slaplogs

wednesday October 1^st 2008 (aitutaki)

On April 11, 1789 Captain Bligh and his crew on the now infamous Bounty become the first known Europeans to call on Aitutaki. Only two weeks later in the waters off Samoa he was set adrift by a mutinous crew. Three decades later John Williams arrived and immediately began converting the locals to Christianity. Later John made a tasty lunch for some big Nambas on Vanuatu. He was outlasted by the big stone walled church he built which is the oldest one on the Cook Islands. It makes a nice view out of our starboard side windows and we often hear the local choir making use of it.

The main island of Aitutaki has an area of just over 16 square kilometers laced with paved and unpaved roads for us to tear up with the 125cc’s of raw power under the seat of our pretend Harley. We rented it from the Spider Café for 20 dollars a day. The local currency here is the New Zealand dollar. We can currently pick up a New Zealand dollar for 70 cents Canadian. To say that we are relived to finally be in a part of the world where prices seem to be based on some kind of earth based logic would be a vast understatement. When we rented the bike the owner asked to see my driver’s license. I showed him my BC license and he explained that we would need to pick up a local drivers license in order to operate the scooter legally. Walking all the way back to the police station, filling out a bunch of paper work and paying the associated fees before turning around to walk back and pick up the scooter was not a form of civil obedience that I would have normally deemed worth the trouble but we’ve apparently been in French Polynesia to long. Once the guy explained the Aitutakian process we immediately decided that the novelty of the procedure alone was worth the effort. First of all there would be no walking. I was free to take the scooter (with Jaime on the back) to the police station. If we could successfully ride the scooter to the police station we would satisfy the local requirement for a road test. We passed with flying colors. Once at the police station we were surprised to find out that the only participation necessary to completing the necessary paperwork would be signing the bottom of the drivers license. The cost? Two New Zealand dollars and fifty cents. We love this place already.

Our first purchase after on Aitutaki was a rum flavored milkshake. The second was a newspaper which I used to read up on local current events while enjoying our first purchase. Imagine my surprise when I found that here -on a rock in the middle of the Pacific ocean- on the September 29^th issue of the Cook Island Daily News that WestJet was front page news. WestJet is the Calgary based airline that I worked for a long time ago in a land far far away.

thursday October 2^nd 2008 (aitutaki)

The sound of drumming got us out of bed today. We tracked the sound to it’s source and found some local dancers shaking their money makers. We’ve read that the dancers from Aitutaki regularly win the inter-island competitions in Tahiti so we were excited to see their stuff. The impromptu demonstration left us impressed enough to book a couple of seats at one of their more formal shows on the beach tomorrow night. One of the guys pulled Jaime out for a dance but I managed to fade into the background to spare myself (and the onlookers) a similar fate.

We also moved the boat and are now parked inside the lagoon literally tied to a coconut tree. We have a neighbor too; a French guy named Eric in a 40 foot catamaran. Legal and licensed scootering occupied the rest of our day. We stopped for ice cream, had beers at a little bar up by the airport called the Boat shed, and climbed the highest hill on the island to enjoy the incredible views it afforded.

Dinner was supplied by the good people from JK’s hilltop café. We shared a fish burger and with cooperation and no small effort were able to clean up the plate.

friday October 3^rd 2008 (aitutaki)

Only five hundred miles from Bora Bora but we might as well be on another planet. Traditional, sincere, beautiful, quiet, warm and welcoming are some words that you could accurately apply to a description of the place. Our days have not exactly been action packed but apparently it’s just the kind of post-French Polynesian therapy we needed because we seem to be pretty content to just chill here for a while.

We went to the beach tonight to check out the dancers and can truthfully report that the islanders here live up to their hard earned reputation. The men’s dances were adapted from traditional warrior displays. It’s hard to imagine a tribe that wouldn’t be intimidated by their powerful voices alone as they competed with the heavy pounding drums with deep chants and echoing shouts. If that wasn’t enough the spears they waved around and the flaming torches tossed 30 feet over their heads by thickly muscled arms surely would have been. You don’t need an interpretive dance degree to understand the original meaning behind their moves. These big warriors needed a display that would transcend language and culture to get a basic message across which was something like; “we are going to hit you over the head, disembowel you with these giant spears and eat whatever’s left”.

The women on the other hand redefined sexy and have been blessed with an almost unnatural ability to work it. Their spring loaded hips enabled them to wield their barbeques like weapons. Their dance was blatant eroticism from the waist down while their seemingly detached torsos simultaneously exuded grace and natural beauty. Both the men and women put everything into their dances too. Their eyes, faces, hands, fingers and even toes are all meticulously composed while the rest of their bodies jump, shake and wiggle.

We shot some good video and will upload it if we ever find an internet connection capable of dealing with video.

tuesday October 7^th 2008 (aitutaki)

If you leave the main town of Arutunga and walk North for 10 minutes or so you will come to a small store on your left called ABC traders. ABC traders is owned and operated by a Swiss fellow named Bill. Bill has lived on the Cook islands for over 40 years and among other things is a serial gardener. Actually serial gardener doesn’t do him justice, he’s more like a botanical Bach. He has planted and raised over 100 different types of fruit trees from all over the world (from seed) here on his three acres of land. Bills garden is his life’s work, he uses no pesticides or chemicals opting instead to employ an ingenious combination of placement and specialized plants to do the same job. The locals come to see Bill for natural remedies for everything from prostate cancer to back problems. He also maintains a scrap book which has a page dedicated to each of the yachts that have visited the island over the years. Bill entrusted me with the book so that we could leave our mark in it along with the dozens of other boats that have passed through over the years. Jaime knows a little bit about flowers and plants which was all Bill needed to hear. While I troubled myself with an arts and crafts project worthy of the collection Jaime toured his garden.

Jaime came home with bananas and pockets filled with various herbs and spices. He also prescribed a tea made from a local weed here for my chronic back pain, and you know what? It works.

Our friends Graham, Mary, and Kelsey arrived today as well. We had planned to leave tomorrow but will stay another day or so. Another boat is here too now, Voahangy. So now we are nestled in between these two huge catamarans. It’s actually pretty comical. Sometimes we forget how small our little slapdash really is.

wednesday October 8^th 2008 (aitutaki)

Today’s activities included a snorkel trip outside the pass, one last scooter tour of the island and some quality time getting the web updated before our planned departure. If all goes well we will be clearing out and leaving for Palmerston tomorrow which is only a couple of days from here. Palmerston has a very interesting history and no airport so the only visitors they receive are the occasional sailboat and supply ship. It’s another one of those places limited to boats with very shallow drafts which even further reduces the number of visitors they receive so it should be an interesting stop. We will spend five days or so there and then move on to Niue and you won’t hear from us until we get there which should be around October 20^th. If you have sent us an email recently and are still waiting for a reply that will be our next opportunity to get back to you.

saturday October 11^th 2008 (palmerston)

We have been trying to avoid making landfall at this tiny, low lying, poorly charted atoll in the middle of the night and so spent two days trying to slow slappy down. We started by reefing the headsail, then the main. When that didn’t slow us down enough we furled the headsail completely. In the end we arrived just before sunrise this morning with only the reefed mainsail pushing us along. By then there was just enough light for us to comfortably work our way around the southern tip of the barrier reef and up towards the moorings on the western side.

Once on the other side needed to work our way back into the wind so I decided to start the engine to cover the last few hundred yards to our mooring and discovered that our batteries didn’t have enough juice to turn the engine over. There’s an interesting back story about a time when I took the trouble to haul the lot of these faulty batteries back to West Marine only to discover that they wouldn’t honor their famous “no hassle guarantee” and so had to make the return trip dragging the same stupid batteries back to the boat to reinstall them. In retrospect I should have pushed them a little harder to honor their guarantee but at that point the batteries were only a minor annoyance and I didn’t think it would amount to much. At the time we were on the ICW and doing a lot of motoring so didn’t notice how bad they really were until we were too far away to do anything about it. Since then they have pretty much been unreliable pieces of crap choosing times like this one –a few hundred yards off of a poorly charted barrier reef- to manifest their shitty-ness. Luckily we still had the mainsail up and so without too much drama were able to put some breathing room between ourselves and the reef. For the 50^th time I cursed the floor manager of that Key Largo West Marine while digging out and setting up our small generator and battery charger. After an hour of charging the batteries had enough juice to fire up the main engine and we were back in business.

A local Palmerston family, Edward and his sons John and David, were there to meet us when we arrived at the mooring. They gave us a hand getting secured and then came alongside to welcome us to Palmerston. Then they went to collect the customs guys to clear us in. By 10AM Edward returned with custom guys Goodley and Corey to take care of the formalities. We signed a couple of typical papers declaring the usual things like where you are from and where you are going, then handed over the 10 bucks required by island counsel. This has become a pretty repetitive process for us by now so we breezed through it quickly. But with the end of these routine clearance procedures so ended any similarities with any of our other travel experiences. A humpback whale breached 30 feet beside the boat and with that our incredibly unique Palmerston experience began.

A hundred and fifty years ago there lived a fellow by the name of William Marsters (the good lookin’ cat with the beard). Old Willy tried on a number of professions. He was a barrel maker, a gold miner, and even served as carpenter on a whaling ship. It was during his time on the whale boat that he saw the beautiful islands of the South Pacific and decided that he would eventually make one of them his home. He also decided that this new home called for a new profession. He picked polygamy. In 1863 Willy and his three Polynesian brides settled on the then uninhabited atoll of Palmerston. Willy was able to set up himself and each of his wives with separate homes using timbers from old shipwrecks. Then the happy quartet went about populating the atoll. Before he died in 1899 at the age of 78 Willy left behind some traditions, some laws, three families, 17 kids, and 54 grandchildren. By the time his youngest daughter died in the 1973 over a thousand Marsters were descendant of this one patriarch Willy, or I guess you could say; from this one patriarchs willy. Only 38 descendants still inhabited Palmerston during the time of our visit and one of them, Williams great-great-great grandson Edward Marster, explained their traditions to us.

The first family to spot and meet a visiting boat becomes responsible for them. Eddie was there to meet us when we arrived, so he and his wife Shirley, their boys David and John would now be our hosts. Since supply ships visit irregularly only once or twice a year, visits like ours are a strand in the life line which connects Palmerston to the outside world. For this reason they take the tradition very seriously, usually racing out to claim the right to host visiting boats.

Edward and his family involved us in every aspect of their daily lives. By the time we were ferried ashore Shirley had set out a huge spread. Piles of fish, baked fried or steamed. Two kinds of fresh bread, rice and lemonade. Edward said grace and when he said “amen” it was like a starting gun, they tore into the meal like a cartoon family. Eating is serious business in Palmerston and apparently anything goes. The food was so good that it didn’t take long for our initial shock to wear off though, and soon we were slurping, smacking, chomping and spitting bones with the best of them.

After lunch we joined Edward, his boys, Goodly and Corey (the customs posse) and their boys for a fishing trip near on the far side of the lagoon. The tide and sea conditions were just right today for them to fish while standing on the barrier reef, casting into the tidal pools which were filled with more fish by each incoming wave.

While they fished Jaime and I explored Cooks Motu and did a little snorkeling. It is a beautiful lagoon. The sand on the beach is so white that you can’t look directly at it for long without being blinded from the sun. The only other place I’ve seen water this clear was diving in Mexico’s cave networks where the water is filtered so purely by the limestone that if it wasn’t for the bubbles coming out of your regulator you could easily forget that you were underwater.

By the time we rendezvoused back at the boat a couple of hours later the guys had collected at least 40 fish between them. Mostly red snapper, but some yellow and a few small groupers – all caught using bamboo poles with no reels. Cleaning the fish was a group activity and not wanting to be relegated into a feeble outsider category I elbowed my way into the circle to help out. I was assigned scaling duty beside grandma but by the time I finished scaling my third fish they were done. Grandma out-scaled me about 10 to 1. My token effort kept them amused if nothing else.

We had dinner with our keepers followed by a little cutthroat backyard volleyball. These kids are assassins on the court and take no prisoners. Nine year old John has somehow perfected the art of “smack talking” and can back it up too, in this family he’s the one to beat. Just before sunset Eddie and the boys took us back to our boat. We let them go through our DVD collection and then they rushed back to shore so that they could start watching them as soon as the communal generator started up at 6PM. The generator runs from 6AM until noon, and then 6PM until midnight.

Just after they left our whale came back. We watched him swim around behind the boat in front of the setting sun. What a way to end an incredible day, and after a day like that it’s hard not to feel full from life, which made us sleepy. Exhausted from the passage, the busy day, and stuffed from our hosts unsurpassed hospitality it didn’t take long for us to fall into a deep dead contented sleep.

sunday October 12^th 2008 (palmerston)

With one day in Palmerston now under our belts we knew that these were not the kind of people who would take no for an answer and so could expect the overwhelming royal treatment to continue for the duration of our stay. We wanted to strike back early so spent the morning preparing gifts. Sunglasses, hats, clothing, make-up, lighters, canned food, fishing gear… it was amazing how much stuff we were able to scrape together. Jaime even baked up a chocolate and a coconut cake. Then we wrapped the whole lot up in gift bags so that everyone would have something to open.

Once we got ashore (Eddie insists on chauffeuring us back and forth) we saw that Shirley had put down an even bigger spread than the day before. They take the whole “day of rest” thing pretty seriously in Palmerston. No work of any kind, no noise, no sports, even swimming is out of the question. To our delight, they fill the gap by feasting on elaborate meals. We had lamb chops, steamed grouper, fried snapper, raw white fish marinated in coconut milk, rice, potatoes, more fresh bread, and washed the whole thing down with chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream.

Instead of rationing out an obviously rare and irreplaceable treat like ice cream they just put the whole tub on the table and dished it out until it was empty, forcing the largest portions on Jaime and I. It was like that with everything, they would force (literally) the largest cuts and the choicest pieces on us every time, then their kids second and finally Edward and Shirley would eat whatever was left. After that huge feast we were super glad that we didn’t come unprepared and the gifts were a huge hit. This family is as good at receiving as they are at giving. No awkwardness or shyness and nothing put aside for later. They tore into the bags with as much enthusiasm as they tear into meals. The boys seemed especially happy to have bags of their own to open and for the next hour everything was tasted, tested, tried on, divided up, discussed and fought over.

Everyone seemed to find something that they had really wanted (sunglasses for fishing trips, clothes for Sheila, Scotch for Eddie) and Eddie explained that these kind of things are quite precious to them because by the time they add up the freight and consider waiting for up to a year for something to be shipped that they usually just decide to go without. Although we couldn’t hope to match our hosts who have perfected the art of giving, it felt good to give it a solid try.

After dinner Eddie took us on a tour of the island but not before forcing me into a super stylish pink floral print shirt that was three sizes too small. The sleeveless t-shirt I was wearing was okay around the house but was not Sunday approved for a walk through town. We stopped at the school, strolled down main street, visited the original William Marsters grave, and even his original house - the one he built from old shipwrecked materials- which is still standing despite all the years and cyclones. The Sunday tradition seemed a little excessive to us at first, but in our post feast afterglow we started to really enjoy the tranquility, there wasn’t a sound anywhere, and not feeling guilty about little chores or whatever that you should be working on.

After a couple drinks back at the ranch it was almost sunset. Time for Eddie to drop us off for our whales nightly performance and so that he could get back in time to watch another batch of our movies.

monday October 13^th 2008 (palmerston)

This morning we dug out our tent. We would be going with our hosts to set up a camp and spend the night under a full moon on Toms Motu. Eddie came by at 1100 and we loaded up his boat with supplies including our dinghy outboard and fuel tank. He has a spare aluminum skiff, so with my engine we could use two boats to get everything to the motu in one trip and once there would have a second boat for fishing and stuff.

I took David in the little boat and we arrived at about noon. We built a shelter, and set up camp. Planning to “live off the reef” we intentionally didn’t bring any food with us, so once camp was established we all jumped in the boats and headed for the reef. One group went walking around the reef looking for clams, one stayed on the reef and fished, and I took my sling and spear and jumped outside of the reef. By the time we met up back at the boat we had more food than the 5 of us would be able to eat. We ate the clams raw seasoned with fresh lime juice, folded whole fish into palm fronds and then baked them in the sand.

The full moon was incredibly bright so we didn’t need a flashlight to find our way back to the tent when the time came. We could even clearly see the black tip reef sharks which came within a couple feet of shore; doubtlessly attracted by the fish bones we had scraped off of our plates after dinner. It was an incredible camping trip and our first night off the boat since Cuba. The boat was the last thing on our minds, with bellies full of beach baked fish we dozed off listening to waves lap the shore at our feet and the tent flap around in the tropical breeze.

tuesday October 14^th 2008 (palmerston)

This morning we left our beach camp and headed straight into the jungle. We had launched a coconut crab expedition. These are giant blue or purple land crabs that feast on, to state the obvious, coconuts. They live in tree trunks, dens, or in crevices under rocks. Finding them involves a sweaty trek through suffocating dense jungle. Swatting at flies and being cut by nasty razor sharp foliage you commence with the very dirty job of poking around in holes trying to rustle up an enormous crab. Eventually I came around a corner to find Eddie buried up to his shoulders head first in a hole furiously fighting some beast. He emerged from the hole with dirt in his eyebrows holding up the largest crab I’ve ever seen. These are scary looking beasts. He subdued the creature by binding his huge claws and legs with multiple strands of palm strips. Over the next couple of hours we would repeat the process several times. I was somewhat reluctant to meet up with one of these armored crustaceans in a dark hole but given my poor fish scaling performance the day before, felt the need to give it my best effort. I was sweaty, bleeding, covered in dirt and completely empty handed. The collective we (Eddie and Shirley) did manage to come up with 5 of the crabs though, so although I have yet to relinquish my outsider status, it was a successful hunt.

Edward lassoed a sea turtle on the way home and added it to his wildlife collection. His hobby farm has pigs, chickens, coconut crabs, and for a limited engagement; the sea turtle. The pigs and chickens work well because they can be raised on coconuts of which they have an abundant supply. The sandy ground isn’t any good for growing much else outside the occasional small papaya. We went for one last walk around the island and when we got back found one last feast had been prepared for us. The center piece on the table was the days biggest coconut crab which had been injured during the extraction from his den and so needed to be cooked right away. I am happy to report that a giant crab which has attained its enormous size by gorging on coconuts its whole life tastes as good as it sounds.

After lunch we said our goodbye’s and prepared to leave this strange and beautiful place but not before Eddie pulled out his guitar and sang us a bunch of old Palmerston folk songs. Then Shirley loaded us up with tons of fish fillets and a huge bag of fresh baked bread to take with us. We were totally blown away by the whole Palmerston experience. Sure there are some disputes between the three families, and some of their ways are a little old fashioned but visiting a place totally unspoiled by mass tourism that has little to no cash economy where the people invite you into their homes to dine with their families just for the pleasure of your company was unforgettable.

Old Willy may have been a little unorthodox in his ways but he’s left a very special legacy behind.

thursday October 16^th 2008 (niue passage – day two)

We’ve had a bit of everything on this passage. We’ve used every sail configuration we know but after watching the wind just clock around in circles bashing the sails back and forth we were forced back into motoring. Now there is no wind at all. We have been sweating the weight we put on in Palmerston off in the sweltering heat. It’s so hot that sweat actually refuses to evaporate and it sort of just runs down the small of my back or pools up in my belly button depending on my placement.

Niue is about 400 miles southwest of Palmerston. It is an elevated coral outcropping perched on top of a seamount surrounded by very deep water. It has no harbors but there are apparently a few mooring balls sheltered from the prevailing winds. There’s not much else that I can tell you about Niue outside of that vague description except that the diving is supposed to be phenomenal.

We should be there by Saturday morning. For now we will just settle in and try to enjoy another mind numbingly hot and so far extremely boring ocean passage.

Think I’ll go drag myself off the back of the boat now to combat the heat and boredom. I’ve found that even though there may not be enough wind to sail effectively, the occasional puffs have a nice cooling effect if you jump in the water then climb out and stand naked on the cabin top to air dry. Sorry about the mental image, but don't worry it's a strategy employed on passage only.

friday October 17^th 2008 (niue passage – day three)

Still motoring. We had all kinds of rain last night, but it wasn’t accompanied by any wind. Even so it was a nice change and a small reprieve from the sun that’s now frying us again. We have about a hundred miles to go so should be there by tomorrow morning. Last night I took several hours to cook an elaborate meat sauce. It was served over Rotinni and accompanied with a fine vintage of orange tang. It was almost as good to eat as it was to have a small diversion from the hum drum monotony of the passage.

You will read anything when you’re desperate. I just finished this book about strategies of nuclear submarine warfare. It was as bad as it sounds. They use a term in the book called “hot bunking” which made us laugh. There’s not enough space on a sub for each crew member to have his own bunk. To get around this they schedule one guy to come off his shift just as the other guy using the same bunk starts his shift, thus the term hot bunking. This way a single bunk can be used by up to three different crew. On passage we do the same thing. At the end of a shift I wake Jaime up, she rolls out of bed and I climb into the nice warm spot she left behind. The funny thing about our 4 hour shifts is that day and night eventually sort of blend together. The distinguishing features of breakfast, lunch and dinner are replaced with an overly simplified awake or not awake pattern to your day. Hungry or not hungry. For example we have no cravings for coffee, toast or the usual breakfast items in the morning and could just as easily substitute them for a hamburger or a potato salad.

The similarities between the slapdash and a nuclear submarine pretty much end there.

One special feature of this trip has been the full moon. You can see perfectly outside at night and even read under its warm glow. Not that you would want to, but you could. Moon or no moon we are glad that this will be our last night.

saturday October 18^th 2008 (niue)

There don’t appear to be any cemeteries here; instead dead Niueans are lined up along the roadside so that turning the car around involves a three point turn to avoid desecrating their graves. Every couple of hundred meters or so a bit of bush is cleared away to make room for a few graves.

We arrived this morning in the midst of the Niuean constitution day celebrations. The three days of festivities include a dart competition, three legged race, sack race and a coconut husking competition. What you might say the events lacked in panache they made up for with extensive participation and fun. Not very many of Niue’s 1400 or so inhabitants missed out on the chance to celebrate their 34^th year of independence by wearing a sack and trying to out-hop a few of their countrymen across the high school field. Fortunately for us the customs officer agreed to take some time out from the sack races to come and clear us in, otherwise we would have been stuck on our boat wondering who won.

The first thing visiting boaters will notice about Niue is the unusual system they have in place for landing dinghies. They have overcome the challenge of having no natural harbor by installing a large crane on the jetty. When you pull up alongside someone will lower the big hook down to you. If you were smart enough to rig up a harness beforehand, you throw the loop up over the hook and then jump out of the dinghy, carefully timing your leap between surge and swell. Then before you know it your dinghy and motor is plucked out from the sea and dangling 12 feet in the air. At this point you get to find out how well your bridle works. Ours held okay so we swung the dinghy over to the jetty where it could be lowered down onto an awaiting dolly. Then we wheeled it over and out of the way where it sat until we were ready to repeat the whole process in reverse to get back out to the boat.

We weren’t feeling too frisky after the passage but were cajoled into a bike ride by some new friends we met. Jamie and Michelle are on a little 25 foot mono hull (Possibilities) beside us and arrived here a couple of days ago. They had a couple of cool spots lined up to check out so we rented bikes for 8 bucks and peddled our way towards the Northern tip of the island.

Commonly known as the “Rock of Polynesia”, or just “the Rock”, Niue has a rugged coastline featuring dozens of caves and secluded swimming holes. We biked, hiked and swam through and around some of them with Jamie and Michelle this afternoon.

Captain Cook called this “Savage Island” because when he tried to land here back in 1774 the locals chucked spears at him until he wisely moved on. The name apparently stuck for a couple of centuries before the original moniker Niue finally came back in vogue. Niue actually means “behold the coconut” and probably looked a lot better on the tourist brochures than Savage Island. The locals have mellowed out a bit; they throw more darts than spears nowadays and seem every bit as friendly as the Cook Islanders we’ve met. When you walk down the road every passing person in a car or on a bike waves at you. We wave back and if we’re feeling especially worldly give them a good “fakaalofa atu” in return. So far as we know it’s a local greeting and using it generally gets a smile or a laugh from the recipient.

sunday October 19^th 2008 (niue)

I did some dives under the boat today to check out our mooring and have a look around. The brochures didn’t lie, the water is incredibly clear here. Because the island drops off so steeply and any runoff is filtered through a layer of limestone no pollutants or contaminates end up in the surrounding water. The result is an easy 200 feet of visibility. From the surface I could clearly see the big concrete block that our mooring line was attached to. I started making some breath-hold dives and gave way to the warm clear waters’ invitation to go deeper and deeper. Eventually I went right down to the concrete block, sat on it and had a look around. When I looked up it was hard to believe how small our boat looked. I was pretty sure that I had never been that deep on a free dive before, a thought which was confirmed shortly thereafter by the alarming amount of time it took me to get back to the surface for a much needed gulp of air. Still, the water clarity and warmth were very relaxing and made the dives deceivingly straightforward. Once back on the boat we flicked the depth gauge on and were both shocked to see that we were sitting in 120 feet of water. I would have never imagined that I could go that deep on a breath of air, and probably wouldn’t have even tried if I knew how deep it was beforehand. Now Jamie (the guy from the other boat) and I are doing it regularly. I’m not sure it would be so much fun if you couldn’t see the surface but out here we’re enjoying it even more than diving with scuba.

We see all kinds of good stuff just making these dives off the back of the boat. There seems to be a lot of sea snakes for one thing. They are about 18 inches long with little white bands from head to the tip of their… um, tail? Do snakes have tails? Anyway, we’ve never seen one before but they are beautiful to watch as they slither along the reefs and slide through the water. There was also an enormous spotted brown eel swimming around. I’ve never seen one so comfortable outside of his den but this guy was just cruising the reef without a care in the world. We see a lot of Groupers, Giant Trevally and Blacktip sharks lingering about as well.

Later in the day we fell in with a bad crowd. One of the local ex-pats, a Kiwi named Keith took us under his wing and has been tipping us off on local attractions and other tittle-tattle. He’s also been an incredibly friendly and helpful guy and keeps giving us rides and arranging activities for us. Today he invited us out on a “run” with a team of his crony homies. This rowdy gang is known collectively as the Hash House Harriers. They are a self described drinking club with a running problem and true to their name the obligatory run (their 640^th consecutive) was quickly dispatched with so that we could get back to the clubhouse and get on with the carousing. The clubhouse was a garage belonging to this wild old guy named Fungus. At Fungus’s garage we proceeded to imbibe on pink gin and beers while the old timers showed us whipper-snappers how to party. They carried on like a bunch of bikers; swilling beers, smoking, swearing and telling dirty jokes. Their grandchildren probably haven’t seen this side of them but it was the most fun we’ve had in a long time. Jaime is pictured here sporting the “tart of the week” award.

Keith told us today that he’s been taking such good care of us because they are especially fond of Canadians here in this Niue. After the island was devastated by cyclone Heta back in 2004 some Canadian aid money found its way here to cover 80 percent of the replacement cost of the fisherman’s skiffs and repairs to the elementary school, which Keith drove us over to see. The kids have painted red maple leafs all over the posts and a thank you note across the roof. With so many millions of our tax dollars disappearing into useless government debacles it was cool to see how such a comparably small amount at the right time made such a big difference for this little island nation. Keith showed us some incredible and scary footage of the cyclone. Even the coastal road 30 meters up from the sea was hit and covered in 2 meters of water. That commemorative sign in the picture below is posted on the foundation where a house used to sit. There used to be many homes and businesses along that coastline, now there are none. You can see how powerful the cyclone was to have pushed the water up that high. Niue seems to have rebuilt and recovered nicely over the past 4 years. In fact if it wasn’t for Keith’s tutorial these Heta artifacts could have easily gone unnoticed.

thursday October 23^rd 2008 (niue)

We are about to go to shore to hit the duty free store, say goodbye to our rowdy friends and horse around with their cool dinghy crane one last time.

We cleared out with customs and immigration yesterday and plan to slip of our mooring at about 2PM this afternoon. We are headed 230 miles southwest, across the international dateline to Vava’u in the Kingdom of Tonga. After that we’ll be a day ahead of all you jokers back home.

Before we go, a quick update on our email status. We are able to receive here but not send so now have 31 emails sitting in our outbox waiting to go. We hastily diagnosed this problem as another user error, but found out from the locals that this is a problem everyone here experiences with MS Outlook. The guy we consulted at the computer shop said something about a POP server and I tuned him out after he started going on about SMTP something-or-other. So hopefully all these emails will just behave themselves and magically beam out as soon as we connect in Tonga. Hopefully this will explain why you haven’t heard from us and why you may receive some emails that don’t seem to make any sense, chronologically speaking. If you ever decide to sail around the world, forget sailing lessons and get yourself an IT degree.

thursday October 30^th 2008 (neiafu, kingdom of tonga)

Great anchorages, clean water, beautiful reefs, good friends, 5 dollar pizza, cheap beer and free internet; it will take a cyclone to get us out of Tonga. Unfortunately the cyclone season officially starts tomorrow so our time here will be cut short.

Tonga is a bottle neck for boaters like us waiting for the right conditions to make the long passage to New Zealand, so it’s been a class reunion of sorts since we arrived. We’ve been getting reacquainted with friends from as far back as Cuba. We’ve broken bread and raised glasses with Blue Jay, Possibilities, Chantefoc, Plan B, God Spede, Miss Molly, and Voahangy. It’s been a test of endurance for our livers. Every day and night so far seems to supply another occasion to celebrate. Blue Jay is the boat we rafted up with through the canal and have developed an almost magical ability to bump into. True to form we rounded the corner on Monday heading into Neiafu after our passage from Niue, and at precisely the same time Blue Jay rounded another corner right in front of us. Uncanny would be an understatement.

The officials in Neiafu require you to pull alongside a wharf to get cleared in. We arrived at low tide though and it was clear that our small boat was no match for the big commercial sized fenders on the wharf. The combined effect of low water, our small boat, and this high oversized wharf threatened damage if we were stupid enough to try and pull alongside. Luckily there was a mooring only a hundred feet off the wharf so we tied up there instead and I took the dink ashore to explain our decision to the officials. At the same moment some clown came madly rowing over from his sailboat and started telling us that what we were doing was wrong and that the officials would just force us to come alongside anyway. According to him I was wasting my time so might as well just go back to my boat. I didn’t really feel like explaining myself to this busybody so just ignored him. He turned around and rowed all the way back to his boat so I guess he had made the trip especially for my (his) benefit.

After contemplating what it is that possesses people in boats to do this kind of thing, I completed the clear-in process with no trouble. Customs and immigration were satisfied with my explanation, cleared us in and sent me on my way. I selflessly resisted the urge to go and let our new friend know that my first impression was correct and that he was in fact an idiot.

Neiafu is a small town packed with bars, restaurants, small grocery stores, and has a nice laid back vibe. We are going to spend the day getting better acquainted with the delivery systems. We’ve had a couple of packages forwarded to us from the US that we need to track down. Once we have that business sorted out we are going to up anchor and explore the surrounding bays and islands for a few days, hopefully that will be tomorrow. Summer has arrived in the southern hemisphere with a vengeance; the heat is absurd and we are looking forward to finding a shady anchorage where we can roll off the side of the boat and into the water when we overheat.