Get Lost On Purpose

Author: Margie

  • Trying to stay warm in Raro

    While we’re waiting out this weather (bringing with it temps in the lower 60’s) to pass through Raro we’ve just been enjoying the island via scooter which has included eating more and walking less. So to counteract all the yummy food intake I’ve been pounding the pavements of Raro and giving my running shoes a little action for the first time this trip. It has felt amazing to get some workouts in and come back to the boat with a layer of both sweat and sea salt on my skin. It has reminded me that I want to take just a second to plug a website to our followers, Running With A Purpose.

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    A gal pal of mine from high school, Stefanie Brooks English, is an avid runner and has been for years now. Other than just for her own well being, she’s added another cause to her reasoning and it’s incredible, inspirational, and humbling. Take a moment to check it out and I guarantee you it’s going to tug at a heart string.

    Yesterday we purchased our tickets home for the holidays! For about a week now, in our efforts to find a deal and not having any luck, Drew had almost concluded that he was not going to return home in November. It upset me to no end because I didn’t find it fair for me to go home while he stayed behind and I couldn’t fathom him spending the holidays in another country alone. The cruising world can be a family within itself but I was being selfish and wanted him with me. Cost wise it was proving to be rather difficult and he kept saying “you go, I’ll just stay here.” Ummmm…noooooooooooo…

    Man it was frustrating seeing those numbers pop up every time we searched a flight and I honestly began thinking we might be spending the holidays overseas and just waiting to go home in April for his sister, Kelli, and her hubby to be, Tanner’s, wedding (which we are super stoked about!!!). But a greater power wouldn’t let that be and we managed to snag tickets to get us both home for the same price we were initially finding for just one of us. I was so happy I cried right there in the internet cafe. So come November we’ll be crossing oceans and time changes to spend the holidays with our loved ones and I could not be happier!
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    Despite locating the tickets on our own, beforehand we found the folks at Island Hopper Vacations-Cook Islands to be incredibly helpful. They spent a lot of time with us trying to help us find flights, to work with our budget and time frame, and they were quite humorous and delightful. In response to Drew’s “thanks for your help we really appreciate it,” one fella’s reply back, “ahh it’s bloody fun, isn’t it?” The sarcasm in his voice was a touch of humor to our frustrating day. So we highly recommend them to anyone who passes through here as they are capable of accommodating most of your travel needs here on the island.

  • Reroute to Rarotonga

    Well thanks to our engine, and Drew’s willingness to motor instead of sitting still like a duck in water, we were able to arrive in Rarotonga in a little over a day. There were absolutely NO WINDS to aide in our journey here but of course southerly winds hit us head on early Tuesday morning. So instead of only having four more hours left to the trip we had barely 4 knots pushing us along and another two hours or so tacked onto the trip. Funny, as quickly as we can change our plans and add another island onto our list, the weather can change just as fast. You can follow all the weather charts you want but sometimes, oftentimes, out here you get some stuff you’re not expecting, and all you can do is adjust and push on. We did just that and pulled into Rarotonga, a.k.a. Raro, around 3:30 Tuesday afternoon.

    What did prove dead on was the anchorage here in Raro. Exactly as we had expected, we came in, dropped anchor, and then butt wedged Dosia into a spot. We are tied up to a concrete wharf and could literally reach out and high five our neighbors. Needless to say, there are fenders and lines EVERYWHERE! Two other boats have come in after us so right now there are ten, one of which is a 60+ foot massive catamaran. There isn’t much room left for any more boats and we’ve all got our fingers crossed that no northerly winds or swells come ripping through here or this harbor is likely to turn into a big mess of bumper boats. On a positive note, no outboard dinghy engines are necessary as you can just pull yourself back and forth from your boat to the wharf by all the lines from the boats.

    Instantly once you pull in, your nose is tantalized by the gourmet burger joint across the street and the fish-n-chips hole in the wall off to the right of the harbor. We got Dosia settled, made sure she wasn’t going to be doing the two step with any of our neighbors, and set off to follow our noses to get something to eat. Within half a mile from the boat there are more restaurants than we could possibly eat at in the week we plan to be here, along with several grocery stores, and plenty of shopping. For Tuesday night we chose Trader Jacks, which appears to be a very popular bar and grill here on the island, large enough to possibly entertain the entire population of Aitutaki! Grilled wahoo, seafood pasta, calamari….scrumptious!

    First thing yesterday we rented Junior, our new scooter, and were off to tackle the 32 km that makes up the coastal road around Raro. The largest island, and capital, of the Cooks, Raro is home to more than half the population that makes up this group of islands. Driving here will prove to be a bit more of a test with a lot more traffic than in Aitutaki so we’ll let Drew do most of it. The wharf offers a hot water shower to cruisers (for $10NZ w/a $20NZ deposit) so yesterday I was able to take a LONG shower and didn’t have to worry about turning the water off! So nice. We’ll be able to provision our fridge while here and restock the freezer with fresh chicken and beef and the best part…there is a small movie theater here so tomorrow night we’ll be able to check out the new Transformers movie! Heck yeah!

  • Not up to par in Aitutaki

    Unfortunately even the greatest of islands cannot fend off sickness and we’ve both fallen victim to something here in Aitutaki. For three or four days Drew and I have been battling on and off symptoms of fever, headaches, sore throats, and this morning we added ear aches to the list. It wasn’t until last night that I started to run fever and it was very low grade but for two nights straight Drew’s was well above a hundred. Once the ears started hurting this morning Drew began to think we may have gotten ear infections because both the water and air temperature here are significantly cooler than in Bora Bora but we’re not sure. Lucky for us we have antibiotics on board that we’ve had stashed away which we brought from back home. We’d been putting off using them thinking “what if we need them down the road” but then realize that situations like the present are exactly what we have them for.

    We’ve already missed one dinner and a show this week that we had planned to attend and have resos for another one tonight. We’re hoping we both feel up to going as it is supposedly the best show on the island and we had to make the reservations a week ago to get in! The one thing our illnesses haven’t affected is our appetites, go figure, so we’ll have to feel pretty crappy to miss out on the great food! Fingers crossed that we’ll have nipped this thing soon.

  • Happy Birthday America!

    We haven’t sat still much since our arrival here in the Cooks and don’t plan on slowing down anytime soon. We have officially met and checked in with customs, agriculture, and health inspectors and are “free to roam about the island”…even though we already had been : )

    I hit my two month mark on the trip back in June and shortly after became a little homesick which is fairly routine for me. I was an unexplainable, emotional wreck and Drew could barely talk to me without me crying. Such a girl. As crappy as I feel for saying this, French Poly had begun to feel a little routine and I was aching for something new, as was Drew. While I could have certainly done without the harshness of the passage, what was waiting for us, in the Cooks, has been an incredible mood lifter and Drew and I have done a complete 180 since our arrival. Neither of us can begin to explain how wonderful it is to be amongst English speaking people again as it knocks down the language barrier we’ve had up against us for both our trip this year and last year. It’s my fault, I should have studied and learned French but I didn’t, and so I am glad to have that part of the trip behind me.

    Then there is the financial aspect of being in a new place and for us things are reasonable again which means that we are really able to appreciate and enjoy the culture without as many limitations and it is making a world of difference. The scooter rental has made getting around the island not only easy but FUN! Some afternoons we just go out and ride around with no intentions of doing anything but sight seeing and feeling the wind in our face. And the food, oh the wonderful food! There are so many restaurants here so it’s been fantastic to get off Dosia and be served instead of having to cook all the time. There is a wonderful restaurant on the oppo side of the island from us called the Boatshed Bar & Grill, right on the lagoon, where we had an amazing lunch of local fish & chips and a thai beef salad. Highly recommend this to future visitors of the island but TAKE BUG SPRAY! Mosquitos are present all over the island but everywhere on the eastern side.

    Of course we’re tag teaming it with Zen and will probably end up sharing many meals and adventures with them throughout our time here. They are an absolutely wonderful family to be around and the mom, Monique, has become my “girlfriend” of the trip. It’s great to see a family experiencing this together and there is such a respect level between Tom & Monique and their children, Cammi & Cole. You feel it within minutes of being around them and I just love it as it can be rare to find that these days. Thursday we ate dinner with them at Cafe Tupuna’s which sits up in the hills of Arutanga. Drew & I split a bowl of seafood chowder that would have made my dad cry (he LOVES chowders) and then both licked our plates clean of the fantastic tuna and wahoo dishes we ordered as our meals. Lemon and passion fruit cheesecake for dessert, stick a fork in me I was done! Last night we attended our first buffet and dance show at the Pacific Resort. For about $45 a person there was an amazing buffet of sushi, sashimi, clams, mussels, lobster salads, pork, ribs, fresh salad, a pumpkin au gratin that was to die for, and tropical dessert plates. It was perfect and after Drew, Monique, Cammi, Tom, and I all participated in the dance show, we were all full, spent, and ready for bed.

    Being in another country makes it difficult to celebrate our nation’s birthday so it’s going to be a low key 4th of July for us. Tomorrow is Miss Cammi’s birthday and I am being given the pleasure of making her a birthday cake so we’ll be joining them in the b-day festivities and on Monday we are going on an island lagoon tour which will take us to four of the remote atolls and we’ll be able to snorkel. So we are going to have PLENTY to keep us busy and lots of food to keep our bellies full! So if you’ll excuse me I need to go on a walk now to try and work off these desserts I’ve been eating lately. HAPPY 4TH OF JULY EVERYBODY!!!