Suwarrow, Cook Islands

Suwarrow, Anchorage Island beach

This isolated atoll lies approximately halfway between Bora Bora and American Samoa. The night before we arrived we came across some fishing vessels called Ping Tai Ron. They were directly on our course, were well lit and had AIS, so we knew they were 4 miles away and barely moving. Jeremy called them on VHF to find out which way we should steer to avoid them and also to let them know that our downwind sail rig meant we had little room to manoeuvre. We received no reply. We sent several more messages by voice call and direct by DSC. Total silence from Ping Tai Ron.

Admiring the sunset

We tried steering to port and the ship turned the same way, so we steered to starboard and it moved to starboard; we went to port. As we neared the fishing vessels, we only saw one big ship, even though there were AIS signals for four vessels. It took us two hours to pass and was quite scary in the dark. Jeremy hand steered and I watched the radar and the AIS down in the saloon. If we went 6 knots, so did the ship; if we went 3 knots, so did the ship. As we tried to return to our course, the ship closed on us. It came as close as one third of a mile and it was big. When we arrived in Suwarrow, we reported the incident to the Park Rangers.

1952 -77 Tom Neall lived alone on this island

The voyage from Bora Bora took 6 days. Apart from occasional SE winds on the first day, there were no SE Trade Winds. We had winds from the E, ENE and NE of varying speeds with squalls from time to time, which could change the course by 45 degrees and give wind speeds up to 21knots. At other times we barely made 3.5knots. We had read about the pass into Suwarrow, but all went well. Our waypoints were accurate. We called the Park Ranger Station when we were a mile off to check on the conditions. The anchorage is behind the sensibly named Anchorage Island and there was one US yacht called Ocean Star lying at anchor with Steve and Alice on board. We chose a spot amongst the bomies and dropped the anchor.  Suwarrow is now an official port of entry into the Cook Islands and cruisers are supposed to give 48 hours’ notice of their arrival. Harry and John, the Park Rangers, came aboard after lunch and we were cleared for Customs, Immigration and Biosecurity. The cost was 50USD.

The "Pass" side of the island

 As we admired the colours of the 11 mile long lagoon behind us, and watched the many palm trees swaying in the breeze ahead of us, our son-in-law, Ben, was celebrating a milestone birthday back in the UK. Happy **th.  Birthday, Ben;-)

Many interested black tipped reef sharks

We stayed in Suwarrow for 4 days, enjoying coconut husking demonstrations by John and collecting our own green coconuts from the trees on Anchorage Island. It’s amazing what Jeremy can do with a machete, a length of rope and a walking pole (actually a mark one boathook works better)! We took a dinghy trip to a reef said to be a manta ray cleaning station. The snorkelling was good, but there were no mantas, just one or two black tipped reef sharks which seemed a bit too interested in us. We had to row back to SD as the outboard refused to start. Later investigations by Jeremy revealed a tiny piece of plastic in the fuel intake pipe. At the same time he converted our 2.5hp outboard into a 3.3hp, as advised in Practical Boat Owner. We walked round the entire island twice at low tide on separate mornings.

Strange underwater phenomenom

We cleared out on Monday 10^th June. Harry prepared our clearance document and we gave him the six(!) forms he needed for his records. On the way back to SD, we said good-bye to Ocean Star and Jeremy helped Steve release the last of his in-mast roller reefing sail that he and Alice had struggled with the day before. A Danish catamaran, appropriately called Double Joy, arrived so we went across in the dinghy to say hello and goodbye to Kel and Ula.

Coconut crab

We left for American Samoa the next day.

Inspecting the "Pier"

Tropical idyll