Log 12 - Cook Islands, Samoa & Tonga See Photos Of The Cook Islands Here The sail from Bora Bora to Suwarrow Atoll in the Northern Cook Islands was our most enjoyable passage to date. We left with a forecast of light tradewinds and we were afraid we might have to motor for a long distance. But, instead, we had nice 15 knot winds with FLAT seas. No roll this time! We sailed fast and comfortably for the almost 700 miles to Suwarrow. In fact, we arrived earlier than expected and had to heave to (drift with our sails backwinded) for about 8 hours during the last night so that we wouldn't arrive during dark. The supposedly tricky pass into the lagoon at Suwarrow proved to be a snap and, after dodging a few very visible reefs, we were anchored in the well-protected lagoon. Suwarrow Atoll is a relatively large atoll in the middle of nowhere. There are only 3 inhabitants: Papa John (the 73 year old caretaker), his nephew Baker and his grandson Peter Toto. These three people live all alone on the largest motu and welcome visiting yachts with welcome arms. Papa John, in particular, loves to show the yachties how to live off the land in the South Pacific, using his machete and a cigarette lighter to gather coconuts and coconut crabs. He uses the machete to weave baskets and plates for carrying and eating the crab meals he prepares and he uses the lighter to start the fire made of palm fronds that he cooks the crabs on. The three Suwarrow residents also take great delight in throwing a potluck dinner every 3 or 4 days. Papa John provides the coconut crab and fresh tuna, Baker provides stacks of coconut pancakes, Peter provides coconut beer and the cruisers bring side dishes and drinks. We must have gained about 20 pounds during our 10 day stay on Suwarrow! The hiking on the reef and shell gathering was extraordinary and the snorkeling (if you could ignore the rather agressive reef sharks) was also outstanding. Many good times were had here and we could easily have spent another month here if it wasn't for the need to keep moving due to the approach of cyclone season. See Photos Of Samoa Here And so, after too short of a stay, we took off for the 400 mile sail to American Samoa. This, too, proved to be an easy, relatively slow downwind sail that had us arriving at Pago Pago after 4 days. We had heard negative reports about Pago Pago harbor (the word was that it was a filthy harbor with lousy holding ground for the anchor). This proved to be true. However, we weren't prepared for the amazingly friendly Samoan people. While we were looking forward to American Samoa due to its Costco and other cheap provisioning possibilities, we really enjoyed the island due to its smiling inhabitants. We were also unprepared for the depth and beauty of the Samoan culture. The music, art, dress and village lifestyle was very interesting and we really enjoyed our stay here. That is, except for the night that the wind picked up to about 50 knots and EVERY boat in the harbor (including Gumbo) drug anchor. It was a long, sleepless night, but no damage was done and after the wind died down, all was forgiven. On a sad note, while we were in American Samoa, the 300 reserve Samoan army troops were deployed to Iraq. There were many sad going-away parties and yellow ribbons were hung on almost every tree and house on the island. We spent almost 2 weeks in American Samoa before sailing the 75 miles to Western Samoa. Western Samoa, unlike American Samoa, is not subsidized by the U.S. and is, thus, alot poorer. But the people seemed even happier and friendlier. We sailed into the main harbor of Apia and had to tie up alongside a harbor tug while awaiting the arrival of the officials (immigration, customs, quarantine and harbor patrol). This proved to be an all day affair but, once they arrived, the officials were quite friendly and efficient. Unlike Pago Pago, Apia harbor is large and has a nice white sand bottom that the anchor bit into immediately. Also, unlike Pago Pago, there was a good dinghy dock that was guarded by the Port Authority so that you could stay out late at night without fear of any damage to or theft of your dinghy. Apia is a bustling small town with many stores and restaurants and a couple of movie theaters. English is spoken by almost everyone (although Samoan is the native language). We really enjoyed the outdoor market with its countless stalls selling fresh veggies, fruit, coconuts and kava. Also at the market it was a kick to watch the checkers players who a play a sort of "ninja" style of checkers. Also while in Apia we went to the movies and saw "I, Robot". And we went numerous times to see the fire knife dancing presentation at an outdoor venue near the dinghy dock. Fire knife dancing is a Samoan dance style in which a male dancer lights one or more ends of a long "knife" (more like a stick) and proceed to spin it around his head and body, while drummers are madly thrashing out a Polynesian rhythm. Pretty exciting stuff. We paid Green Turtle Tours to take us on a bus tour of the island. This was money well spent, as the tour guide (Sammy) was quite a crack-up and he took us places that we wouldn't have found on our own. It turns out that, once you get out of town, this island is incredibly lush, with every kind of fruit and vegetable growing wild all over the place. You could literally eat your way for free across this island and never go hungry. The villages along the perimeter of the island are, while very poor, amazingly clean and neat, with gardens of flowers and vegetable surrounding the open air homes. And each home and village has, alongside, a structure called a "fale". The fale is an open air, roofed structure that is used for religious or family ceremonies and to house guests of the family or village. We found them to be very interesting in design with many pillars holding up a tall, pointed roof. Another exciting facet of our stay in Apia harbor was our chance to watch the practice sessions for the upcoming canoe races. These canoes, unlike the ones we had seen in French Polynesia, were 100 feet long with 25-30 rowers all keeping time to a drummer who sat in the bow. Every morning at dawn and every evening at dusk these boats would come charging past Gumbo and Kurt would get out his Tahitian log drum and drum along with them (much to their amusement). And, while in Apia, we visited Vailima, the final home of Robert Louis Stevenson. This is a beautiful old mansion situated on top of a mountain, overlooking the ocean. We were given a nice tour and spent the afternoon wandering the grounds. Once again, we would have loved to stay here longer and learned more about Samoan culture but cyclone season was approaching. See Photos Of Niuatoputapu Here And so we departed Samoa for Tonga with our first stop being the rarely-visited Niuatoputapu, a small island 170 miles due South of Western Samoa. We had a relatively boisterous 36 hour passage with 20-25 knots of wind over the beam and relatively large seas. And, once again, the pass, which was reported to be tricky, proved to be well marked and very easy to enter. Once anchored in the lagoon, we discovered an island that time seems to have forgotten. The 3 villages get little or no subsidies from any other country and live primarily from what they can grow or gather from the sea. The houses are little more than open air wood lean-tos with either palm thatch or corrugated metal roofs. The floors are, for the most part, dirt. There are pigs and chickens running free and lots of dogs (some of which are eaten!). But, while very poor, these people were the friendliest we have met. There were always smiles for us as soon as our dinghy hit the rudimentary wharf. The charming little kids had been taught by someone to greet you with "Where's my lolly?" (which means: "Do you have a piece of candy for me?"). We had heard about this so we had plenty of candy on board. We soon were "adopted" by about 3 families. The first was Sia and Niko, who had a small home on the beach. Niko ran a kava plantation on the neighboring "volcano" island and Sia worked at the customs office. Sia immediately invited us to a feast on the first Sunday we were there. So, after attending church (!), we dinghied over to a nearby motu where the locals prepared fresh fish cooked in taro leaves, fresh papayas, taro and squash. Yummy! The second family we became friendly with was that of a 20-year old girl named Mele. Mele was trying to organize the local women who did basket weaving and tapa manufacturing into a sort of co-op. It was kind of humorous to watch the politics and social shenanigans that went into this "organization". We were invited to attend church with Mele (whose father was the part-time minister) and then we were invited to a post church meal at their house. Unfortunately, we had already been invited to a post church meal with Mele's relative Mele Vi. We think we may have caused hard feeling between the two ladies as they both expected us to be at their homes simultaneously. So, we first went to Mele Vi's house and had lobster, chicken and vegetables (while the family sat and watched us eat, as Tongan custom has it that the hosts don't eat until the guests have DEPARTED). Then, after waiting a suitable time, we headed over to Mele's house and repeated the whole meal! Another interesting activity we participated in was the weekly "disco" dance held in an open air building near the dinghy landing. These dances were fun because the local women LOVE to dance and, because the local men spend all their time at the dance sitting around a kava bowl, drinking kava, the women will not leave any dancing man (aka Kurt) alone. While the men (who dance) ask the women to dance by bowing in front of them, the women ask the men to dance by coming up and slapping them on the leg. After a couple hours of non-stop dancing, both of us were exhausted and had to sneak off the dance floor and head home long before the dance was over. During our stay here, Kurt decided to climb the volcano on the neighboring island. This entailed 6 of us cruisers hiring Niko to take us over to the island in his motor boat and then guide us up the mountain. The ride over was interesting as the boat had a large hole in the bottom and needed to be constantly bailed. As there was quite a bit of wind and large swells, this ride was actually kind of scary. We did, however, manage to sight quite a few humpback whales on the way accross. Once we got to the island, we were met by a bunch of residents who helped drag the boat up on the beach. We then started the 2-hour climb to the top. This was a beautiful, but arduous, trip as the trail continued straight up the side of the mountain with no level stretches. We hiked through kava and pineapple plantations and stopped now and again to refresh ourselves by drinking fresh coconut milk. When we reached the top, we were rewarded with a spectacular view of Niuatoputapu and its surrounding reefs. The hike back down was alot easier but the trip back on the boat was even scarier as this time we were motoring directly into the steep chop and we were shipping lots of water on board. And, of course, we had no life jackets or radio! We must have broken every Coast Guard regulation in the book. During the end of our stay, Kurt volunteered to give a presentation to the primary school about our trip so far and about drumming. So, we packed the laptop and the drumset into the dinghy and took it to the middle village where the local doctor piled our stuff into his van and drove us to the school. Kurt first showed a slide show on the computer showing pictures of the U.S., Mexico, French Polynesia and Samoa. Most of these kids had never seen any of these places (let alone a computer) and were particularly amazed by the size of the buildings in downtown Seattle. And when Kurt sat down at the drums and played a rock beat, the kids went nuts! It turns out that this was the first time these kids had ever seen a drumset. Kurt gave a talk about the history of Western drumming, gave a demonstration of the different styles of drumming and concluded by having one of the students come up and try to play the drums. The students were incredibly enthusiastic and, at the end, presented Kurt with a big box of fruit and vegetables as a thank-you gift. Another thing we did before leaving this island was to attend a native crafts show. This was organized by Mele and was held in a sort of community hall in the middle village. All of the local ladies who do basket and mat weaving and tapa painting were there to display their work to the cruisers. Because these products are usually shipped to Vava'u or Tongatapu and sold for a higher price, we were able to purchase items at a very low price. We ended up buying mats, tapas, baskets and fans. And, whenever we went to a local home for a meal or a visit, we were given more of these items as presents. Because this island is infrequently visited by supply boats, the locals are always in need of things like rice, flour, batteries and boat repair materials. So, we emailed friends of ours on the boat "Outer Limits", who were still in Apia, and asked them to bring down some of these supplies. The islanders are more than happy to pay for the items and were extremely happy when Outer Limits showed up with the stuff. Bill (from Outer Limits) and Kurt helped Niko repair his boat with the fiberglass cloth and resin that Bill brought from Apia. Niuatoputapu proved to be one of our favorite places we've been to so far. We really hated to depart the island but, once again, time was marching on and we had to keep moving. So, when a good weather window appeared (East to Northeast winds, as opposed to the normal Southeast winds), we said our sad farewells to our new friends and departed for the Vava'u Group in Tonga.