The quiet of Aitutaki lagoon, three ways

Aboard Richard Story's Marguerite cruise, Aitutaki. Photo / Jonathan Milne

Aitutaki's world-famous lagoon has never been so calm and unruffled as this year. As we walk across the sand bar across from where we're staying at O'otu Villa, the only sign of human life we can see is a wisp of smoke curling up from a garden waste fire, on the main part of the island.

It's dusk. There is nobody else on the warm lagoon. No cars or motorbikes moving on the coastal roads. A frigate bird soars high above us.

Even with the border to New Zealand open, it will take a long time for tourists to return to Cook Islands in any numbers. There are no Americans, no Europeans, no Australians - just a few New Zealanders with a deeply felt connection to the islands where the ancestors of the first Māori set sail in their vaka.

There will never be a better time to visit.

Sailing in silence above the turtles

When he lived in Auckland, Ted Tavai dreamed of sailing. He saw the wind on the water. He saw the yachts scooting across the choppy waves. But it was too expensive – they call it a rich man's sport. And it was too cold.

Then, in 2009, Ted and Shelley Tavai moved home to the village of Nikaupara on Aitutaki. "Coming over here was a dream come true. Looking at that lagoon, you wanted to be out on there!"

He got involved helping out at weekend down at the sailing club. Shelley is a teacher, and it turned out Ted is a bit of a natural with kids as well.

"That's really been my passion, seeing the big smiles, especially the ones who have never sailed before," he says. "Their whole face, their whole manner changes."

Aitutaki Sailing Club, to be clear, is three rusty, padlocked containers sitting on O'otu sandspit, coconut palms and ironwood trees overhead, the sand pockmarked by crab burrows that pose an ankle-twisting threat to the young, barefoot sailors carrying their Optimists, Lasers and Tazs down to the lagoon.

Learning to sail, Aitutaki lagoon, Rarotonga. Photo / Jonathan Milne

Now Ted takes tourists and locals out on new polyethlyene-hulled Hobie Getaway 17-foot catamarans, the latest and greatest on the water, ducking and diving and sprinting and sloping across the blue lagoon, weaving in among the coral heads on waters he knows so well.

My own boys learnt to sail Optimists with Rarotonga Sailing Club; they were excited to see Motu E'e where their friends had camped for a sailing regatta the year before.

But it's been tough times for Captain Ted, with the tourists gone. With more downtime, he's been doing what others on Aitutaki are doing: getting out on the plantation, fixing up their house, doing some spearfishing …

New cruise boat named in honour of ground-breaking politician

The newest tour boat on Aitutaki lagoon is strong and beautiful. Its owner, marine scientist Richard Story, had named the boat after his mother, Marguerite Story.

She was one of the first women in the Cook Islands Legislative Assembly, and the first woman Speaker of Parliament. She was the sister of the independent country's first Prime Minister Sir Albert Henry – though on occasion she was known to kick her brother out of Parliament for disorderly behaviour.

Richard remembers: "She would also remind him that even though the Speaker of the House is his sister, doesn't mean that there would be some favouritism."

Sometimes she was so firm with him that Richard thought they would no longer be on speaking terms – but outside Parliament, they were close as family. "To me the boat with its strong look of agility suits my mum's stance in her life as a very strong, vocal person."

Marguerite Story's dream was for her children to return to her homeland, Aitutaki, and set up their own businesses – and help look after the environment. She would have been proud of Richard; he is the marine scientist on Aitutaki and runs the Marine Research Centre.

When we visit, the centre's big tanks are full of glittering, gleaming blue and green and gold and silver pa'ua (giant clams). My three young sons gaze into them, entranced.

This is Richard's day job. Taking out visitors on the Marguerite is just a sideline – but one to which he brings unique insight.

A couple of days after visiting him at the Centre, he helps us aboard the Marguerite and we power smoothly and quietly out into the lagoon. If anyone knows where best to see the turtles, or how to treat them with respect, it's Story. The Marguerite is new; she arrived in Aitutaki in January, just before the borders closed. He has taken out only a handful of tourists on ocean fishing tours or lagoon cruises.

Owned by Richard, his daughter Nora Raita and her husband, Marguerite cruises are focused on marine protection.

Out at One Foot Island, made famous by countless tourist photos, the beach is near deserted. The giant trevally circle curiously as we snorkel in the lagoon.

"When guests see the turtles, giant trevally and giant clams, their eyes light up, big smiles on their faces, they can't believe how big the trevally and clams are, or that they can see a green turtle swimming in their natural environment," Raita says.

Joe, Gus and Monty Milne on One Foot Island, Aitutaki. Photo / Jonathan Milne

This year, an academic study co-authored by Richard Story featured in international media. The hard-hitting study shows the commonplace practice of sprinkling bread in the water to woo reef fish may or may not keep tourists happy – but it is certainly harmful to smaller herbivorous fishes. It shows that Story's care for the environment is uncompromising.

"Seeing the smiles, curiosity, and amazement from our guests is what makes our day, and knowing that we are doing our part to educate our guests about the Aitutaki Marine life, and how important it is to protect for the future generation."

The calm of Aitutaki's Mike Lee: Learning to kiteboard on the lagoon

"Let go of the bar … just let go of the bar …"

Standing knee-deep on a sandbar far out in Aitutaki's lagoon, there's a strange calm in Mike Lee's voice. I regain control of the kite, and guide it up into the sky again; at 12 o'clock above me, the sun is in my eyes. I gingerly place one foot on the board, then the other, and I'm moving forward and – no, no, no, the kite's diving again.

"Let go of the bar …"

And crash, I've dropped the big yellow kite in the water. Again.

Kiteboarding on Aitutaki lagoon. Photo / Jonathan Milne

For 18 years, Mike Lee was a cook. He'd do seven-week voyages on factory trawlers, cooking for the crews. Or he'd run restaurants, in Picton and Napier, in New Zealand. Behind the pass, with 30 dinner orders lined up, he lived on the stress. "That's when I really felt it. It's rewarding. I liked the fast pace. I didn't throw things around. I probably would swear a bit."

Then, 20 years ago, his mother, Tereapii, died. She was from the Aitutaki village of Nikaupara; she and his dad, Robin, had been building a house there. They had planned to retire there, but she never had the chance.

So, after 30 years in which he had come to Aitutaki for holidays, Mike Lee finally came home to live. A couple of friends visited him with their kite-boards, and he got hooked. They taught him the basics, he got his instructor's certificate and, for the past dozen years, he's been teaching kite-boarding to tourists.

It was hard at first, but in the past four or five years, business picked up. He would take the tourists out kiteboarding off Honeymoon Island. They'd stop for a barbecue lunch and salads.

He's seen it all. There was the experienced kiteboarder who decided to leap his board over the reef – but then he couldn't beat the current back. "You wouldn't want to land on the reef, not this reef, it's really sharp," Lee muses. "He was about 20m outside the reef, and we had to go and get him."

He hired four more instructors. He bought a four-person boat, then an eight-person boat, and then a 16-person boat. He owns about 30 kites. Always, he paid cash up front – and that was fortunate, because, in March 2020, it all stopped. Since then, Lee's only customers have been locals.

How does he maintain such zen-like calm? "I think it's just from my mum, really. And it's a Cook Islands thing. My mum and all my uncles and aunties are really placid, I guess it's in the family tree."

Now aged 51, he has his 10-year-old son, Brandon, living with him. Yes, Brandon Lee, like the movie star son of another zen master, Bruce Lee.

"Brandon doesn't do martial arts," Mike Lee laughs. "He loves it here, he's out catching freshwater prawns now. He couldn't do that in Auckland."

Brandon's dad, meanwhile, has been diversifying. It's the word of the moment, but he's been doing it for years. Lee switched up from boarding to foiling, soaring a metre above the water. "The lagoon is the perfect place to do it because you're up high, and you look down and you see all the long coral heads, the turtles, the eagle rays, the fish, the colour – and you're silent, you don't scare them.

"It's really something to see. It takes a lot to impress me, but that really gets me."

For now though, he's got me to deal with. The yellow kite bucks and swoops. Mike Lee stands a metre or two behind me, as I grapple with the cables and the board beneath my feet.

"Let go of the bar …"

And bang! It's hit the water again. The string sort of pings, and goes slack in a way it hasn't in my previous six hours of lessons. I look down the line, and there's a big tear right down the middle of the kite.

We silently coil up the strings. The breeze ripples across the lagoon.

Surely, having an expensive kite ripped in half by a student who can't listen to instructions – surely that must ruffle his calm?

"Having a kite rip, it's really nothing," he says, serenely. "I think, it could be worse, I could be back in the kitchen in New Zealand. I think, there's nowhere else I'd rather be than here."