Here is what happens when you have some extra photos that you want to post, and to say something about, but not enough to write an entire post about. They collect in your photo organizers in a “resized for posting in blog” folder until you eventually have enough in a category that you can write a post about that category. Except…that I don’t really have enough of any of these to be comprehensive. So, here are some tidbits.

Read the watermarks or hover your cursor over the image for the info.

Often we see crushed crabs on roads. They like to live in holes by and we think underneath the concrete on the edges.

There is something very romantic about pulling up to a dock with hand laid stones in the center of a village. We had stopped first on the West side of Raiatea to pick up some supplies from the stores by the two haul out facilities and then moved to the East side of Raiatea to the town of Uturoa.

When we arrived in Uturoa we hadn’t tied a dock for 8 months, since La Paz Mexico in February, with the exception of two hour-long tie ups to fill our water tanks. We haven’t even tied up to any fuel docks in the S Pacific. For one reason or another we always end up schlepping our jerry cans to the station.

If you look at the tree line behind our boat, just to the right of the trees that you see in the photo is a park where people launch their kites. Raiatea had great constant, non-gusty wind when we were there. Unfortunately the launch spot is a bit too sketchy for Livia’s skills (you have to jump off a pile of rocks into the water with your board in your hand) but Carol kited until his abs screamed.

On our first afternoon there we went over the kiting area and asked questions of a local kiter about the entry. As these things seem to happen often, that conversation led to an invitation to a birthday party the next evening and our entree into the kiting gang of Raiatea. A group of really nice people that we’re looking forward to seeing again the next time we pass through. Thanks to everyone.

Raiatea and Tahaa are two islands with a surrounding reef. The reef has joined so that the two islands are inside the same lagoon. They look somewhat like a peanut. We hiked the short but nice hike to the top of a mountain and took some photos. In this one you can see the right middle side of the peanut.

We didn’t anchor out by the lagoon which looks lovely because we were waylaid by kiting and because we spent a week pinned down by mara’amu winds. Note: mara’amu winds are the name of the strong ESE winds caused by a high pressure system (above 1026) traveling below French Polynesia. When people say a mara’amu is coming they mean that a high pressure system is going to accentuate the normal trade winds. How much they are accentuated is, of course, the important part to keep an eye on.

We were starting to get anxious. It was nearly the end of October and with Nov 1 being the official start of the hurricane season, and with an impending haulout still 300 miles from Raiatea, we were wanting to get further East. It was nice to be forced into a week in Raiatea by the winds because we really enjoyed it and we wouldn’t have stayed that long if we had the weather to move on.

We left under power for the Moorea-Tahiti area in light winds and calm seas. Blechity. Motoring.  We had entered in Passe Rautoanui on the West side which was wide and calm and exited on the East side from Passe Teavapiti which, in the light conditions we left in, was flat.

Notes about the dock – the far South side, connected to the small boat basin, is the only place you want to be in E or ESE winds of any strength. The rest of the dock, which has better cleats and wood rather than concrete, is great in light winds but gets bad fetch when the wind comes up. We were told that if you come for a day or two, no fees are assessed but if you camp out too long they come by asking. We were there a week with no problem but a French boat that was essentially trying to live there for free was asked to pay. In high season the demand for the dock might be higher and you might try to free up space because many people come in just to buy groceries at the Champion right across the street. Great place to buy heavy things because you can roll your cart right to your boat.

 Suwarrow is summer camp for cruisers. It is a place where many people experience their “first times” with many living off the land activities such as coconut crab hunting, coconut husking and grating, green coconut opening, etc. Having experienced those activities in French Polynesia, we were looking forward to the other reasons to visit Suwarrow – beautiful snorkeling and fun parties. We were not disappointed.

We expected Suwarrow to look just like a remote atoll in the Tuamotus and it did. It is, after all, another atoll in much the same reason.

The snorkeling was really excellent. We went on two of the expeditions, run by the park rangers and conducted with their aluminum runabout. On one we visited a bird nesting colony (loud, moderately interesting) and then snorkeled in the pillars near Seven Islands. This area has multiple reefs that you can swim between with many pass throughs and pass overs. Nice healthy coral on the leeward side and even on the windward side despite the fact that the Cooks get pounded by hurricanes. Many, many fish.

On the second we snorkeled at Perfect Reef which is a large reef that you can snorkel on top with depths in the 15 or so foot range, snorkel the edge where the reef comes up to the 10 or so foot range, or snorkel on the edge of the reef where the coral is vibrant and drops off into the deep blue watery depths. We did all of the above. Next we went to Lewin Reef which had a very nice edge/drop off. Both were worthwhile but I preferred Perfect Reef to Lewin.

We met a lot of great people at Suwarrow. At one point there were at least 4 Victoria BC boats in the anchorage (Estrellita, Ladybug, Picara and Sea Turtle) and at one point there were 32 boats in the anchorage which the rangers said was a season high and probably an all time high.

The problem with Suwarrow is finding a good place to anchor. There is a lot of sand but a lot of tall coral heads to get caught on. The wind is a little switchy and the motu only offers protection to a small number of boats and no protection if the wind veers to far to the South.

Still, we think that the best time to be in Suwarrow would either be 20 years ago when you could be the only boat, OR now with 30 other boats. Once you no longer have the island to yourself, you might as well make it more the merrier and enjoy the rich socializing and mix of different nationalities. Of course, we lucked out and snuck into the front row good part of the anchorage snagging the spot of a recently departed vessel.

A note: everything on Suwarrow is organized by the cruisers. If you want an expedition, get 10 people and talk to the ranger. If you want a potluck ashore, hail the anchorage. If you want the rangers to talk about Cook Islander culture, ask them. Also, don’t forget to invite the rangers to eat with you at the potluck.

If you haven’t read “An Island to Oneself” by Tom Neale, it is quite a good read. I read it on passage to Suwarrow and it was nice to arrive with it fresh in mind. The book is about Tom Neale’s stay, by himself, on Anchorage Island in what was then called Suvarov. Factoid: Suvarov was the name of the ship of the whitey who stumbled upon the place first. The Cook Islander native language did not have a v-sound and so Suvarov was pronounced Suwarrow by the locals. When the Cook Islands became a nation they officially changed the spelling. Now Cook Islanders speak English as well as Cook Islander Maori and can pronounce the v-sound, but despite much confusion amongst us cruisers, the current name of the island is Suwarrow.

More pictures of Anchorage Island:

We have been told that it is not OK to fire flares except in times of distress in Canada. This seems like a good rule and we like to follow rules especially those that are for our own and others’ safety.

Purely hypothetically speaking, because we would neither condone flare testing by watching or conduct any ourselves, I would say that after dark the most effective flares are parachute flares and handheld red flares because both are bright and long lasting, a medium visually effective choice is the normal gun shot red flare which is bright and has some hang time, and the least effective are white or red meteor gun shot flares which are very bright but drop like rocks.

We are definitely going to replace some of our expired flares with parachute flares.