Monday 18 September – preparing for the wind

After breakfast we went to the island to check out with Harry. He had all our paperwork done and stamped our passports. Everything is pointing to us leaving tomorrow, and Met Bob our router still says it is the best time to go. We have to be in Samoa by Friday as that is when there is an even bigger wind arriving. We wondered about leaving today, but the wind and waves are much bigger today than tomorrow. So fingers crossed! All the route predictors including Met Bob say we will be averaging 9 knots, we think it is a bit ambitious, but Met Bob got it exactly correct on our passage to Suwarrow.

Leaving Harry’s house we spotted the memorial stone for Tom Neale, a New Zealander born in 1902 who was a bushcraft and survival enthusiast and spent most of his life in the Cook Islands. He spent 16 years – in three sessions – living alone in Suwarrow, the first two of which were the basis of his popular autobiography – An Island To Oneself.

Going to check out at the Caretaker’s house

Tom Neale’s Memorial stone, 1952 -77, Lived his Dream on this Island

Rowan and all our endless boat papers

The 4 visiting boats, Dakota is behind us

Keeping my hat on in the wind

PolePole and JeldiJeldi

The sun was out and the rain predicted was nowhere to be seen. So we went back to the Manta Ray area, but the waves were so choppy and rough I did not get in. Rowan had a good snorkel around, but it was way to rough to go to the pass.

Rowan’s snorkel spot

All calm under the water!

The couple on the third boat, the tiny Swedish boat came over to use our wifi. Turns out the boat’s previous owners were Swedish. He is actually Flemish, born in Sweden but grew up in Belgium and she is Spanish. What characters, they have been on boats in the Caribbean for years, chartering, doing boat deliveries, and living on a very tight budget. We learnt the term ‘Dumpster Diving” which is going to the supermarket dump trucks to get food for free that is about to be dumped because it is out of date. We were a captive audience as we listened to all their stories, including one about two South African con artists. He looked a bit viking-ish, and had an incredible story about their boat, called Dakota, which is 52 years old and built by a German using old U boat metal! It certainly looks like an old rust bucket. It still has a kerosene cooker! They have got to wait out the storm here as they are not fast enough to get to Samoa before the even bigger winds arrive. In fact the people on One Life are also sitting out the next week here, it is terribly uncomfortable here in a monohull, but I guess they don’t have a lot of choices. The Americans on the other boat, the two men want to leave tomorrow too, but the wife doesn’t want to leave, so we will see who wins! No new boats have arrived in this weather, they will all have been put off by the conditions out there.

We are all prepared to leave tomorrow, we are feeling confident we are doing the right thing. I certainly wouldn’t want to spend another week here in this wind.