They Made It

David here letting everyone know we made it to Suwarrow and are safely anchored in one amazing place. The atoll is fairly big but with only a few islands and most of them you can't go on because of birds hatching eggs or turtles doing the same. It's down right beautiful: water that is gin clear and more fish than we have seen anywhere. It's no wonder this is a national park of New Zealand; it deserves no less. 


The crossing was fairly easy considering some of the horror stories we have heard with 50 + knt winds and sails getting blown out. Fact is we feel lucky! Nothing broken and not even any blood to show for our efforts. Tomorrow we go coconut crab hunting to go along with the lobsters they are getting as we talk. I wanted to go with them for the lobster hunt tonight, but I was pretty burnt out after spending most of last night sailing around in circles getting ready to run this pass. The pass ended up being a piece of cake, but the anticipation was gut wrenching, to say the least. This is a fairly large atoll with only one pass, so all the water in the lagoon has only one place to escape back out to sea, and that's through the pass. Thus the current and rips are pretty hairy, and at one point even though we were at almost full throttle, we were still only going 1.2 knts. But we made it and are both so glad to be stopped and settled in, even if it's only for a few days. Fact is it may be for a week or so because this place has so much to offer and we don't want to miss it. I have to go to bed now and Suzi will take over. -D.

Hi there. It is now morning and our beautiful anchorage is shrouded in clouds with gusty winds blowing through. It is an awesome motu with two amazing local Cook Island rangers, James and Api, who are so welcoming and excited to be here for the cruisers. They take people on adventures every day and have created a yacht club nestled among the palm trees, where one can exchange books and hang; there is a potluck tonight to say good-bye to the many who have been here for two weeks and plan to leave tomorrow, given a weather window. Coconut-crab hunting (on a motu about 4 miles away) today should be quite interesting; I will take our new camera and record it all. Love, me

OK, now that we are back from our crab hunting adventure, I will try one more time to send this. It was lots of fun, but since I am definitely not a hunter, I took the camera just to record the experience. Lo, and behold, of course the battery ran out of juice, and I had no spare with me. Will I ever learn to think ahead?!!!? Oh well, I will try to get some pictures from others who had their cameras, and I will take photos of the crab and lobster cook-out/potluck tonight.