Segwun Lives up to its Namesake

Imagine living on an island about the size of a large city block.

Imagine that you share this island with 60 people, all part of your family ... brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins and their respective spouses.

Imagine the only food available is coconuts, chicken and fish.

Imagine that to get off the island you need to wait for a passing boat to stop in and agree to take you to another island which is at least two or three days sail.

If you can imagine all that, you have arrived at Palmerston, Cook Islands. Palmerston is at the west end of the Southern Cook Islands. Everyone on the island is a Marsters or has married a Marsters. And the Marsters are all descendants of William Marsters who arrived here in 1863. He had three wives, 17 children and 54 grandchildren when he died in 1899.

We arrived here yesterday morning and were greeted by Simon, one of fourteen children of Toaini Marsters and a great great great grandson of William. Segwun was carrying 40 kilos of sugar, 45 kilos of rice, 45 kilos of flour, a box of cookies and a couple of duffle bags of personal items to be delivered here. Not a little unlike her namesake, the regal steamship RMS Segwun of Gravenhurst who used to deliver mail to the northern outposts on the Muskoka Lakes. The delivery we made was on behalf of Yvonne Marsters who we met in Rarotonga.

Yvonne was in Rarotonga for a medical visit and when she saw our yacht in the harbour she asked if we wouldn't mind to bring some goods to Palmerston if we were headed that way. We were happy to oblige as it is quite often the locals who are helping us so it is nice to have an opportunity to return the favours. Yvonne is the principal of the school and is originally from New Zealand.

Simon was our delegate for the duration of our stay at Palmerston. It is a tradition for them to adopt visitors into one of the families, providing an island tour and shuttle service to and from the island. Palmerston is surrounded by a reef after which the depth drops like a cliff down to more than 2000 feet. You can't sail into the lagoon as it is too shallow and too crowded with coral heads. Instead, they provide mooring lines for visitors and prefer to come and collect you to bring you to shore.

Simon brought us around and showed us the school, church, Telecom office, Palmerston Administration office and his home. We met his Mother and his younger brother who is the only policeman on the island. Yes, I know. You are probably also quite surprised to know there is a policeman on an island that is in fact one big family and of the 60 residents about 30 are children attending school. As we got to meet and hear about the others on the island it appears that many are holding some sort of Government job. I suppose this supplements their main income from fishing.

They depend on a supply boat which comes by every four to six months for many of the necessities. So good planning is crucial to a varied dinner menu I would think as there is no corner store for that one thing you need. Without good planning and a well stocked pantry it would be back to the coconuts and fish diet until the next supply boat showed up. Actually, you can add chicken and pork to that. We learned that chickens and pigs eat coconut so there are plenty of chickens on the island and a few pigs being fattened up for a Christmas feast.

It has turned out to be a unique adventure, from meeting Yvonne in Rarotonga to making the delivery here in Palmerston. The icing on the cake was the humpback whale we saw yesterday. He was about five meters off the port side of the boat when he first surfaced and as he swept around the back of the boat we saw him surface two more times before he left us. Wow oh wow oh wow. What a sight.

Photos below:
1. Arriving early morning to Palmerston
2. Making the delivery. On board is the island Nurse and the government official for Agriculture and Customs (Simon's brother)
3. The church and graveyard where William Marsters is buried. Simon and Jens following.
4. The original home of William Marsters
5. The Telecom office and phone booth.
6. The school.
7. Simon and his Mother at home.

Aitutaki, Cook Islands

We spent five days on Rarotonga, a couple of them just waiting for weather. A bad weather system came in on Monday and has hung around for almost a week now bringing cold weather, rain and lots of wind. We are not used to complaining about the weather. The nights temperature was getting down to about 15° c. We had to dig out some warmer clothes and jackets. Sadly, it was just too cold to go snorkeling in the lagoon here so we busied ourselves with other things instead. We rented a scooter for a couple of days and toured the island. Very scenic and it looks like an ideal vacation spot. Plenty of fine dining, shops, beaches, golf course, diving, hiking and night clubs. They even have a movie theatre.

We had planned to sail out on Wednesday, but the weather was not great so we left on Thursday. Actually, it turned out to be really gusty on Thursday as well. But we sailed out anyway and I promptly got seasick. The worst ever even though I took some tablets. I crawled below leaving Jens to manage the 30knot winds and swells so big and so many it reminded me of the movie, The Perfect Storm. It was not a good day. Trust me. It was really not a good day. Oh, we weren't in any danger. Not at all. This boat can handle the weather. And Jens will say it was not so bad. But I felt like I was dying and couldn't help wondering "What the Heavens Am I Doing Here".

Twenty-four hours later we arrived to Aitutaki and entered the calm waters of the lagoon. It was a bit tricky as the pass is narrow and shallow and the entire map is off by about 300 meters as you can see in the picture below where the yellow line is our track and the green bits is coral reef. So after a bit of hesitation and indecision as to whether or not we would give it a go, we finally saw a catamaran coming out which showed us the route in. We set anchor just at the end of the pass and breathed a huge sigh of relieve.

As soon as we were in calmer waters on the lee side of the reef I immediately felt better and once we were anchored I prepared a good breakfast for the Captain who had pulled an all-nighter and was exhausted. The wind continued to howl together with intermittent rain showers so we spent the day on board recovering from our short but intense journey.

The wind and rain has continued. We hope it clears up soon as the lagoon here is said to be really beautiful with plenty of reef life. We made a short visit to the island today. Everything is closed as is typical for Saturday afternoons and Sundays. But we found some wifi and checked the weather forecast. It should be good for a departure on Monday.

We discovered the water temperature in the lagoon is a very brisk 22°c, much colder than the usual 29° we have been used to. I don't know why the temperature would be so much colder inside the lagoon than outside. But if the sun comes out today, I am determined to do a bit of snorkelling. Hah! Let's see. Those who know me know that I am a chicken when it comes to jumping into cold water.

And, yes the sun came out so off we went in the dinghy to do a bit of snorkelling. The water was refreshing :). Really. It wasn't so bad especially wearing our wetsuits. The visibility was excellent and the coral was in great shape. And we saw the hugest giant clams ever. Oh, they were magnificent. I wish I could have taken a photo. They were at least a foot in length and many of them were not embedded into a coral as we usually see them, but were on the sand bottom. Very cool. And that together with a purple starfish and a turtle made it a good afternoon of snorkelling.

Rarotonga, Cook Islands

It is about 540 nautical miles from Bora Bora to Rarotonga. We had hoped to stop in Maupiti for a day or so, but when we got there the swells were high and the waves were crashing into the pass. We don't know how good we are at surfing and although we thought it wouldn't be too difficult to enter, we weren't so sure as to how easy it would be to get out again. We weren't in the mood to be stuck in a lagoon for what could have been a week or more waiting for the seas to calm down, so we just continued on and headed for Rarotonga, the largest of the Cook Islands.

We had good wind for the first two days, zipping along at about 7 knots an hour which is about 13 km per hour. On second thought perhaps zipping along is a bit of an exaggeration since you can ride a bike faster than that. Anyhow, we were making good time and thought we would arrive late on Friday. And as is typical of sailing, as soon as you start to take the wind for granted, it just goes and blows itself right out. The wind slowly died and we reluctantly took down the stay sail and the genoa and finally the main sail and started the engine. There's not much point in being halfway there and just bobbing in the ocean like a big plastic cork going nowhere. We pretty much had to motor the rest of the way and arrived early Saturday morning.

First business has to be taken care of. We met with the Harbour master, Saungaki Rasmussen. Imagine that, a Danish Harbour master. Seems his great grandfather was a Viggo Rasmussen, but it certainly isn't obvious to look at him that he is of Danish ancestry. He has never been to Denmark but has travelled to Germany.

We did a stern tie which is a bit complicated. It means we drop the anchor and back up to the pier pulling the anchor tight. Then we throw two lines to the pier and tie up there. The swells are too big and the pier too high so we can't put a bridge across to get to shore. Instead we have to use the dinghy even though we are only three meters away.

We couldn't leave the boat until the Health Inspector came aboard. He did a spray of the boat, (actually spritzed this bug killer a couple of times), filled in some paperwork, collected $25 and told us we could go to shore as the Customs guy likely wouldn't come by till Monday. Ok. Didn't sound quite right but what the heck.

It was recommended that we visit the Saturday market which was just 100 meters from the city dock. I think the whole island was there selling souvenirs, baked goods, food, vegetables and island tours. They also had a performance with singing, drums and dancing and ukuleles. And as we walked around we realized Rarotonga is very much a tourist destination for Aussies and Kiwis.

We proceeded to the Police Station to get our Cook Island driving license so we could rent a scooter for a couple of days. They took our passport and drivers license, snapped a photo and voila, we both now have an official Cook Island drivers license.