Get Lost On Purpose

Category: Cook Islands

  • Left Raro-Sailing to Beveridge Reef

    We pulled out of Raro last night just before dark. I left feeling almost sorry for the place. Such a great island with such a horrible harbor. I guess it’s not always so bad but we inadvertently timed our stay with two passing troughs of low pressure that brought northerly winds, sunless skies, and a chill in the air. When we first arrived, the idea of not having to use the outboard motor to get into the dock seemed a relief. When the second northerly blew in this weekend it became a struggle to get the dinghy back and forth the few yards from quai to boat without getting your head ripped off by a neighbor’s lines. People were dropping anchors on top of other people’s anchors, words were getting exchanged, cleats and stanchions were popping off boats, Dosia was covered in dirt blowing off the quai; my little voice said “let’s get the hell out of here.” So we did. And now we’re over 100 miles out and sailing along blissfully under a full mizzen, double-reefed main, and full genoa. As soon as the wind backs around another 15 degrees, up goes the spinnaker and we will hopefully coast right into Beveridge Reef. We had homemade beef stew for dinner last night, homemade lasagne coming tonight, and the meals are planned for the rest of the trip assuming we don’t catch any fish…whenever I get around to throwing out some lines. This is sailing at its best and we’re having a ball. It’s blowing 10 knots on our beam, a few gusts up to 15 and we’re doing anywhere from 4.5-6 knots in easy-riding seas. Even Marge, the anti-passagemaker can’t complain in these conditions. If all goes to plan, we’ll arrive at Beveridge Saturday morning or midday for a mid ocean rest stop. One or two night’s stay depending on weather. No land, just reef and a lagoon. One of those weird mid-ocean anomalies. As always, I’m hoping to get Marge in the water with some sharks! Check it out on google. Peace.
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  • 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.

  • Finally Sunny in Rarotonga

    We’ve been in Raro 6 days now and during that time the sun has showed itself for a total of 2 hours. It’s not been raining, just completely overcast and breezy. At night it’s in the 60’s and we go out wearing jeans, long sleeves, and Margie even sports a fleece jacket. I don’t know whether this is normal or not. One local said it’s common to have weather like this till September. Another said this is extremely unusual. Thankfully the sun is finally gracing us with its presence today. This morning it’s beautiful and clear but still cool. I hope to see the temperature creep up into the mid 80’s today!

    Despite the dreary weather we’ve been having a great time here in Raro. There’s about 10 boats on the quai (pronounced “key”) right now but it seems everyday one or two leave and more come in. I find it unbelievable we’re the only ones with a scooter parked behind our boat. For $14NZ (less than $10US) per day it seems almost ridiculous not to have one. Even if you don’t have anywhere to go, the pure entertainment value of scooting around the island is worth it! The other night we were cruising along at 50 kilometers and “crack!” Part of the scooter’s plastic frame fell right off in the middle of the road. No worries, just pick it up and cram it into the storage compartment under the seat. Oh well! The only thing that could add to the fun would be a stereo system installed on “Junior” so we could rock out to the cool radio station here. One minute you’ll be jammin to the newest rap song from Ludacris or Akon and then they fade into “Cruisin” by Smokey Robinson or “River of Love” from George Straight. 101.1 FM – Raro’s Hottest Hits “If they won’t let you listen to us at work, piss in the coffee pot and quit.”

    Last night we had Linda and Andy from Coromandel Quest over to the boat for dinner. I actually owed them a hot meal from a year ago when I was without cooking gas and they fed me in Ecuador. It’s still crazy to me you can run into someone you met a year and 4000+ miles ago on a tropical island in the South Pacific with no contact or planning. I looked up one day and there they come into the harbor. It just goes to show how small the community of international cruisers really is. So since I owed them a dinner I put Margie to work 🙂 whipping up some of her soon-to-be-famous salmon cakes and a green bean casserole while I hosted Linda, Andy, and Jake who, along with his wife Neely, are down from Canada on their honeymoon. We met them over at a resort on Friday and it looks like we’ll be dining with them tonight. He stopped by to say hello and got sucked into a couple of beers. I guess that means tomorrow night is now Taco night and I’ll be cooking!

    It looks like a small low pressure system is forming fast and rolling through here on Wednesday. I’ve been watching it on the forecasts for the last 4 days. That won’t be fun in this harbor since it’s completely exposed to the north and they’re is calling for stiff north-north easterlies tomorrow which will turn the seas right at us. When a Low forms rapidly it can create violent little squalls. This is called a “meteorological bomb” and it’s exactly the type of thing we want to avoid at sea. The latest weekly weathergram from weather guru Bob McDavitt on Sunday confirmed my suspicions but thankfully he puts the potential “bomb” 500 miles to our south. “That Low should be taken by a jetstream quickly southeastwards and may well bomb on Wednesday near 30S 160E as its trough crosses Southern Cooks. Standby for some squalls from this passing trough.” I’ve begun studying the crossing from Fiji to New Zealand even though we’re months away. It has the potential to be downright scary if I don’t time it perfectly between the Lows shooting off Australia. Since this is now acknowledged as an El Nino year, I need to figure out it’s affect on those Lows. My worry is that it’ll put them closer together making it more difficult for us to sneak through between the gales. I guess all I can do is keep on studying and watch for those patterns!

  • 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!