Suwarrow, The Cook Islands
MALARKEY
Jo & Trevor Bush
Tue 4 Sep 2012 04:01
|
13:15S 163:05W
Well,...... we did say that we wanted 'to get away
from it all' and just have wild life for company and that's exactly what we
got,......... but a little sooner than we had planned.
In the entrance to this tiny atoll, miles from
anywhere, we had our first close encounter with some serous wild
life...........a Minke whale. It was about 30 foot long and approached
us like a torpedo heading right for our port midships. Exciting.......shit no,
scary more like. Great, we wanted to see whales alright, but in the pass
with very limited room to manouver and with some serious navigation to
consider,....don't think so. But this enormous yet graceful creature was just
inquisitive and simply checked us out swimming along side probably laughing
at us packing ourselves, and then disappeared into the oggin. If this was a sign
of things to come, we were not going to be disappointed.
We negotiated the pass ok......quite simple really,
whale incident aside, and picked out the best anchoring spot. And
within 5 minutes of dropping the hook, we were visited by some other wild
life..........about 9 hungry looking black tipped reef sharks. These sharks
stayed with us for the duration, visiting every morning. Joanne didn't help
the situation by feeding them a daily breakfast from the back of the
boat.......Clearly she is in serious need of a pet, preferably one with less
teeth.
  Shark infested
waters
No brainer
After our initial wildlife encounters, we were
beginning to wonder who was watching who and....why.
We went ashore to announce our arrival to the only
two residents on the island, a couple of Maori Park Rangers, when we were
greeted by a huge coconut crab. We thought at least we could deal with
this creature ok, but this crab had attitude and stuck his huge claws
up and was spoiling for a fight.
 Attitude
We wondered if the Park Rangers were indeed
necessary,.....this island seemed more than capable of looking after
itself.
Anyway, the Rangers came to our boat in their own
time (nothing is done here in a rush), and it is nice to be able to report that
for the first time in our 9 year cruise, it was a pleasure to have officials on
board.
  Park
Rangers
Rangers Shelter, adorned by flags from passing yachts
These two laid back Maori's were so laid
back they were almost horizontal. However, they did seem genuinely
pleased to see another couple of humanoids. It transpired that we were the first
British boat to arrive that season and only the third boat since the
arrival of these new Park Rangers. We all had a drink together and the
paperwork went with out a hitch, in fact I cant really remember filling in a
single form or signing anything. Anyway, we appeared to be checked in OK
and were invited to a beach BBQ with them and to go out fishing in their
little tender......All in all a great welcome.
  Beach
BBQ
Beach BBQ fashion show
Other cruisers soon joined us and it wasn't long
before we were regularly having 'pot lucks' on the beach and going
snorkeling & diving in the lagoon. Suwarrow proved to be a great
spot. We really enjoyed using up most of our 14 day park pass and I am please to
report that we didn't get eaten alive or even
bit .........but Joanne did get a nasty suck from a toothless
Maori just before we left.
  Sunset in
Suwarrow
Still a long way to go
|