Jesse and Jonah’s Ruby Island Adventure

Once upon a time, a long time ago, Jonah and Jesse convinced their parents to take them on a kayaking adventure. The destination they chose was Ruby Island, a small island on Lake Wanaka in New Zealand. Ruby Island is a fairly small island of three and a half hectares (about the size of eight football fields) and it’s so close to the city of Wanaka that it gets plenty of visitors, especially in the summer. People like to go there on boats, jet skis or kayaks from Wanaka and some brave souls have even swum to it. It has a jetty for parking boats, some pebble-y beaches, and a picnic table and even a gas-operated barbeque. All of which is to say that as they set out in their kayaks Jonah and Jesse were expecting a pretty normal trip and an uneventful picnic on a beautiful if not terribly mysterious island. Boy were they mistaken. 

About a week before the kayaking trip a tourist visiting Wanaka had lost a ring that was very special because it had belonged to the tourist’s grandfather. Dismayed at the loss, he had put up signs at all the boat rental shops offering a reward for its return. On the morning of the kayak trip when Jonah saw that sign he knew just what to do - he had received a metal detector for his birthday and this was the perfect opportunity to use it. He would be a hero, a real treasure hunter, and earn a reward. To protect the metal detector from getting wet, Jonah and Jesse wrapped it in a big black trash bag and sealed the end with duct tape. Jesse put the duct tape in his backpack so that they could re-seal the garbage bag for the return trip and because you really never know when you might need duct tape. Jonah took the shoelace out of one of his shoes and tied it around his neck so that he would have somewhere secure to tie the ring once they found it. It would really be too bad to go through all of the trouble of finding the missing ring only to lose it in the fathomless depths of Lake Wanaka during their return trip. With those preparations - and of course with mom and dad packing lunch, drinks and plenty of sunscreen for the trip - Jonah and Jesse judged that they were ready for action. 

The kayak trip out to the island was fun but uneventful. Jonah was in the front of a two person kayak with Dad, and Jesse was the front of a two person kayak with Mom. Jonah discovered that if he and dad timed their paddling together perfectly and kept up a steady but manageable paddling speed they could move swiftly through the water. Jesse discovered that even if he took a break from paddling to lay back and look at the sky the kayak would still move forward from just Mom paddling. Even better better: if he paddled really wildly Mom would get splashed. So Jonah and dad arrived to the island first, and by the time Jesse and Mom arrived - Jesse looking rested and ready and Mom laughing but soaking wet - Jonah and Steve had already done a quick walk around the island and had searched the beach for any sign of a ring. Although they hadn’t found a ring Jonah had found a beautiful sparkly christmas ornament shaped like a pinecone, and had tied it to the shoelace around his neck for safekeeping. The sun shining down and reflected from the water caught the glitter in the Christmas ornament and made it sparkly, throwing a lovely flickering light over Jonah’s face as he moved around with the ornament tied around his neck. 

The family hiked over to the picnic area, and while Mom and Dad got out supplies to grill burgers and chatted with some other adults that were there, Jonah and Jesse went off to explore the island and search for the missing ring. Jesse made a sketch of the island in his notebook, and Jonah helped him add a grid to split the island into smaller parts. This would help them in their search because once they had thoroughly searched each area they could mark it off on the grid, and that way they would be sure to focus on the areas they hadn’t searched yet. Jonah and Jesse showed the sketch and grid to Mom and Dad and shared their plans for where they would search, agreeing to be back at the picnic area in half an hour for lunch. With that, they went off to start their search. They would begin on the left hand side of the island and work their way section by section back to the farthest point, and then continued their search of the right hand sections working back toward the picnic area.

Right away, the metal detector found several soda can tabs. 

“Gross!” said Jesse, “Why have people been littering on an island! A bird could choke on these!” Even though it wasn’t treasure, the boys knew they had to bring this junk with them so Jonah strung them onto the shoelace necklace beside the glittery pinecone ornament. 

“Well,” said Jonah as he slung the necklace back over his neck, “At least we know the metal detector is working!” 

They marked on the grid where they had found the soda can tops and continued to work their way back toward the far end of the island, finding some other metal items as well - a rusty old soup ladle, a small anchor attached to a length of chain, and an old fishing pole. 

“This is all great stuff!” Jesse said, tucking them into his belt, “we can fix these up and use them.” 

Jonah agreed, replying, “Why do people leave their stuff around the island? If they were done with it they could have just given it to a kid to make things with.” 

“YEAH!” said Jesse. 

As they got to the far end of the island away from the picnic area, Jesse and Jonah were not finding as much. “This part of the island must not get as many visitors as the other side,” Jonah said. “I bet most people are tired by the time they reach the island, so they mostly hang around by the beach and the picnic area. The bushes are thicker here too, probably because they get to just grow wild with nobody stepping on them or trying to squeeze by.”

“Yeah,” said Jesse, rubbing a new scratch on his arm where a bush had caught him “some of these spots are really tight to get through!” 

“You can say that again!” said Jonah, backing out of a particularly dense thicket of manuka and brushing bits of leaf off of his head.

“I’m thinking that the tourist probably didn’t lose his ring back here,” Jonah said. 

“Yeah,” said Jesse. “You’re probably right. Let’s do the metal detector on that one patch over there and then head back.”

Jonah waved the metal detector over the patch and was just about to call it quits when he heard a beep.

“Did you hear that?” he said.

“Yeah, Jesse said. “Try it one more time.”

Jonah waved the metal detector over the area again, and again there was one beep. “Well it must be something small,” he said. 

“Yeah,” Jesse agreed, “like a gold ring!”

But they looked closely and did not find a ring in the sparse grass, although the metal detector continued to show that something was there.

“Hmmm. . .” said Jesse, “maybe it’s buried?”

“I don’t think the ring would be buried after such a short time missing,” said Jonah, “but there’s definitely something there. We should dig.”

Jesse pulled the metal soup ladle from his belt and began to do just that, but he didn’t get far. About four inches down he found a flat rock that seemed to extend a good distance in every direction, with no sign of the ring. Jonah ran the metal detector over the pile of dirt Jesse had dug up, thinking that he must have moved the metal without realizing, but there was no metal in the pile. When he ran the detector back over the flat rock, it beeped twice. 

“Hmm,” said Jonah, “All I can see is rock, but the signal is getting stronger.”

Jesse looked excited. “There’s gold mines all over this area!” he exclaimed. “Maybe there’s gold under this rock!”

“I guess it’s possible,” said Jonah. “We definitely need to investigate further.” They dug down in a few more places nearby but it was always the same - four to five inches of dirt and then the flat rock underneath.

“We need to get under that rock,” said Jesse. 

“We’re right at the edge of the island,” said Jonah. Maybe if we go down off the ledge, there will be a way underneath?” They decided to give it a try.

The edge of the island was lined with thick Manuka. Since Jesse was smaller, they decided Jesse should be the one to look. They hooked the anchor from Jesse’s belt around a particularly thick manuka stump, and Jonah tied the chain around Jesse’s belt so that he couldn’t fall. Then Jesse crawled on his tummy underneath the bush and rapeled just down over a ledge formed by the island on that side. What he saw took his breath away. 

“Um, Jonah . . .” Jesse said. “I’m pretty sure a pirate hid his treasure here.” A small opening beneath the ledge opened on to a small chamber lined with moss, lichen and driftwood but also filled with various kinds of precious jewelry. “Oh my goodness,” Jesse said, “there’s some really good stuff here!”

Jesse tried to grab a handful and climb back up, but it was too hard with the jewelry in his hand and he didn’t want to lose any. “Jonah!” he shouted. “I can’t hold the treasure and climb up!”

Jonah looked around for a solution and saw the old fishing pole they had discovered earlier. That gave him the perfect idea. He tied the ladle to the end of the fishing line and poked the rod out under the manuka and over the rock ledge. “Jesse!” he called. “I’m lowering the ladle to you. Put the treasure in and I’ll reel it back up here.”

In the first load, Jesse sent up a beautiful sparkling tennis bracelet, a watch, and a gold chain necklace. In the second, he sent up a wedding band, a signet ring (but not the tourist’s ring) and a shiny fishing lure. In the third, he sent up a shimmery gold party blower, two gold coins, and a 25 cent piece. Although he was excited about finding treasure, Jesse was starting to get nervous that the pirates might come back.

Jonah, puzzling over the collection, called to his brother: “Jesse . . . this stuff is really cool but I don’t think it’s pirate treasure.”

Jesse, unconvinced, sent up another load - a silver bracelet, a pearl necklace, and a few shiny bits of ribbon. That’s when something happened that really worried him - a green parrot appeared. It pecked at the chain holding Jesse and called “keee-aaaaa! Keeee-aaaaa!”

“Jonah!” Called Jesse, “the pirate’s parrot is back! We have to go!”

Jonah smiled. “Don’t worry Jesse, that parrot doesn’t belong to a pirate! He works for himself! Don’t you recognize the call? That parrot is a kea!”

Kea are a species of green-feathered Alpine parrot native to New Zealand. They adore shiny things and are extremely clever and a bit mischievous. Some of the things that clever kea have been seen doing include: turning on tap water at a campground, locking a hiker inside a toilet, and using tools to set off predator traps and steal the bait. This clever kea had apparently been hanging around Ruby island and taking every opportunity to collect shiny treasures to line his nest. 

As though to agree with Jonah’s assessment, the parrot called again, “keeeee-aaaaaa! Keeeee-aaaaaaa!” and began trying to steal the sequins from Jesse’s flip-sequin shirt. 

Jesse, relieved that no pirate would be coming to interrupt his search, made a careful final sweep of the little cave and found a shiny metal whistle with a compass attached and something that looked an awful lot like the photo of the tourist’s lost ring. As he sent these final treasures up in the soup ladle the kea gave him a rather reproachful look and he had a thought. “Jonah!” Jesse called, “We should get these things back to the owners but it’s not really fair that we take all of his treasure. Do you think we could leave the pinecone ornament?” 

Jonah removed the pinecone ornament from his shoestring necklace and sent it down to Jesse. The kea, seeing the sparkling ornament, was delighted. He took it straight from the ladle and hopped delightedly into his little nest. The little bit of light that entered the cave caught the glitter of the ornament and created a dazzling display of dancing lights on the walls. “Keeee-aaaa!” the parrot called, “Keee-aaaaa!”

Jesse, satisfied that the stolen treasures had been recovered and that the kea had accepted the trade, climbed back up over the ledge and belly-crawled through the manuka to were Jonah was waiting, looking very pleased with himself indeed. “Look,” Jonah said, sweeping the metal detector over the rock, “It’s not beeping anymore. It must have been picking up on all that metal through the rock. It’s not going off anymore, which means we got everything. Let’s take this treasure back to show Mom and Dad.”

Mom and Dad were thrilled to see the amazing treasures and congratulated the boys. “You could easily have given up after digging down to that rock, but you didn’t,” said Dad. “You found a creative solution to your problem, and look what you accomplished!”

“It was fantastic work boys,” said mom, “and I just love how you found creative ways to use the materials you had available. Who would have thought an old fishing rod, a rusty old ladle and an old anchor would be the key to rescuing lost treasure from a clever kea!”

“It was kind of you to leave the ornament for the kea as well,” said dad. 

Jonah tied the tourist’s ring to his shoelace for the trip home as he had been planning, and Dad zipped the other treasures securely into his knapsack for the kayak trip home. Once they got home they placed an advertisement in the Wanaka Sun inviting anyone who had lost jewelry on Ruby Island to reach out with a description. Not only were they able to find owners for everything, a reporter for The Sun was so impressed with their discovery and the honesty they showed by returning all of the items to their owners, that the front page of the paper the following week was a photo of Jesse and Jonah displaying all of their treasures, from the tourist ring to the rusty soup ladle, with a description of their adventure. The owner of the whistle and compass, seeing this article, was so impressed that she reached out to congratulate the boys and let them keep the compass and whistle as a gift. 

“You boys are very adventurous,” she said, “I think you may have more use for that compass and whistle than I do!”