RAROTONGA TO FIJI

Rita Hayman

(Rita is Port Officer for Auckland, New Zealand.)

I have recently flown home from Nandi, Fiji having spent three months aboard Cavalier, the Rival 32 in which I have crewed to many interesting places during the last few years.

We spent a few weeks getting the boat ready for sailing -- she'd been on the hard at Rarotonga propped up by coconut trunks, very sturdy! We were sailing to Palmerston Island, one of the smaller inhabited islands in the Cooks group. About sixty people live there, all descendants of a Lancashire man named Marsters who arrived there in the 19th century with three wives from the distant Cook island of Penryhn. Twenty-six children were born on the island and the islanders still maintain they are English and not Maori. We took a load of supplies up to them as there is no regular transport, and when a ship does call there is no landing place and it has to anchor outside the reef.

In our dinghy we ferried out to Cavalier: two large bunches of bananas, a heavy box containing batteries, lots of secondhand clothing, two boxes of baking, plumbing supplies, and many personal presents to mail! It took up quite a space on a 32ft yacht, and the bananas had to remain on deck.

Greenpeace II arrived in the small Rarotongan port of Avatiu the day we left and received a great welcome. One of the men welcomed them first by blowing long mournful blasts on a conch shell, then there was much Rarotongan dancing and singing accompanied all the while with drums. It was all very impressive.

It took three days to reach Palmerston, the first day with quite rough conditions and a big swell, which lasted almost the whole time I was with the boat. The wind vane needed repair soon after we left Rarotonga so we were hand steering three hours on, three hours off, and when we reached Palmerston the first thing we wanted was a good sleep. We anchored outside the reef, piloted by Robert Marsters who told us he was our `host' during our visit to the island, and anything we wanted we must ask him for. The men came out in dinghies and collected all their goods, and later one of the younger Marsters -- Bill -- came out and presented us with a freshly cooked crayfish which was dealt with very quickly -- lunch! We visited Robert ashore the next day and enjoyed a real island meal, coconuts and fish being the main components as that is almost all they have.

Cavalier was anchored close to the reef, and when the wind died in the night we found the anchor warp wrapped around the boat with a current flowing towards the coral, so we left next day for the island of Niue. Anyone planning to visit Palmerston will receive a great welcome. Magazines are appreciated, as well as any food to supplement their diet.

A mooring was swum out for us when members of the Niue Yacht Club saw us sailing in. The club headquarters at Alofi, on the western side of Niue, are in the very modern hotel which has been rebuilt since the last hurricane. Unbelievably, this hurled large boulders up the `cliff' of dead coral, known as makatia -- the whole island is built on this foundation. We had a very friendly welcome from the islanders and the New Zealanders working there in various capacities. The airport is being enlarged so in a few years I expect tourism will be their big industry -- Niue is famous for its great diving -- but it's a delightful place to visit now before too many people have discovered it. We only stayed three nights, as the swell was so great that getting the inflatable ashore was quite an adventure and I slept on the floor as I would have been tipped out of my bunk !

From Niue to the Niue district in Tonga, where we spent about ten days enjoying the area and meeting other cruisers. We visited one of the villages a little way inland and were entertained with singing and dancing, and Neil and I were asked to dance too -- which we did. We were given presents of bracelets, headbands (which we attached to our very necessary sun hats) and a lovely tapa cloth which I will frame one day. There were quite a lot of other New Zealand yachts in Neafu (the sheltered anchorage) for the rally, and we met a lot of them and renewed acquaintance at SavuSavu in Fiji.

The swell was with us all the way, with rough seas as well at times, and we had one particularly nasty squall during which Neil dropped the main completely while I tried to keep us head to wind -- an impossible task even with the tiller hard over. I had only had time to put on my safety harness and not my wet weather gear, so when the rain lashed down I was soaked and cold for the first time since leaving Auckland.

We saw a lot of Vanua Levu while at SavuSavu. There were various activities organised for the rally, and we visited places we would not have been able to get to had it not been arranged by `Papa Joe', who ran the social side of the event. Being one of the senior cruisers Neil was always invited to join the Kava ceremony. This was performed with great dignity -- and length -- and was much more impressive than that shown to most tourists. We visited -- after a long walk -- an island village that had not had overseas visitors before, and were entertained in royal style. Another day we travelled to Lombassa by bus - 3 1/2 hours of wonderful scenery as we travelled over the mountains. This trip, incidentally, cost us NZ $7 return!

As we left Neafu in the Vava'us we exchanged a wave with Juanita, both of us flying our OCC burgees. In SavuSavu we had met Stewart Whiting and Clive King, Stewart sailing, Clive enjoying a holiday on dry land this time!