The Honeymoon Shell

So, we have this shell. It sits out on display at our home, usually in a prominent space, and people often wonder where it came from. Its a nice shell, I don't know what kind exactly, but its a soft peach-colored spiral about the size of a baseball. Mandi and I found it on our honeymoon...

After our engagement as Mandi and I made preparations for the wedding and subsequent honeymoon, we made the decision to let Mandi focus on the first while I focused on the latter. Now, it should be mentioned that we had a little money saved up and I determined to use it to give my bride a real first-class trip to somewhere exotic. I looked at brochures about tours of Asia and Africa and Caribbean Cruises, etc., until my eyes were tired of looking. Then as I was strolling through the Valley River Mall (Eugene, OR) on my way home from some inane errand I saw it...

It was a kiosk run by a travel agency that had a video playing over a TV that you could eyeball on your way past. They showed videos of various tropical locales to which they catered., and the video I saw was of the Cook Islands. IT WAS AMAZING! I knew at once that that was where I wanted to go.

Of course, in 1996 everyone still pretty much booked their trips through an agent, not the 'Net like we do today, so I rushed over to the travel agency I normally used and harried the agent into telling me all she could about the Cooks. Amid the brochures she gave me was one with a picture of a bikini-clad woman lounging on a spit of sand under the tropical sun. There was a shallow beach that ran back aways and faded into a line of palm trees. It was beautiful, and I told the agent, "That is where I want to go. Exactly to the spot where that woman is sitting in this picture. Find the resort, that's where we'll stay."

Well, we couldn't locate the exact spot, but we did book a nice trip to Rarotonga and Aitutaki. And we had F-U-N. We were married on Februaly 1, 1997 in Grove, Oklahoma. It was cold. The Cooks, however, were brilliant; warm, beautiful, full of great food, great snorkelling and no commercialism whatsoever. We couldn't even find any really good souvenir stores.

Then one day, near the end of the trip, we took a day cruise around the lagoon at Aitutaki. It included a BBQ on a motu at the edge of the lagoon, snorkelling, and a generally great time. The day began perfectly with a cruise around the lagoon in a motor boat, then as we cruised back to the motu (a small island at the edge of a lagoon) for lunch I noticed a great looking spot about a hundred yards off the channel we were in and pointed it out to the skipper. It was a sand bar that dropped off at the edge, but stayed just inches above water most of the way to the motu. The skipper's response was, "Yeah, that's where they take the pictures for all our promotional brochures." He was pretty laid back about it, but Mandi and I about jumped out of our skin. I told the rest of the people on the boat and as the excitement spread the skipper decided (at our behest) to drop us off right there and let us walk along the spit to the motu where he'd meet us for lunch. Mandi and I were the first ones off the boat, and that shell was just laying there in the sand, like a wedding gift from the Lord.

I've been on a lot of beaches in my time, but I've never found a shell that even comes close to this one for size and beauty. Oh, sure, you can buy nicer ones at tourist shops and you might even get a local conch diver to give you one for free if you catch them at the right time, but to just step off the boat onto the sand and find that thing was truy glorious. It was the only shell on the beach. Big as a baseball. I can't look at it without remember the story of how we came to be at that place. And now, more than eight years later, it is still in perfect condition; not a scratch, not a chip. It is one of our most treasured belongings. It is our honeymoon shell.