WHAT IS COSMOREVAS.TK

MY LINK WITH OCEANIA

This website has a very strong connection with Oceania.
I’ve done this so many times: I’ve quickly rotated the globe and then stopped it with a finger.
For some reason (perhaps just by chance, since the blue planet is covered by water for about 70% of its surface area), my finger often ends up in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean or the Pacific Ocean.
On a more positive note, it can even happen that you end up touching the ground of a small island or atoll that you didn’t even know existed.

That’s how I discovered the island of Tokelau.
I did some more research and found out that you can set up your own website for free using the .tk domain.
You can even help boost the country’s GDP by purchasing a domain for a small fee.

This is why I’ve made the Pacific Islands one of my destinations to visit.
I tried to get to Tokelau in any way I could, but it wasn’t possible this time.
I still have lots more islands to visit, and there’ll be another chance in the future.

PLAN THE TRAVEL

The hardest part of planning a trip to this area, especially for those with limited time and a lot of interest, is deciding where to go.
There are hundreds of islands that make up the 25 or so nations that can be visited in this area, which covers almost a third of the earth’s surface.

I started by making a list of all the nations and then thinking about why I’d want to go there.
I therefore started to narrow down the list, reducing it by almost a third.

At this point, I started looking into all the possible flight combinations.
I found this part of the research easier as I didn’t have to consider any stopovers in Australia or the United States (I’ll explain why later).
Cathay Pacific was the best fit for my needs. I ended up going to Nadi and coming back from Auckland, with a stopover in Hong Kong.

CHOICE OF NATIONS

HAWAII: obligatorily excluded

I’m not particularly drawn to the big cities in the US, but I am fascinated by Hawaii and Honolulu.
I would have loved to go on this trip because I’m really interested in seeing how people live there and I’d also love to swim with sharks without a cage.
Unfortunately, when I applied for a US visa, my request was rejected.
This meant I had to completely change my plans.
I had to take Hawaii off the list and avoid any flights that included a stopover in the US.

AUSTRALIA: obligatorily excluded

Australia is definitely a destination that deserves a whole trip of its own.
It’s a huge country with so much to see.
I had the option of using Sydney Airport, but I decided to avoid it.
I read that the Australian visa process is longer and more uncertain after a US visa is rejected.
You can transit at the airport without a visa for up to 8 hours, but although my flight only needed 5 hours, I decided to avoid the risk of airline delays.
Australia is still on my list of places to visit.

NEW ZEALAND: partially chosen

While New Zealand is a lot smaller than Australia, I think you can spend a few days on each of the two main islands and get a good feel for them.
Even so, I’ve flown from Auckland airport twice.
My first stopover was an eight-hour flight to the Cook Islands from Tonga.
It was my first experience of the New Zealand winter: 5°C and very heavy rain.
I then spent a few hours at the airport, where there are seats without arms on the upper floor, lots of electrical outlets and well-known commercial chains selling sandwiches, chips and drinks throughout the night.

You can catch buses to the city centre from outside the ground floor.
I was planning to use it and then hop on the tourist bus to quickly visit Auckland, but I was too tired, not in the best shape, and it was cold.
So I ended up spending 12 hours at the airport between my return from the Cook Islands and my flight to Hong Kong..

See you later, New Zealand

FIJI: done

I decided to skip Hawaii and go straight to Fiji, which has become my first destination.
I’d always wanted to swim with sharks, and it turns out that one of the best places in the world is right in the south-central part of Fiji’s main island.

In Pacific Harbor, in the Beqa Lagoon, you can dive at 30 metres without a cage with bull, tiger, lemon, white fin, black tip and others sharks in front of you.
I’m talking about dozens of sharks just a few centimetres from the divers.

On top of that, some of the islands in the Yasawa archipelago are home to giant manta rays, which you can swim with freely.

I would have liked to spend a few days relaxing in the Fijian sea.

TUVALU: done

A lot of people think of climate change as just a few more degrees in August, more consistent rainfall and less regular seasons.
In some parts of the world, climate change is having a severe impact on the lives of local people.

I’m thinking of places like Antarctica, Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, where I’ve seen ice retreat hundreds of metres in just a few years.
I’m thinking of Svalbard and the Arctic territories, where it was almost impossible to find a polar bear. They’ve been driven towards Russia by the lack of frozen territory to hunt.

Tuvalu is thought to be the first nation to disappear due to rising sea levels.
That’s why I decided to go now, before it’s too late in a few years’ time.

TOKELAU: excluded for now

Planning my trip to the Pacific Islands, I looked for any solution to get to the island that is allowing me to realize the dream of this website, but I have not found any possible solution.
I was looking into ways of getting to the Pacific Islands but I couldn’t find a way to make it work.
It takes at least five days, which unfortunately is too long for me.

I still have lots more islands to visit, and there’ll be another chance in the future.

SOLOMON ISLANDS: excluded for now

I was reading about the attractions of the Solomon Islands and found out that the main attractions are lots of WWII wrecks of warships.
I’m not keen on this type of diving, so I quickly ruled this destination out.
For now, anyway.

NEW CALEDONIA: obligatorily excluded

It’s officially French territory, but a large part of the population is fighting for independence.
It’s connected almost exclusively with Australia.
I had some trouble getting an Australian visa, so I started looking at New Caledonia as a possible future destination.

TONGA: done

Tonga is one of the few places in the world where you can swim with whales.
From July to October, the humpback whales leave Antarctica and migrate to the warm, calm waters of Tonga to reproduce, give birth to their cubs, wean them and then come back to Antarctica.

People have different views on this, but I believe this kind of experience is a lifeline for many Tongans, thanks to the foreign visitors and tourists who come here specifically for this.
So they have a strong incentive to make decisions that allow humpback whales to stay in these waters, possibly without changing economic activities to favour whale hunters.

COOK ISLANDS: done

If you look at a map of the Pacific Ocean, you’ll see a line that divides the world into two parts.
That’s the date change line.

To understand it, just think about time zones.
If you think about the Greenwich Meridian, you’ll see that when you’re moving east, you have to move the hands of the clock forward, but if you’re moving west, you have to bring them back.

Ideally, two people travelling in opposite directions would meet at the data change line.

As you make your way through the few miles that separate two nations at the turn of the line of the date change, you’ll find that the difference in time zones is close to 24 hours.
So, you can basically travel through time, living twice on the same day or not living at all on a calendar day.

That’s why I decided to go to the Cook Islands.

VANUATU: done

I was pretty blown away to find out that on one of the islands in this nation, you can go to the edge of the crater of an active volcano and see magma explosions.
You can even watch the glowing stones that fly!

I had to make sure I got to Vanuatu on my trip.

FRENCH POLYNESIA: excluded for now

A few years ago, I was on a boat trip in Ogliastra, Sardinia, with an older Australian traveller who had seen a lot of the world.
She told me that only the waters of Bora Bora could compare with Cala Mariolu, Cala Goloritzè and other gems on the east coast of Sardinia.

I’d like to confirm her sentence and I tried all the ways to reach French Polynesia on my journey.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find the right air connections, as the most convenient flights go via Los Angeles, which is currently not an option for me.

But even so, it’s just a farewell to a future trip.

KIRIBATI: excluded for now

There were a few reasons why I thought Kiribati would be a great place to visit.
For starters, it has a beautiful flag that’s one of the few in the area that doesn’t have any connection to the Union Jack.
Plus, the locals speak the local language even though they’re mostly taught English.
And then they usee the geographical indications.

They don’t use the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ – they just say ‘sea direction’ and ‘lagoon direction’.
That’s because Kiribati is at the turn of the date line.
Up until 1997, the Republic was basically living on two different dates at the same time.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get to Kiribati because I couldn’t find any flights from the Pacific Islands.

NAURU: excluded for now

It’s the smallest independent republic in the world and the only state without a capital city.
Since 2001, Nauru has hosted the controversial “reception camp”, where immigrants without permission are sent from Australia.
I believe everyone has the right to move freely, so I intend to visit Nauru when this legislation is revised.

NIUE: excluded for now

This small island, which is associated with New Zealand, can only be reached by flights that leave Auckland on Tuesdays and Fridays.
It can be tricky to find free seats on both flights, so you often have to stay on the island for at least a week.
I quickly dismissed the idea of spending all those days in the forest, caves, and cliffs with little else in sight.

MARSHALL ISLANDS: excluded for now

Between 1946 and 1958, the United States carried out at least 66 nuclear tests on these islands.
One of these was on 1 March 1954 in the Bikini Atoll.
The explosion was about a thousand times higher than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

People who were affected by the atomic bomb consider this to be a US test to study the effects of radiation on people.
The US Navy’s anti-radiation ship was ordered not to charge the people who would be affected by the test.

PITCAIRN ISLANDS: excluded for now

These islands are inextricably linked to the events of 28 April 1789, passed into history as the Bounty mutiny.
After leaving Commander Bligh and 18 loyal crew members adrift on a small boat, the second officer Christian and his men reached Tahiti and then made their way to the Pitcairn Islands.
There, they burned the Bounty, which was an unnecessary move because it meant the British navy couldn’t find them.

You can currently only reach it by sea. It’s about two days sailing from Tahiti and eight days from New Zealand.
The main island is home to a few people, but there isn’t a port there.
The ships have to drop anchor offshore, and the locals will come out in sturdy rowing boats to meet them.
It’s not uncommon for the sea to be too rough for boats to reach the islands.

SAMOA: excluded for now

In 1899, the Tripartite Convention divided the Samoa archipelago between the German Empire (the western Samoa then became German Samoa) and the United States (eastern Samoa was renamed American Samoa and has kept that name ever since).

When World War I broke out, German Samoa moved to New Zealand, from which they gained independence in 1962.
The new state, the first in the Pacific to gain independence, was named Samoa.
The people of American Samoa are worried that their identity will be lost if they stop calling it Western Samoa.

Even though it’s now an independent country, Samoa still has strong ties with Australia and New Zealand.
In 2011, it decided to move to the west of the date line to align with the calendars of its main partners.
This meant that 30 December was skipped over.

WALLIS AND FUTUNA: for now excluded

This is still french territory.
I decided to exclude it because I wanted to focus on independent nations.