Part II: Cook Islands Turnaround
By Marc Edge
Our arrival at Rarotonga in the Cook Islands was a wild one and, in retrospect, perhaps a harbinger of things to come. As we left Maupiti, the last stop on our three-month tour of French Polynesia, the wind began to die, usually a sign it would soon switch direction. The strong southeasterly trades we had been riding through the South Pacific were gone, but the seas they had whipped up were still high. On our course southwest to Rarotonga, the waves would hit us on the beam, lifting us up on one crest after another and dropping us down into the following trough. This wouldn't have been too bad if we were sailing, but without the sails up to counterbalance the weight of our heavy keel, we were rolling qround quite a bit. The worst thing was that the engine would continually die because of air getting in the diesel fuel lines. When the waves rolled us, they would push the fuel in the gravity-feed fuel tank to one side and air would go down the fuel line. Five or six times I had to go below and bleed the lines to get the engine going again.
By the time we got to the small harbor beneath the towering lava pinnacle, the wind had switched around onto our nose and we were making little progress against it. I called on the VHF radio to a boat I knew that was already in the harbor and asked what the conditions were like "inside." Not bad, I was told, but the wind, now coming from the west, would blow us onto the concrete customs wharf where we would first tie up, so setting a breast anchor to hold us off the dock. Coming into port, I called the harbormaster, who told me to land between the freighter on one end of the wharf and a sailboat on the other. Getting closer, I could see there was only about 50 feet between the two vessels. I called on the handheld radio again and was told that sure enough, that is where we would have to tie up. While I was having second thoughts about the possibility of squeezing into such a small spot without hitting one of the other boats, especially with the wind picking up as it was, I decided to pull out of my approach and go around in a circle and give myself time to better assess the situation. The wind had other ideas, however and at that moment a huge gust came up and I found myself unable to get the boat's nose through it. That meant we were going in, like it or not. The skipper of the docked sailboat was perched on the bow of his boat, exhorting me to motor forward lest I crunch his hull. Ahead loomed the steel hull of the inter island freighter! Needless to say, it was a most harrowing landing, but the worst was yet to come.
The wind indicator on the ship's instruments showed the wind speed was now 25 knots, gusting higher and blowing us right onto the concrete wharf. We put all our fenders out on the starboard side and held Markenurh off the dock with all our strength, while the harbormaster scrambled his crew to hang large rubber tires off the wharf to protect our topsides. I knew they would leave ugly black marks on the hull, but that was better than the alternative -- scrapes and dents in the fiberglass. One of he cruisers I knew, whose boat was stern-tied to the nearby yacht quay, came by to assist and after helping us fend off for a few minutes offered to get his dinghy to take our stern anchor and set it off our beam so we could winch ourselves off the dock. We continued to fend off with all our might, with the aid of several large Cook Islanders, while we waited for Ernie to come back in his dinghy. By now the seas in the narrow harbor were quite violent, stirred up by the screaming wind. Markenurh would roll and lurch despite being securely tied to the wharf. On one particularly dangerous roll she caught her forward toe rail under the wharf and a great splintering of teak ensued. The next thing we knew, the aft lifeline was hanging limp, having been ripped off the gate stanchion by the menacing concrete dock. Five minutes went by, then 10 and soon we began wondering where the heck Ernie was. Then, over our shoulders as we fended off, we could see a great commotion at the yacht quay, accompanied by shouting and the sound of engines starting. Then we saw two boats pulling up their anchors and motoring into the middle of the harbor to reanchor. It turned out Ernie's big boat had dragged its anchor in the wind and was bashing into the next boat, which then was slamming into its neighbor in the nautical equivalent of a three-car pileup. His neighbors decided anchoring out where there were no other boats to bash into was a much better idea.
Things were getting quite wild and we were becoming drained from the exertion of fending off for half an hour when we saw the harbormaster's boat being launched. Its crew attached a heavy floating line to the hurricane mooring in the middle of the harbor and was tying it to a boat down the wharf from us that was being slammed into the corner of the coral harbor. We hollered to them to come and take our stern anchor and set it 50 feet or so from the boat. Winching in the anchor line, we finally got some separation from the unforgiving concerete wharf. I'll tell you, we slept well that night. Weather like that was a regular occurrence during our stay at Rarotonga. One week later, the wind picked up to 40 knots at night, and the French boat beside us began dragging into the Australian on the other side. His engine luckily started -- he'd been having trouble with it -- and he and the Australian skipper took off from the yacht quay to anchor in the harbor. John and I rigged up the spotlight to try and catch what was going on in the dark, but all we could see was a curtain of pelting rain. I switched on the radar, but couldn't pick out the steel-hulled sloop in all the turmoil. John suggested he take the dinghy and go out to assist them in anchoring, and I agreed. But just as soon as he set off, the wind that had been blowing us onto the yacht quay switched around 180 degrees and was now pushing us OFF the dock. That made things much more comfortable aboard, but infinitely more perilous for John. If the unreliable outboard on my tender quit on him, he could be swept out to sea! I still couldn't see a thing in the blackness, and had to get on the VHF radio to call other boats in the harbor and ask if they could spot him. Finally, a boat on the other end of the quay reported they saw him tied up on the end of the customs dock, behind a small cruise ship. Whew! John came back several hours later, close to midnight, soaked to the skin, having spent most of his time with the harbormaster's crew in their shed, sharing a bottle of Scotch.
One thing about Rarotonga -- it's an interesting place. A high volcanic island without the fringing coral reef that builds up over centuries as older volcanic islands like Bora Bora recede into the ocean, you can cycle or take the bus around the island and also hike across it, up past the needle-like pinnacle. We also enjoyed the Cook's Lager they served at the open-air bar across the street from the harbor and the fried chicken at the takeout restaurant next door. It was also nice to get back to an English-speaking country after three months of trying to get by with our fractured French in Tahiti. The Cook Islands are an independent country, but are associated economically with New Zealand. Their economy was in a horrible state when we visited, as the government was basically bankrupt and had to call for assistance from Auckland.
One souvenir of Rarotonga I'll always treasure is the interview printed in the local newspaper. I went to their office to place a classified ad for crew, as Sylvia was leaving us there and flying back to Tahiti to be with Michel, whom she'd met in the Marquesas. I was dictating the ad to the clerk there when one of the reporters, having overheard what I'd been saying, came out of the newsroom and said she saw a story. She asked if she could come down to the harbor the next day, take my picture and interview me for the weekend paper. Having been a journalist for more than 20 years back in Canada, I knew exactly how she felt. It must have been a slow news day. Teresa came by the next day as promised and we chatted for a while, and the article that appeared the next day looked very good, with a picture of me grinning on a quayside bollard. But I make copies of it for my news writing students not as an example of good journalism, but to show how careful you have to be as a reporter in getting the facts straight. There must have been a dozen factual errors in the story, but NEVER MIND! It looked good and that's the main thing.
We never did find a third crew member, nor did we find the small propane bottles we needed to fuel the one-burner swing stove which enabled us to cook under way in a pitching sea. The hardware store near the harbor was expecting more to come in on a freighter soon, but we waited several extra days without luck before we finally decided it was time to leave. We loaded up on fried chicken and sandwich makings to last us the way to Niue, the next island, a few days to the west.
Where in the world is Niue?
One thing we learned about the South Pacific is that
the trade winds rarely blow constantly, as they are fabled to. Cruisers
who had sailed other oceans told us they had never seen anything like the
Pacific. It was either all or nothing as far as wind went. On our trip
to Niue, it was nothing, unfortunately. We lost the wind a few days after
leaving Rarotonga and had to motor for the last 36 hours to get to Niue.
Now, you're probably thinking, I don't know a lot about some of the places
I visited on my voyage, but at least you've heard of places like Rarotonga,
Bora Bora and Tahiti. But I bet you've never even heard of Niue!
Niue (pronounced New, eh?) is one of the world's smallest independent countries but largest uplifted coral islands. It is about 600 miles west of Rarotonga and 200 miles east of Tonga. It's about 10 miles wide and because it's uplifted -- formed as a coral reef around a volcanic island and then lifted up by volcanic pressure -- it is laced with caves and chasms. We only planned to spend a few days there but actually stayed 10 days, partly because we enjoyed it so much there and partly because the wind was howling at 40 knots outside the bay. We joined the Niue Yacht Club and because there were so many new members in port -- cruisers waiting out the weather -- were invited to attend a special general meeting to pass the new club constitution because there was finally enough members for a quorum. Like Rarotonga, Niue is also populated not only by natives but also by fun-loving New Zealanders, and the Niue Yacht Club meetings are held in the beverage room of the Niue Hotel. We cruisers had been given a copy of the draft constitution when we arrived and were invited to join for $20. The purpose of the new constitution was to restructure the club executive. Traditionally, the premier of Niue had always been commodore of the Yacht Club, but that was strictly an honorary title, and it fell to the vice commodore to do all the work. Understandably, he didn't think that was quite fair, so a new position was proposed for the premier, with the actual head of the yacht club becoming commodore. There were the other usual club positions, secretary and treasurer, but then there was another new position to be created -- cabin boy. This was obviously a bit of a lark, because the duties of cabin boy as set out in the draft constitution were "to provide rum for members at meetings."
I must admit I got into the spirit of things as the meeting went on -- being as it was held in the bar and we were drinking pitchers of the local Fiafia Lager -- and when it came to the part about creating the new positions, I thrust up my hand to speak. I objected to the sexist connotations of the term "cabin boy," suggesting the name of the position be changed to "bosun" as it is in our club, the Bluewater Cruising Association. I asked how they would like it if a woman sailed in with a sail locker full of rum which she would be prepared to share with yacht club members but for such exclusionary terminology. In fact, I said, I just happened to have a case of rum in my sail locker which I'd picked up in Mexico for $2 a bottle and hadn't touched since the Coke to mix it with was more expensive than that in French Polynesia. I knew I wouldn't be able to get that much liquor past the notoriously greedy customs officers in Tonga, so I made the meeting an offer: they change the name of the proposed position to bosun, name me to the post and toss in a free NYC T-shirt and I'd be prepared to contribute one bottle of rum for each scheduled meeting of the yacht club over the next year. Just out of caution I asked the meeting's chair just how many meetings that would be, he held up four fingers, and boom, I was appointed the first bosun of the Niue Yacht Club. I wrote that report up for Currents as the minutes of the meeting. I'll bet most who read it thought I was making it all up.
John and I spent an interesting time at Niue, going around the island with fellow Canadians Bill and Kathy Clark on Ardmachree and Mark and Abby O'Neill on Anesthesia. We went spelunking through the caves and climbing the chasms that dotted the coast. Outside the wind continued to howl and we watched the waves crash into the windward side of the island, glad we were safely anchored in the bay and not getting backed around outside. We waited and waited for the wind to die down, but it just kept blowing. Finally, we decided it was only two days to Tonga and we could endure a pounding for that long, so we decided to leave.
Down and out in Tonga
After all our motoring to get to Niue, the batteries
were well charged, and the solar panels and wind generator helped keep
them topped up, but after 
10
days they were getting low, so I decided we should motor for a few hours
after leaving Niue to charge the batteries, even though we could have sailed
off our mooring. We were motorsailing away when the engine started to make
this horrible screeching noise. Going below, I saw the water pump leaking
all over the engine and shut her down. Closer inspection showed the water
pump to be shot! We had more than enough wind to get to Tonga, but how
would we get in the winding entrance? We decided we would just have to
sail in as close as we could get and then call on the radio for help. We got a tow onto a mooring in the harbor and in Tonga I stayed for the next seven months. John sailed off on another boat to New Zealand while I set about getting the engine fixed. It took weeks to get the required parts sent up from New Zealand. By the time she was running again, it was a bit late to be leaving for New Zealand. Soon it would be cyclone season. I had little time to find more crew.
I met a young Swedish woman, Pernilla Jonsson, who
had sailed on her father's boat back home and was planning to return to
New Zealand as soon as the waiting period for her visa expired in a few
weeks. We discussed heading for Fiji, four days away, where there might
be more crew about, before heading south to New Zealand. If I couldn't
find more crew, I could stay at the new Vuda Point marina on the near Nadi,
where my neighbors Dave and Ane Street on Cabezon were planning
to spend cyclone season in the new marina that is supposed to be a safe
hurricane hole. Pernilla and I were set to leave the next day, when a Brit
named Johnny Schinas walked down the dock and asked about my sign. Inviting
him aboard, it turned out Johnny was on his way to Thailand to work on
a film shoot in January. A sound man by trade, he said he'd worked in the
recording business in London, and I asked him what records he had worked
on. He named a few groups which I didn't recognize, but then mentioned
he'd worked on Big Audio Dynamite's first album. Geez, I said, I've got
that album, it's one of my favorites. I rummaged in the cassette drawer
and found its case, but not the tape. Then it dawned on me where it was
-- it was in the tape player. I took this as an omen and began to think
things were finally going my way. Johnny was an experienced sailor, having
cruised as a youngster with his parents. In fact, he'd sailed in to Tonga
eight years previously on their boat with his friend Hugo, who had bought
land in the Hapai'i group in central Tonga, where he had started a rustic
"guest house." Johnny was on his way to visit Hugo on idyllic Oalevu Island,
and suggested Hugo might be interested in sailing to New Zealand as well
on his way to work as a set designer on the same movie shoot in Thailand.
From the way Johnny talked about Oalevu Island, both Pernilla and I were interested in sailing there, so we decided to head out the next day for the overnight trip. We certainly weren't disappointed in Johnny's description -- Oalevu Island is your quintessential South Pacific Island, with its while sand beach, clear blue water and nearby reef for snorkeling. Hugo, who looked like Fabio, was a very engaging Londoner who spent half the year at Oalevu, which he ran with his Tongan partner, Sony Kaifoto. The facilities were crude, without running water or other such amenities, and the Captain Cook Guest House catered mostly to the backpacking crowd, who camped there for $10 a night. It turned out Hugo had too much work to do around the place to get away before January, but Johnny agreed to come to Fiji with Pernilla and I. Hugo, however, intervened, possibly wanting his friend to stay there. he pointed out to Johnny that he'd come there to visit Tonga, not Fiji, and if I wanted him to crew for me to Suva, I should be prepared to pay his airfare back to Tonga. Soon Pernilla insisted on the same condition, but I was in no position to pay their airfare, so it looked like I was going to get stuck in Tonga. Curses, foiled again! I did manage to prevail on Johnny and Pernilla to help me get back to Neiafu, which was a secure hurricane hole with strong moorings, and offered in exchange to let them stay aboard until I went home for a planned trip for Christmas. I returned to Vavau a beaten man. I had been away for more than a year by then and was anxious to return home, if only for a visit. I left Markenurh on a sturdy mooring and flew home for a few weeks.