Suwarrow

We had a bumpy 5-day passage to Suwarrow and almost did not leave when some air in the main engine had it running very rough. When bleeding the air, the vent plug broke in two pieces and luckily, I had a close match in my spares. We had a few engine surges along the way but she kept running. Using the SSB while underway, I e-mailed my engine guy, Bob Senter, and with only a promise of later money, agreed to have new parts waiting for my arrival in American Samoa.

The navigational charts were accurate for Suwarrow and we gratefully slipped into the calm anchorage and dropped the hook with 8 other boats. What a great place this is. Several of the boats have kids, so Emily is happy too.  While cleaning up the boat after the passage, the captain found a small Gecko clinging to the side of a fender.  Apparently he had stowed away and spent the last 5 days outside hanging on.  Since Emily had been begging to have a gecko on the boat (they eat flies and small bugs too) and this guy had already survived being at sea, I relented and it now lives aboard Emily Grace ...somewhere.

Our Stowaway

This isolated and uninhabited atoll in the Northern Cook Islands (located at 13°15'S, 163°06'W) has been for many years a favourite destination among sailors cruising the South Pacific. The man who put Suwarrow on the international cruising map was a New Zealander, Tom Neale, who, in the 1960s, lived on the atoll for six years. He described his Robinson Crusoe adventures in a book "An Island to Oneself" which inspired many sailors to visit this unique place. Tom Neale died in 1977, but inspired by his experience, the Cook Islands government declared Suwarrow a national park. Suwarrow is a major breeding ground for thousands of birds.

This Motu was where we hunted for crabs and had lunch

Baby Booby close enough to touch

Nowadays it's a popular spot for cruisers coming from Bora Bora, 680 miles away to the southeast. From Suwarrow to US Samoa is another 480 miles. The park ranger, James and his assistant, Appii (rhymes with Happy) could not have been nicer. There is a $50 dollar park fee, but compared to the high fees in the Southern Cooks and their confiscation of all Non-New Zealand meat, it was a bargain. Almost every day, they would take a group, spear fishing, snorkelling, scuba diving or fishing to several of the other atolls. James explained his interpretation of the Cook Island rules to us this way. Your frozen meat, beer and wine must also be confiscated here. However, rather than my taking it all at once, meat must be brought ashore each night and "burned" on their grill (and consumed) and spirits poured out slowly (into glasses). We can handle that interpretation!

The day we arrived, a group had gone "hunting" for Coconut crabs and a snorkel. They returned with a large sack of crabs and several fish they had caught while trolling along the way. The sea life here is abundant since it is so remote. The coconut crabs are land creatures and climb the trees and pick the coconuts from the tree. After they fall it can take them almost 1 week to peel away the husk and crack into the sweet meat. This diet gives their meat a little coconut flavour and it is quite good. The nine crews and rangers ate their fill and there was enough meat left over to make crab cakes the next day and feed everyone again.

Coconut Crab in the wild

James cooking on his custom grill

Nice Presentation by the Rangers-Enough for the whole anchorage!

The Suwarrow Yacht Club

Feeding black tip sharks the dinner scraps

Every 3 or four days, they repeat this hunt and we shared some gasoline with the rangers so that we could explore one of the atolls that was further away from the main anchorage. They have very limited gasoline from the Cooks government and rely on the cruisers for many of their supplies. The rangers had not yet visited this atoll, since they lack the gas to go that far. One morning we left in our dingy along with the rangers' aluminum boat and Oso Blancos' dingy for the 5 mile trip across the lagoon. It took almost 45 minutes to troll across this lagoon and it was exciting to explore another "deserted island". There were several round plastic floats (used by long-line fishermen and pearl farmers) that had washed ashore and the cruisers harvested any attached stainless steel hardware that we found. Tom gathered 3 nice hooks and swivels and we even found a new fender that had floated away from some previous cruiser. It took us little time to find the coconut crabs and we filled a sack quickly and walked all the way around the atoll. We also saw nesting booby birds and the fluffy white babies are always nice to see. We all sat on the shore and ate our lunch and then did some spear fishing.

Several of the guys had spear guns and it was exiting to watch them descend 30 to 40 feet while holding their breath for the attack. The added complication to spear fishing here are the sharks. There are numerous sharks inhabiting the lagoon and anchorage. The black-tipped sharks are little threat, but white-tipped and grey sharks are much more aggressive. After they spear the fish, it is a race to the surface since the bleeding, thrashing fish quickly brings in the sharks. The diver tries to hold the fish (still on the spear) out of the water while swimming back to the anchored dingy to drop off the fish. Off course, you can imagine the fish blood running down the hunters arm. My job, as a non-spear guy, was to watch and whack at the attacking sharks to discourage any loss of body parts.what fun! We got several grouper and parrot fish and headed back to the anchorage for yet another feast.


We have been here almost a week and are looking for a calm weather period for the 3-day trip to American Samoa. Cruising without a schedule is helpful. We have seen several boats head into really rough weather just to be somewhere at a pre-arranged time to pick up or drop off guests. It looks like strong winds and waves for the next 3 days, so we may be stuck in this paradise for a little while longer.

Tom
Posted via SSB

The Society Islands

After the PuddleJump party, we stayed in Mo'orea for a few more days. We swam with sting rays and black-tip reef sharks and enjoyed a tour of a juice factory. We sampled all of their drinks and even bought a few bottles of vanilla and pineapple liqueurs. While anchored in the harbors we had front row seats for the outrigger canoe races. They really move fast and the men have big muscles and even bigger tattoos!

These are the boats crossing this year.  Can you find Emily Grace on the T Shirt?

We motored overnight from Mo'orea (Mo-o-ray-a)to Huahine (who-a-hee-knee) and went into the main village of Fare. We were surprised to find a well-stocked grocery store and a good local market. They had strings of colorful parrot fish for sale hanging from the palm trees.

After a few days at the bigger northern island, we wound our way down the west side through coral heads to Huahine Iti for a few days. There we met a vacationing American who spends 4 months in Huahine every year (for the past 8 or so). He had a car and offered to take us inland to see a few sites. He obviously loves the culture and the people here. He speaks a good bit of Tahitian and French and seemed well known as we moved around. We saw fresh water eels that apparently arrived here with a storm about 400 years ago and are cared for by the locals. Emily got right into the water with these 6 foot long monsters. He showed us some fish traps that have been operating for about 800 years. The fish are carried into a labyrinth by the tides and the villagers collect them every day. Very simple but effective. We hiked up to see several more Marae and some outstanding views of the island.

800 year old fish traps

We went west to Riatea (Ree-a-tey-a) and Tahaa (Ta-a). We spent our 4th of July at the Taravana Yacht Club with several other boater friends and we had a barbecue on shore. We had hamburgers and watermelon but no fireworks. They also had a first rate restaurant and we enjoyed a nice lunch to celebrate Kim's 53rd birthday. We did some snorkeling around these two islands before slipping further west to Bora Bora. We stayed a few nights on a mooring at the Bora Bora Yacht club before anchoring on the west side of a small motu (island) called Toopua with our friends on Whiskers.

From there in Bora Bora, we sat on our floating home and watched a near total lunar eclipse as the sky went dark in mid-morning. Making more memories.

Several boats followed us to Bora Bora for the July 14th Bastille Day celebrations here. They had singing and dancing competitions each night and a nice parade through the town. Emily joined in the Bora Bora Yacht Club float dressed as a pirate. A private (BIG) powerboat put on a 25 minute fireworks display for his daughter one night that we all enjoyed.

Just as we were thinking of moving west again, we had a plastic part break on our watermaker. Since it was not in my spares and could not be fixed with epoxy, we are making arrangements to have the part shipped into American Samoa. After talking to the guy that installed it, I found out it was a known defect and they will ship the new part free. Of course, it may cost us more in shipping since we are out of the continental US! Spectra Watermakers gets a failing grade for not notifying its customers that this part was defective and might break. I would have rather fixed it at my convenience rather than worrying about running out of fresh water at sea!

Oh well. Cruising is fixing the boat in exotic places. Can't wait to see what is next to go.

Tom

PuddleJump parties and Mo'orea

We started 3 days of PuddleJump parties on Friday night in downtown Papeete. Emily had a sail on an outrigger canoe and we picked up our free tee shirts and other information about the Society islands. About 70 boat crews were paraded through town behind several muscle-bound Tahitian drummers and we made our way to city hall. On the steps of this mansion, we had our group picture taken for Lattitude 38 magazine and we were led into a large meeting hall. We all received fragrant flower leis and were welcomed by the local officials. They had a wonderful buffet set up with breaded shrimp, chicken, fresh fruits, local salads and treats, crackers with caviar and beer, wine and sodas to drink. We were entertained by several troupes of dancers showcasing the dances we would see throughout the Society Islands. It was a memorable day.

The next day we all “raced” from Papeete to Mo’orea and anchored off a white sand beach. Some say that Mo'orea, which means 'yellow lizard', was the name of one of the island's ruling families, while others attribute this name to an image seen by a high priest while visiting the island.

Mo'orea was heavily populated before the Europeans arrived on its idyllic doorstep. Samuel Wallis was the first European to sight the island (1767), and he was soon followed by Louis-Antoine de Bougainville (1768) and James Cook (1769). The missionaries arrived on the scene in the early 1800s and made themselves at home, soon establishing their headquarters on the island. As elsewhere, European diseases and the introduction of weapons and alcohol had a disastrous effect on the population of Mo'orea, which continued to decline during the 19th century.

Copra and vanilla were crops important in the past but these days Mo'orea is the pineapple-growing centre of French Polynesia. Tourism is the other major industry.

For the next two days we enjoyed presentations, cook-outs and several Tahitian games. Emily won in the tug-of-war and did well in the banana carrying race and coconut opening contest. Daddy was winning the outrigger canoe race when 20 feet from the finish line, we flipped our six-man canoe! Apparently, those Tahitians are more careful than us Gringos. There was no damage other than to our dignity! We enjoyed more singing and dancers and saw our first fire dance which we all had been waiting for.

We stayed in Mo’orea for several more days relaxing with our friends on Whiskers. We strolled the beach and did some snorkeling before looking for some calm weather to make an overnight passage to Huahine. It sure does feel good to have most systems working good again.

Tom