Sail from Raiatea, French Polynesia to Rarotonga
You are right. We weren't planning on visiting Rarotonga but we did. Dario, the Italian captain, is very flexible with his plans. We were supposed to visit Maupiti, a small island in French Polynesia, then head to Penrhyn and Suwarrow in the Cook Islands. Instead we are visiting Rarotonga, Palmerston and Suwarrow in the Cook Islands. One of Dario's friends told him the locals in Penrhyn were not very friendly toward yachties. Other friends, Russ and Barbara from Tehani 2, told Dario they were going to Rarotonga and it was nice, so we changed our plans. We are glad that we did. Rarotonga is the friendliest island we have visited so far.On July 8, we left Raiatea for Rarotonga. The rhumb line is 540 miles. For the first 24 hours, we only went 84 miles because there was little wind. We caught a mahi mahi also known as a dorado or dolphin. Dario has a most unusual way to kill a fish. He taps them on the head with a wench handle. It took him about 20 hits before he put the fish out of his misery. Why he doesn't use a gaff hook, which he has, is beyond me. That evening Juan cooked the fish in the pressure cooker and it was excellent. On the second day we caught two mahi mahis at the exact same time. Since we don't have refrigeration, we threw one of the fish back. For the second 24 hours, we went 100 miles. On day three, we still didn't have much wind. Everyone except me went snorkeling. I kept a shark watch but nothing came by to bother us. Pete was still a little nervous and did not venture very far from the boat ladder.
Sailors are a superstitious lot. In Italy and apparently in other parts of Europe, sailors believe that rabbits are bad luck. You aren't even supposed to say the word onboard. Instead of saying the word, you say a small, fluffy animal. One of Dario's friends gave him a book for a going away present. It had a picture of a rabbit on the cover and part of the title included the word rabbit. With all the much needed repairs that are still needed on the boat, Pete mentioned to Dario that maybe he should throw the book in the sea. That way Neptune would forgive him and Tilikum might finally have some good luck Dario agreed and threw the book into the sea thinking that it would end our bad luck. After he threw it in and it floated about 30 feet, Mike said that throwing a book overboard is ten times unluckier than having a rabbit on board. So Dario jumped in and retrieved the book. We were all laughing. After Dario gets the book back on board Mike tosses it back out again. Dario then promptly curses in his usual four languages while swimming back out to the book again. When Dario brings the book back now for the second time, Mike tells him that he was just joking about it being even worse to throw the book away. As we begin to motor off, Dario tosses the book back into the ocean for the third and final time.
On the fourth day, the wind picks up and we reef the main. We are already using an 80% jib because the rolling furling is broken. The wind is on our nose or beam the whole trip. The waves are the biggest we've seen so far on the trip. They are over 10 feet with small white curls and foam on top. The boat rides up the wave then crashes down the other side. In the evening we go through a few squalls that had 30+ mph winds and heavy rain. This is the first real squalls we have hit on the whole trip. During the night about 10 liters of the diesel leaked from the engine into the bilge. The whole cabin smells. Because of the weather all our hatches have to be closed. I slept with the sheet over my nose and mouth all night. Pete developed a crushing headache.
During the middle of the night on Pete's watch, Juan came up into the cockpit and asks Pete in his strong Spanish accent, "Where are we in the North Sea, I fear for the mast. I hear it shaking at the bottom of each wave. The ride is terrible in the bow." Juan was trying to sleep in his berth, which is right in front of the mast. Pete falls off course some so we are not charging into the waves so dramatically. In the morning, Mike mentioned that he had been knocked out of his berth a couple of times during the night.
Our fifth day at sea is Friday the 13th. Great. Dario emptied three buckets full of water, diesel and oil out of the main bilge. Boy do we have a big leak. Dario thinks it is the gasket on the fuel filter that is leaking. Of course, Dario knew of this problem in Raiatea but he thought it was a very small leak and it would be OK to leave it that way. Oops. When Dario filled the first bucket he handed it up to me in the cockpit to dump overboard. I put one foot out of the cockpit on the starboard side. I leaned over to dump the bucket and half of it goes on the deck, some of it splashes on my foul weather jacket and pants and the rest goes over the side. Oops! Juan and Pete empty the next two buckets overboard. Pete took another bucket and got some salt water to rinse the deck. After about five bucket fulls, the bucket slipped out of Pete's hands and went overboard. Oops! Maybe we should have kept the rabbit book on board. After Dario empties the bilge I clean the floor and the salon smells much better. In the evening we start to smell diesel in the salon again. We definitely need to fix this leak. Around 6 PM, the wind dies down to 15-18 knots so we take the reef out of the main.
The front that we have just sailed through brought with it a lot of cold weather. We're joking about heading back north towards the equator where it will be warmer. Juan has a new personal rule; he prefers to be somewhere between 20 degrees north latitude and 20 degrees south latitude. Pete wants to adopt this policy too. I wore a pair of shorts, t-shirt, long sleeve Levi shirt, socks, shoes, foul weather jacket and pants for the last two days of the trip. This is the first time I've really needed to wear long pants since leaving the States.
Finally at 4 AM on Saturday, July 14, we arrive at Rarotonga. We wait until daybreak then enter the harbor. There is one other small sailboat in the harbor. By the end of the day five other sailboats join us. Everyone complained about the weather. Apparently the front came up from the Antarctic which is very unusual for this time of year and that's what is causing the cool weather. Of course, we did not know this since we do not have a SSB radio or a weather fax. About the second day we are here, we find out that it was the coldest day and night on record here. During that day the temperature reached a high of 74. Very cold for us too!
Cook Islands
For
those of you who aren't familiar with the Cook Islands, like I was before I
read the guidebook, here's some information for you. Rarotonga and the other 14
Cook Islands are tiny specks scattered between Tahiti and Samoa in an ocean
area about a third the size of the continental United States, yet all together
they comprise only 93 square miles of land. Rarotonga is by far the largest
with 26 of those square miles, yet it is only 20 miles around. Rarotonga, the
only high mountainous island, has jagged peaks and steep valleys surrounded by
a flat coastal plain, white sandy beaches, an azure lagoon and a reef extending
about a quarter of a mile offshore. In 1965, the Cook Islands became
self-governing in association with New Zealand. New Zealand provides for the
national defense needs of the islands and renders substantial financial aid.
Cook Islanders hold New Zealand citizenship. About ½ of the 16,500
people who live in the Cook Islands reside on Rarotonga. Some 80% to 85% of the
entire population is pure Polynesian. Nearly everyone speaks English, the
official language. The money is the New Zealand dollar.
Crew Change
During our five days of sailing from Raiatea to Rarotonga, Mike decided that cruising is too slow for him. He prefers racing. Luckily for Mike, an 80 foot steel ketch named Evohe from Nelson, New Zealand is in Rarotonga and is heading directly to New Zealand. The captain, Adrian, agreed to take Mike on. The crew of Evohe consists of the owner, Adrian, a former offshore fisherman, his wife, Jeanine, their son and daughter, a woman from England named Tammy and a woman from New Zealand named Kelly. Tammy and Kelly have been crewing with them for the last 18 months. Adrian rents his boat to anyone to make money. They went to Alaska and had scientists on board studying bald eagles. They traveled across the top of Canada to Greenland then down to South America. They went to the Antarctic, up the coast of Chile then across the Pacific. They have rented the boat out for film documentaries. They have three dinghies on board. Believe it or not, one of their dinghies can fly. I thought they were pulling my leg when they first told me this but it's true. They attach wings like a hang glider's wings and a huge engine in back. Two people can fit in the dinghy. It can go up to 5000 feet. They use it for filming.Dario quickly replaced Mike. Pete and I met a woman named Pamela from California. We told her we were on a sailboat. She said she had a friend named Gabby from Austria who wants to crew on a boat. We tell Pamela to bring Gabby by the boat so she can talk to Dario. Pamela and Gabby both come by the boat and talk to Dario. About 5 minutes later they are both crewmembers. Dario tells them they can stay on board until Samoa. Now we have six on board. Gabby has no sailing experience. Pamela has a little. Neither of them have blue water experience so Dario decides that they will only do day watches. Juan, Pete, Dario and I will do all the night watches from here to Samoa, a total of about 10 days at sea with two stops at islands. To compensate for us doing all the night watches, Gabby and Pamela will cook all the dinners under way. Everyone will still rotate making lunches.
On Saturday, July 21, we had to move the boat from one end of the dock to another because a large cargo ship was coming in. When the boat was being moved, Pamela stood there and did nothing except drinking her tea. Dario asked her to put the tea down and help. Then Pete handed her a line and asked her to tie it. She just stood there sipping her tea and not tying the line. Pete took it from her and tied it off. There were a few other incidents in the past few days where we all got the impression that Pamela thought she was on a cruise ship where she didn't have to do any work and just enjoy herself. After the boat was tied up Dario told Pamela she had to leave the boat and could no longer sail with us. We all think that everyone will be better off. So she packed her bags and left. Easy come, easy go.
Interesting Characters and Boats
During the week that we were on Rarotonga, there was a maximum of nine boats in the harbor. All of them are sailboats except one, which is a huge motor yacht. We get the chance to meet almost everyone.We met Jez, an English man, who is singlehanding on Winter Hawk, a 14.85-meters former racing boat built for the FASTNET in the 80's. He met the former owners of Winter Hawk in Honduras six months ago. They were getting divorced and wanted to get rid of the boat so he bought it for $20,000 USD. Not bad at all. He had zero sailing experience before he left Honduras six months ago. Jez left home at 16 and hasn't been back since. He has traveled to 90 countries. Jez lived in Colorado for the last five years, owning a bar. He was married to a former Miss Virginia, who is also from the famous Tyson chicken family. He sold his bar last year and went to Honduras on vacation then decided to get the boat and go around the world. He called a friend back in Colorado and had him sell his house. When the house sold he then asked another friend to clean out the house for him. The friend sold everything he could and gave Jez the money. Talk about spontaneous. He's really an interesting guy.
We also met three men in their 50's from Manchester, England on Up Chuck. Of course we had to ask how the boat got that name. Turns out the owner's wife threw up every time she went sailing so they named the boat Up Chuck. The men had such thick accents that Pete and I had a hard time understanding them.
We met three Swedes on Xena, a 40-foot former racing boat from Stockholm. Actually we had seen the boat when we were in Colon, Panama. Six guys all in their early to late 20's bought the boat a few years ago with the idea that all of them would sail around the world in two years. They left home 1 year ago and three of them are left on the boat. One guy met a girl in Venezuela and fell in love. He returned to Sweden with his girlfriend a few months ago. The other two left in Tahiti. They sailed from Panama to the Galapagos then Easter Island, Pitcairn and then French Polynesia. What a trip! They are really nice guys.
Tehani 2 which we last saw on Bora Bora is here as well. Russ and Barbara own it. They have two new crewmembers that joined them on Bora Bora; Casper and Julia. Casper is from Switzerland. Julia is from Germany. Casper and Julia met when they were living and working in San Francisco.
Another boat in the harbor is Ocean Leopard, an 80-foot sailboat that is kept in immaculate condition. Whenever a crewmember gets on board from the dock, he hoses off his shoes and places them in a wicker basket in the cockpit. They put a large piece of canvas on the side of the boat so when the dinghy comes along side, no marks are made on the boat. We talked to one of the crewmembers. Everyone on board is paid crew except the owner's son. They are heading to French Polynesia then to Galapagos, Panama and the Caribbean. Yes, this is the coconut milk run in reverse. Their ride promises to be a little uncomfortable. The owner wants to sell the boat in the Caribbean. If he can't get a good price then he will keep the boat and sail it up the east coast of the United States next summer. So we may see them again next year in Annapolis.
A funny thing occurred with Ocean Leopard during the night of July 19. In the morning I found Gabby sleeping in the cockpit. She told me that a big sailboat came in during the night. I look around. There are the same 9 boats in the harbor as yesterday. I assume she had too much to drink and don't push the issue. Later Pete tells me what happened. He heard the story from Russell of Tehani 2. A plane was due in at 2 AM and the wind was from the west. So the plane would have to fly over the harbor. The control tower could see only Ocean Leopard's mast, which is over 100 feet tall so they hailed them on the VHF and told Ocean Leopard that they had to go out 2-3 miles offshore until after the plane landed. So they left. They were out for three hours. In the meantime, the Swedes from Xena saw the boat leave and thought they were leaving for good. When the Swedes came back from the airport with one of their fathers, who was on the airplane, they saw Ocean Leopard returning. They then assumed that Ocean Leopard has some new instruments and wanted to test them out immediately. I guess I was wrong earlier about Gabby. She did see a large boat entering the harbor in the middle of the night.
There is another large motor boat named Amazon Express in the harbor. The boat is over 3 stories tall and is painted battleship gray. It is about 100 feet long. The whole crew is paid. The captain is a former tanker captain from Sweden. He says the owner is an international businessman from Italy. Of course everyone in the harbor thinks the Mafia owns the boat. The owner will be arriving here on August 2.
Circle Island Tour
On Tuesday, July 17, we rented bikes and
pedaled around the island; 20 miles. We saw the Marae Arai-Te-Tonga, one of the
most sacred spots on the island according to my guidebook. Such temples or
maraes, still are considered sacred by some Cook Islanders, so you're not
supposed to walk on them. Unfortunately, when we got there, I had to use the
restroom and the marae is in the
middle
of nowhere so I relieved myself on the edge of the marae but I didn't walk on
it. For the next few miles we were in farm country; we saw pigs, chickens, cows
and fields of cabbages, breadfruit, bananas, taro and papayas. On the east
coast we stopped at the spot where legend has it that a fleet of canoes left
sometime around 1350 AD and sailed off to colonize New Zealand. On the south
coast of the island is Muri Beach, 8 miles of white sands. Further along we
came to the abandoned Sheraton Hotel. According to the Lonely Planet guide, the
hotel was backed by the Cook Island government and built by the Italian Mafia.
They had to pay $70 a bag for cement imported from Italy rather than $8 a bag
for cement from New Zealand. The scam wrecked the island's banking system. Next
to the hotel is a dirt road that leads up to Papua waterfall. Even though it
was muddy we rode up to look at the falls. On the way back to the main road we
coasted all the way. When we got to the bottom we both had about 30 dots of mud
on the back of our shirts.Dance Show
On the evening of the 17th, we went to a fundraiser
dance performance. The dance troupe consists of 54 high school students who are
going to Edinburgh, Scotland next week for the Edinburgh Tattoo. The Tattoo is
an annual event that lasts 25 days and consists of military bands and dancers
from around Great Britain and select invited performers from other countries.
This is the first time the Cook Islands have been invited. The group performed
for us for 1.5 hours. The kids were great. I've never seen people shake their
hips so fast in my life. During one song a girl was shaking her hips so much
that her skirt came undone and fell off. She had on black briefs. Looking quite
embarrassed, she quickly grabbed her skirt and ran back stage. There were quite
a few costume changes but the girls always had bikini tops made of coconut
shells on. For the bottoms, they wore short green grass skirts or long white
grass skirts or a long piece of cloth with a large slit on one side or a long
bright yellow grass skirt. The guys were always bare chested but they would
wear necklaces made of green leaves. They had on grass skirts and matching
grass bands tied below their knees. While the women's dance emphasized hip
movements; the guys would knock their knees together like they were doing some
type of modified Charleston from the 1920s four times faster. By the end of the
show all the performers were drenched with sweat. The music they danced to was
created by drums and an ukulele.
Pete Getting PADI Certified
On July 20 and 21, Pete got his dive certification. We had done the classroom and pool diving back in February. Pete wanted to get it done, so he did. I chickened out for now and maybe I will get my certification in Samoa or Australia, or not at all.Future Plans
We are planning on leaving Rarotonga on Sunday, July 22. We will go to Palmerston which is 140 miles away for a few days. The harbor on Palmerston is only OK to enter if the wind is coming from the south or southeast, which is the normal trade winds directions. If the wind is in any other direction we won't stop but keep going to Suwarrow. Suwarrow is a national park and only a park ranger lives there. Then we will go to Samoa.