Passage to Suwarrow, Cook Islands

September 12 to September 17, 2009
Last morning in Bora Bora, Set the course for Suwarrow, We have an emergency, Aftermath of a dream

Last morning in Bora Bora

The sun is shining, but skies are gun metal gray as we plan to leave for Suwarrow, an atoll and national park in the northern Cook Islands. I take some time for a last swim in paradise, capture the pure white beach of the motu, the blues of the lagoon, and the skies that read ominous. May they move west ahead of us.


The skies read ominous. May they move west ahead of us.

There is a hive of activity on and around the motu. It’s a buzz with people carrying coolers and containers. Bora Borans are getting ready for a grand outrigger canoe race. Small boats are zooming in close to the motu and dropping anchor. Buoys and yellow flags are placed. This must be the makings of the finish line.

A barge plies by Zulu with drummers aboard in palm-frond costume. The drum beats boom in the clear morning air. It’s electric.

I don’t want to leave Bora Bora, but we are ready to say goodbye. Russ goes up forward to raise the anchor. Sign language dictates: starboard, port, give it gas, we’re free.

Set the course for Suwarrow

I steer Zulu out Teavanui pass, out beyond the reefs where the outriggers are lined up for their long race, out into the ocean wide under storm cloud skies. There is not much wind. Maupiti lies still on the horizon. The same smallest of leeward islands we saw etched on the horizon while at anchor in Bora Bora when the girls visited.

Out on the horizon there is a sailboat. We catch up inadvertently. Is it a ketch? It seems to have disappeared. Night is coming. The winds die. Russ switches the engine off to save precious fuel. Take the sails down. I stand watch. It feels ominous, like I’m riding a moving platform with not much to hold on to. Zulu wallows in the waves. Bobbing, rocking, lurching in less than flat seas.

There’s a light in the night coming up on us. Fast. Russ sleeps. It’s a sailboat coming right for us! I turn on the spreader lights to signal we exist. Our masthead running lights are on. I wake Russ. He is half asleep and unperturbed. The sailboat passes by so close my heart pounds. And then it disappears into the night. Vanishes.

I see the lights twinkling on Maupiti. The pass, Onoiau, is too dangerous to go through with winds from the south and never would we try it at night. I have read that these isolated islanders burn lanterns all night to keep the tua’pau (ghosts) away--that the island is eerily a ghost and supernatural haven. We will pass its 7-sqaure miles on our port. Let it slip away to our stern barely in sight. Let the last of the images turn.

“Hey Russ, let us crank this engine up and make some way.” I call down below decks.

There is a wisp of wind. Let’s raise the sails and move west!!! Let’s set the course for Suwarrow and sail through the night with six more nights to go.

We have an emergency

Zulu heads west under sail through the next day. True to the chart, Motu One, as it is called, emerges just before sunset--a dark, single line of trees. This is the extent of it. We are safe 5 miles off. Away into the second night we sail with following seas.

The days merge into each other with steady Trade winds of 12 to 15 knots. Some nights are cold. Then the heat strikes as we move further north. Russ raises me from my heat-stricken stupor.

“We have an emergency!!!”

What now? I’ve become somewhat casual about en route emergencies.

“The self steering vane rudder mount has come loose and we’re about to lose rudder! I have to dismount it!” he says in a serious tone.

Note of course this rudder is astern of the main rudder and moving seas surround us. He clips his safety harness in and climbs crab-like over the mount and in a nose dive position, after various contortions and retries, disconnects the rudder at the aft of the boat.

Now the main rudder is loose. So duck dive under the aft bunk to tighten the bolts while I hand steer. Watch how much water is dribbling into the bilges.

“We have to repair this when we get to Sawarrow!!” Another of one million repairs.

Hold on to the attitude adjuster and turn the knob.

Noah’s boat sank and I was the lucky one to be swallowed by the whale. So it seems. It’s hot and sticky inside, but ride it out. Two more days until we drop the hook in new territory.

Until then, I find an inch of cockpit shade and feel the wind blow my hair. I listen to the sound of water all around, the wind in the rigging, and sense a falling motion-- vulnerability on the blue.

The aftermath of a dream

I think of my night watch last night looking for the Southern Cross and listening to Cowboy Junkies play This Life Holds its Secrets. I try to remember the words:

This life holds its secrets
Like a seashell holds the sea
Soft and listen and calling, like a faded memory
This life has its victories, but its defeats test all viciously
This life holds its secrets like the sea.

There is no perfection. But there is hope. Hope is the adrenalin of the soul. I turn my mind’s eye back to Bora Bora (first born) in my sleep and see a string of green-black pearls on a bead of white sand awash with crystal green-blue waters. I reach out toward them in gesture! It is now just the aftermath of a dream.