Jetstar canceling our starting flights from Melbourne a couple of hours before we were due to fly. It was a heavy week of stress thereafter changing dependent flights, rearranging accommodation, and managing costs for three people. We realised how useless travel insurance is in these situations.  When the airlines give you flight credits there is no alternative cash refund, so it's too bad if you can't use them and there is no insurance because you haven't lost your money.  I swear that there is some sort of insidious rort going on here.
Air Rarotonga do well out of their exclusive run  between mainland Rarotonga and Aitutaki, it adds considerably to the cost of a journey from Australia to the Cook Islands. No complaints on the service, though. They were very generous in allowing us to re-schedule our flights at minimal cost, even though there was no contractual allowance for it.
It turns out that our delay was a bonus as the week that we intended our travels on was one of bad weather. We turned up at the tail end of it, with some high wind and wet weather, but it soon swapped to the tropical idyll promoted in the latter part of our trip.
So, there is the idealist brochure picture of Cook islands, Aitutaki, and the real side of it. From a traveler's perspective, we want to fill our days with whatever is sold to us, i.e., nirvana. Aitutaki will and will not do that.
The folks in Aitutaki know how to capitalise on the wealth of of its tourist visitors. Unfortunately, the prices that match those in Australia in similar locations do not reflect anything in the way of quality. Our accommodation was an Airbnb with a good rating. However, the owners double booked us with other guests, the kitchen was mouldy, refrigerators never cleaned out, and cooking equipment non functional. We visited resorts nearby with a much heftier price tag and, though not as bad, still needed a lot of attention to detail.
If you are a pig, you are in for a lonely life sitting out the back with a rope on your foot gaining weight for that special occasion that involves your participation.
There are surprises, though. Take, for instance, Cafe Koru. "Good food, good friends , good times" ; cafe Koru is a good place to hang out. The locals don't work here. The staff is from backpackers who know how to provide good service.
 Cafe Koru grow their own salad vegetables with quite a sophisticated hydroponic farm. I was impressed.
The locals are lovely people. They are well mannered and have a social bunch. The golf club is a community hub and especially with the weekly event that allows any non-golfing person to join and have a hit and giggle. We didn't join in being a bit jet-lagged but enjoyed the peripheral activities.
At the golf club, with a couple of thirst quenching drinks, we were able to provide expert opinion on golf and all the world's problems.
There is a cafe that the locals use,Aunty Odee'z.  It's not promoted on Google and is a bit of a local secret. Aunty works there and her family, we loved it because of what it is.  
The food was well prepared, unpretentious and generous and priced for the locals.
Tropical fruit is delicious. Shall I have the star fruit, coconut, or the passion fruit ? Ok, I 'll have the all and some paw paw as ell. If you want ready husked coconuts you can get it first thing in the morning from the Neibaa's supermarket (on the eastern side i.e. opposite shore of Arutanga).
There is so much fruit growing on the island in open bushland, most of just going to waste.
Chooks are everywhere on the island. They keep the insect pests down and are not generally eaten. From what I gather, chook meat is imported from the United States. I think I'd prefer the free range option myself, the imported option doesn't taste that good. 
Like many islands in the tropics, coconuts abound. There are far more than what people are able to eat. It's strange, hardly anyone seems to want to go to the effort to strip the husk and wait until there is a supply at the grocery store ready prepared.  
A blast back to our youth. The young man is still within. Fortunately, our bikes were not the most powerful, barely scraping in 70 kph. Helmets, leathers, boots - this is Aitutaki - get real ! Our host works in the hospital, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some tales of woe in respect to middle-aged motorcyclists. If you can ride a motor cycle , it is well worth getting one as it offers a great level of freedom and is more cost-effective than hiring a car. We hired at Ootu beach, they were just functional. Later we but found the bikes at Rino's on the other side of the island to be in better condition.  Hiring scooters and worse still a car is an exercise in itself as most of them were booked out well in advance.
Ootu beach is on the end of the airport. It boasts a resort, and you can kiteboard there. If we were to go back, we'd most likely stay near Arutanga, as we had to travel every day to get to the boat, whether it be for kiteboarding on Honeymoon island, fishing or shopping The accommodation is much cheaper there too.

Ootu beach isn't a bad place to be, there is a place to have a drink or eat and the water is nice to swim in. There is a rather dysfunctional canoe hire and skippered catamaran hire place too.

Kiteboarding can be done off the end of the resort, but it's better off Honeymoon Island where all wind directions can be enjoyed. Having said that, the water at Honeymoon is not deep. At low tide, you can wade for hundreds of metres no higher than your knees. We have some signatures on our kiteboards due to the water disappearing. Wing or kite foilers will need to be very careful and could be better off at Ootu.
These small fish dig holes in the sand all over the Ootu beach, making for a uncomfortable stroll in  the shallow waters.
On the first day at Honeymoon Island, you realise that your gear is going nowhere and that Honeymoon Island is the only place to kiteboard. We left all our gear overnight in the shelter on the island. 

Honeymoon island can only be accessed by boat and there is no camping. It is a great venue as you can kite all round the island, it is shallow and protected by the atoll reef.  I enjoyed exploring the island nearby as well and along the reef edge to watch some whales breeching and turtles swimming. If the wind dropped to nothing, unless you were too far on the off shore side in the deep, it would be nothing more than a long wade back.
If it sounds fishy that the wind is always blowing in Aitutaki, you are right. Oftentimes, the wind drops down to below 8 knots, but then it goes over 30 knots. This is the case round any area at this latitude and time of year. We were not disappointed because we ensured that we had sufficient time to work with the cyclical changes and got  the full range.
There are two businesses that supply kiteboard shuttle  services to Honeymoon Island. I can not say one is better than the other, other than that the one we chose had  a bigger faster boat. It's the crew and passengers that make the experience, and it seemed that both sets were having fun. With the whales breaching all around, Quentin's business was booming with whale watching and snorkeling tours too.
We carried big kites and medium-sized kites (11m and 17m) along with a large 165 and smaller 140 board. I would say to anyone coming over to pack their entire kit as the wind varied from 9 to 35 knots. In the past, our experiences with tropical areas were that the winds were generally light, so we kitted out accordingly. We had to hire an 8m kite and could of used an even smaller one on three occasions when those sea breezes blasted in backed by tropical downpours with defiance.
Our bit to save the whale, this poor calf went adventuring too far from its mum.  Somehow it got over the reef, but in the process it scraped its belly badly and then got stranded on our island. We pushed it out into the open water, but sadly, it came back overnight and is no longer alive.
Our heroic deeds made the news.
Hermit crabs are entertaining and grow quite large.
New life abounds. Birds nest all over and are quite happy to cohabit with us.
I'd like to think I could kiteboard all day. Maybe I can in my mind, but the kites do get tired too !
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There are many churches on this little island, all painted in strong white colours. The singing is wonderful.
My buddies went inside to listen and perhaps correct the errant ways of their minds.
The sun puts on a colourful show morning and night. That saying "red sky at night, shepherd's delight, red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning": it is true. The fun thing about Aitutaki at this time of year is that the bad weather doesn't last long, and if it is raining on one side of the island, drive over to the other. 
I almost forgot. We did go fishing a couple of times. The fishery has been depleted by the effects of overfishing by foreign nations or global warming - or perhaps both. After a day of trolling around the atoll, we managed to hook a fish or two to feed us for a week (wahu, tuna, barracuda).   We went with Wahoo fishing charters. James, the owner and skipper, is a great guy and will do anything to get out and do some fishing. Him and his wife run a restaurant too (guaranteed fresh fish), but we know where James would rather be. We did try to book an experience bonefishing, but it was either too windy or the guides unavailable.
Aitutaki was a great place to learn new tricks and for progression of beginners. It was a real bonus to crash and burn and simply stand up to grab your board to do it all again.
 
To wrap it up, I glad I went to the cook Islands, Aitutaki,  a holiday was needed. I don't think I would bother going back as there are better offerings elsewhere, and there are many places I haven't yet experienced. It is a high cost destination due to the added cost of local flights and the requirement to shuttle every day to Honeymoon Island (about $40 per day), as well as the fact that everything is imported. The standard of accommodation and associated service is not high. Food, if you like fish (which I do) is good. Meat is generally imported. Restaurants vary from very good to basic (Avatea cafe  is nice, and James' Mouarii cafe is too).
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