NORDLYS - Penrhyn

Penrhyn

NORDLYS

David and Annette Ridout

Mon 25 Aug 2003 23:16

Penrhyn, or as it is locally known Tongareva.

27th August.

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news are very welcome to us. nordlys (at) mailasail.com

I am sitting at the nav table with 140 miles to run to the atoll of Suwarrow. The time is 0930hrs so we should arrive tomorrow morning. So far we have sailed a very easy three hundred miles with light winds either behind us or on the beam. Pacific sailing at last?

Really the above paragraph has been written because I am finding it difficult to start the description of our time anchored off Te Tautua village. My penmanship is not up to the task of describing our feelings and experiences in this fascinating place. I will try.

We understand that the village consists of some eighty odd people, thirteen who are school children. There are a fair number of elderly, some late teenagers and very few in their thirties and forties. Since the copra trade died and the pearl farm is a small efficient operation that employs few there is basically no work for anyone. As far as we can see the only income is from the exquisite hats and fans that the ladies of the place weave and sell either directly to the likes of us but in greater numbers to agents in Rarotonga or Raro as it is known locally. Most of the population of the village is working in Raro, New Zealand or Australia. We have a strong feeling that the youngsters who stay are those with very little drive but we may be wrong. It is not in this age group that the charm of the inhabitants lies but in the elders. Almost without exception they are a charming, self sufficient bunch who were kindness itself to us.

Saitu Marsters, the seventy year old distant relation of the Marsters of Palmerston fame, came to the boat and offered us fish on our first day. We were really adopted by him and his wife and family. Our dealings with them were on a very fair basis. They gave to us and we gave to them. On our final night we were asked to dinner. This is a great honour and while enjoyable is something of an effort. The family do not eat with you but sit and chat and watch you eat!

During our twelve days off the village I managed to repair the minister's bell. The clanger had come adrift and it had no rope pull. As I spliced a new one on and did a fancy end I could not help thinking of my mother's father who had taught me this skill aged eight. An injury necessitated my very restless soul to stay still in bed for quite a while. Grandpa helped to keep me thus and it is with some sorrow that I have seen the end of three strand ropes as part of modern yachts equipment. I also repaired the minister's washing machine. This I was asked to do by the chief church warden. I should perhaps explain that they are between ministers and a great deal of effort was being put into sprucing up his house before his arrival. We all went to church on Sunday. Little was understood by the yachting contingent of seven but the singing was marvellous. The whole village is very religious and Sunday is a day for doing nothing active other than church. Certainly not swimming. On another day Saitu took me pearl fishing. This consists of snorkelling over a coral head of about an acre in size and about five feet deep. The small oysters are picked and bagged. This was interesting because I thought I was helping him. It had been made quite clear that the lagoon and all that was in it belonged to the locals. However on returning to Nordlys Saitu gave me those I had picked and kept those he had picked for himself. It took us about two days to open them up and for our work we had 2 'pipi' pearls of about 6mm in diameter and several very small 2/3mm ones. These are natural pearls and as such very special. We later learnt that Saitu got no small ones but one large valuable one.

The above happened after two days in the anchorage. While he and I were in action Saitu had left his six year old grandson on board with Annette and Chris. He behaved very well and was charm itself while we all had a cup of tea on our return. Next morning neither Chris nor I could find our watches. This left us in a very awkward situation. We need not have worried because on passing their house next day they rushed out and the watches were returned. All done without embarrassment on either side. Also understandable because Mama Saitu was always complaining that her watch was broken and the lad was very young.

One of the things that we found difficuly to grasp was the relationships that everyone had with each other. We would be told so and so was a grandchild one day then that she was a cousin the next. Etc etc. There seemed to be a tendency to adopt children on a fairly easy come easy go basis so in the end we stopped wondering who was connected to whom. A case in point was Tania. A young girl of twenty one who lived with her elderly grandmother. She showed us pictures of her mother who is apparently American and her father who one day lived with his new family in Raro and on another was the man in the next door house. She showed us pictures of a brother who was very white and she herself was totally Polynesian. After a bit we gave up. Especially after Saitu had told us another scenario altogether! What I do know is that she certainly could dance. In two weeks she is off to Australia and the United States as part of a Cook Island dance group. She loved coming out to the yachts and one day she gave us a fine demonstration of her skills in Nordlys's cabin. Since we appreciated this she insisted on dressing properly the next day and repeating the performance. She certainly got my heartbeat up!

About twenty years ago a visiting yachtsman gave the village a book in a canvas case so that all visitors could tell their story and fill in a record. We had great fun reading this book and constructing our own entry. Saitu and I also went crayfishing. This was a total failure as we walked over about two miles of reef and saw none. I was exhausted as all this was done by the light of a torch on a very black night. Mama Saitu managed to haul her huge frame onto Nordlys and was entertained by the girls while we 'fished'.

The snorkelling in the pass was excellent and many afternoons or mornings, according to the tide, were spent drift snorkelling in while the sharks circled curiously around us. Although our outboard has never yet failed we only did this on an incoming tide. Parties were had with the other two yachts, my computer was updated by a Swiss sailor and most importantly we were introduced to the delights of fresh Heart of Palm. Miles of motu is covered in palm trees of all ages and is not now farmed at all. Find a new tree very near a big one so that it is unlikely to survive, cut with machete just above the end of the 'wood' and sever a further two feet up. Cut off the outer layers and the heart is exposed. In anywhere except these conditions of unused plenty to kill a tree for perhaps two meals would be a crime but not here. I can only look back on all the meals we missed due to ignorance in the Tuamotus.

All good things must come to an end and so we bade goodbye and sailed over the lagoon to the dreaded anchorage off Omoka in order to clear out. Our troll was in action and after leaving in settled sunshine we found ourselves anchoring in a thirty knot rain squall. Chris and I stayed on board and Annette went ashore. Two things then happened. Firstly good friends sailed in and secondly our passports which we had had to give up had got lost in the chaos that went for the harbour office! Annette found them in a dusty folder in an otherwise unused drawer. We decided to sail back over to Te Tautua in order to spend the evening with Pk and his Spanish wife Josefina. Far too much was drunk and next day we left with headaches across the lagoon for the fourth time and straight out the pass. In some ways we were as ever relieved to have escaped the trapped feeling that an atoll gives at the same time we were all conscious that we had just enjoyed a very special few days surrounded by much natural kindness and we had witnessed a way of life that is all but dying out. We cannot see the village of Te Tuatau being sustainable when the present generation of elders dies out. Probably this is inevitable but as the schoolmaster told us it is also due to the politics of self interest on the part of Omoka village.