The local brewery

...and the local beer maker (they use recycled bottles and don't package their own

Our scooter

I say a restful day for Bob because I am writing the blog tonight.

Restful for both of us because we had a beautiful relaxing scooter around the island on the interior roads. These roads don’t have as much traffic and are where the locals live. This is such a beautiful island. We saw lots of farms – papayas, taro, bananas and who knows what else! So lush even though we’ve only seen it rain once. And from the interior roads the view up into the valleys are just stunning.

The other great part about the interior roads is you run across local craft shops. We wandered down one road that indicated ukuleles and crafts were available. We were treated to a tour (wander through his work shed) of the whole process. This artisan had carved ukuleles as well as coconut ukuleles and some beautiful carved bowls. He was so happy to show us the whole process.

Another road took us to an island brewery. Again, we walked right into the brewing room and were given a taste test. This brewer only sells his beer here and in Aitutaki because there are no additives or preservatives so if a shipment was held up in customs it could go bad waiting to clear. Meanwhile his sister was hand washing recycled beer bottles. She told me that they pay 80 cents a bottle. They can get the restaurants to recycle for 10 cents a bottle. A winning proposition! Don’t worry, the hand washing was just the first stage of cleaning. Bob bought 2 liters for the boat, both came in recycled containers- one an old Fanta bottle, the other an old Coke bottle.

We finally got to watch one of the big container ships turn around in this bay. We chuckle when we hear ships being directed to the “international dock” here in Raratonga. But they really are an international harbor and there are some big ships coming in. And these dock workers are amazingly quick at unloading and reloading the ships. Typically it takes two days; one to unload, one to reload. Today we watched the latest ship whip a 180 with his bow thrusters and a nudge from a tug and head out. All this less than 70 yards yards away. Very fun to watch, but sometimes closer than we would like.

And the Cook Island dinner show that we went to with Orcinius was also very fun to watch. Every island group has their take on the dancing and drumming. We were not disappointed. We got a great description of the different drums (there were about 7 different drums) and their purpose. Fascinating. This dance group included young children training to replace the older ones. One little girl was missing her front teeth but smiled all the while! And this dance troupe also contained the best male dancer in the Cook Islands- based on this year’s contest. Ironically he was blond and did not look very Polynesian. But he loved to dance and he showed it with his smile and his enthusiasm. Unfortunately we will not be able to share it with you as neither I nor Lisa from Orcinius brought a camera. Generally pictures at these dance shows don’t show much. Tonight we had front row seats and the dancers hung around to have their pictures taken with the audience. Oh well!

The start to the cross island hike

The track across (not including the bit where we got lost)

Big leaves!

Tricky trail (and slippery)

Halfway there!

At the top, now time to go down

Almost done

Took the "Clockwise" bus back

Yep, we did it. 7 hours worth which included getting lost and backtracking which took up about 2 hours of the trip. With the getting lost part, we climbed a peak not on the path, then back down and climbed the peak that WAS on the track, thus we climbed two of the peaks on the island. We also lay claim to being one out of only two groups who did the hike and we were the oldest who managed it. The other group was a newlywed couple from New York. We saw about ten others on the trail, but they all just did the out and back to the peak called The Needle. Wimps! The toughest part was the peak that we were lost on. Very steep.

We did have one incident. We’ll call it the Gatorade incident. I had a liter of Gatorade in my backpack with the lid on crooked and half of it spilled…right into my Nikon D2 camera. This could have a detrimental effect on the trip as the camera is now inop and it is the one with the polaroid filter which is so important in this tropical light. It’s just dead and the LCD screen has water in it. The only thing I could think to do is wash it with fresh water and then I’m going to set it out in the hot sun tomorrow and see if I can bake it out. If not, I guess we’ll turn it into an artificial reef. Since I have two lenses for it, I imagine I’ll have to get another body but who knows when we’ll be somewhere again where that’s possible. Oh, well. We still have the pocket camera which takes pretty good pictures so all is not lost.

Once we got down from the mountain/hike, we convenient found a little shack on the beach that sold BEER! So, we sat out back in the sand and enjoyed a couple cool ones while waiting for the bus. And, we took the Clockwise bus back. We really wanted to take the Anti Clockwise bus because it sounded cooler, but by the time we got down to the road there was only one more bus before the two hour dinner break, so we just grabbed the clockwise one.

What was the hike like? Pretty dense jungle much of the way and gorgeous view from the top at The Needle. Steep and slippery but not as steep or scary as the Bora Bora climb. There were only two ropes on this one and it was only 412 meters high. But there were some memorable areas in the interior when we were hiking through a fern grotto where the ferns were 8-10 feet tall!

At this point as I’m writing this, we’ve had dinner and Lisa and Ann look like you could tip them over if you touched them on the side with a feather. I think we’ll sleep really well tonight.

There are long two bus lines. "Clockwise" and "Anti-Clockwise" since there is really only one road around the island

Some of the scenery (in this case a papaya plantation)

Today, we were finally able to leave the boats for the day. Seems like the dredging is done and since we’re tucked into a corner of the wharf, we’re not in the way of any ships that come in. So we went for a scooter tour.

Did I mention yet that you drive on the wrong side of the road in the Cook Islands. So not only am I getting used to piloting a scooter, but doing it on the wrong side of the road. We really have to stay alert. Ann’s job is to say; “Left side!” whenever we enter the roadway. The good news is that like Aitutaki, 80% or more of the traffic is scooters. It’s definitely the preferred mode of transport by locals and tourists alike. You see moms with little babies in their lap, the gardener carrying a weed whacker while cavalierly steering his scooter with one hand and my favorite, the very large woman who tied a cord around her stomach and then around her six year old in the back because the six year old’s arms were not big enough to hang on to her very large mother. In Aitutaki our favorite scooter was the dad wearing a harness that allowed his son, about 3 years old and carrying a chocolate donut, to hang on with his available hand. We could only imagine the collision between the donut and dad’s back at the first stop!

After a leisurely breakfast, we mounted our trusty steed and headed out clockwise around the island. There is only one road and you either go clockwise or anticlockwise. There are a few radial roads than go in ½ a kilometer, but the mountain in the middle of the island is so high and rugged that it dominates and doesn’t allow for development. Thus, this is quite a beautiful and unspoiled island. Very mountainous and jungle covered.

It was fun touring the island. We stopped for a fish burger lunch and later on for a coconut milkshake. In the mean time we stopped at a few deserted beaches and just went for a walk down the sand.

Our other fun event was visiting a gent who we met at the wharf. His name is Colin. He was on a scooter with his grandson Colin and they were off to their farm to do some weeding and were just looking at the boats when we started a conversation (we, sitting in our cockpit at the time). Turns out he has a jewelry business that he runs out of his home on the other side of the island and invited us over to see it. So we stopped by. He has a gorgeous piece of land right up on the mountain on the edge of the jungle. We brought some crystals that we found in Baja that we were interested in what to do with them. He pronounced them as possibly amethyst and cleaned them in his ultra sound machine and they absolutely sparkle. Fun! We might go back later in the week with some other crystals we have and see what we shall see about them.

Tomorrow we’re going to hike across the island with Lisa from Orcinius. It’s probably a six mile, 400 meter height adventure. When we get to the other side we’ll decide whether to take the “Clockwise” or “Anti Clockwise” bus back to the wharf.

Simple Pleasures.

Here’s a night-time addendum: Ann’s listening to the evening radio net to see where our friends are. They are scattered all over this part of the pacific from Samoa (Blue Rodeo) to Suwarrow (Ladybug, The Rose and others), Aitutaki (Sockdologer) and Bora Bora (Bright Angel) and the fun part is we are talking to them on the shortwave (note to future cruisers-this is an important piece of equipment. You don’t have the same social contact on a sat-phone).

More locally, there’s a tugboat just across the small harbor and I can see one of the crew fishing for dinner off the stern of the boat. Also, the stars tonight are unusually bright and I’m looking out of the cockpit right up to the Southern Cross which is beckoning just over the top of the mountain we’re going to hike across tomorrow. A good omen!

Med-Moored with the big guys

Enjoying a Charisma from our spot on the quay

That about sums up today’s efforts. I got my Cook Islands Motorcycle license this morning and we now have a scooter for exploring Rarotonga. This is a bigger island with some actual traffic, hence the license, whereas in Aitutaki, 2 cars was considered a traffic jam. OK, the license was the good news, the bad news was that around noon, the Port Authority asked us to stand offshore while they did some final dredging in the harbor. We left around 1300 and didn’t get the all clear to come back in until 1630, so basically we hove to a couple hundred yards offshore all afternoon and got some reading done.

When we finally got to come back in the dredge was right in the way of our mooring spot, so we had to go around the dredge turn toward it, drop the hook right in front of it, pivot 90 degrees and back into our spot. The guys on the dredge were all watching intently to see if we would be able to accomplish it. I’m happy to say we’re actually getting competent at the med-moor thing and pulled it off (much to my surprise-I was expecting the worst). Ann is getting very good at the windlass and I seem to be able to harness the prop walk into something that gets us backing where we need to go. Of course extra hands on shore make it all possible. Very few monohulls do this maneuver with ease. The cats make it look easy though with their twin engines.

So that’s about it for this day. There’s still a possibility that tomorrow may look the same as the Port Captain says there’s a big barge they have to bring in and moor near us. However, Orcinius and we are hoping that we got the spots that are tucked in enough that we don’t have to move at this point. If we do, well that’s OK it’s sort of part of cruising-expect the unexpected. If we don’t, then we’ll hop on our scooter and tour the island (it’s very beautiful! We can see stunning jungle covered mountains from the boat). We plan to stay through Saturday unless the Port is so difficult to work with that we decide to leave. If it works out we’re going to do a cross island hike. You can hike from here to the other side and take the bus back. There are two bus lines here-the Clockwise bus and the Anti-clockwise bus. That’s it!

Here’s hoping!

One of our faithful readers, Elan Caspi who sailed down to Mexico with us on the Ha Ha last Fall and who has himself sailed to the Marquesas noted that I goofed on the Lat/Lon the other night (thanks Elan!). The correct Latitude/Longitude for our current location is as follows:

21 degrees, 12 minutes, 17 seconds south; 159 degrees, 47 minutes 07 seconds west

I accidentally transposed the seconds into the minutes.

One of our neighbors

We’re here and there’s nothing broken for now. Ann went to church today and was thrilled to have experienced her first mass in about 8 months that was given in ENGLISH! She enjoyed hearing the prayers and singing the hymns in English. While Ann was in church, I went down to the scooter rental place to get a scooter since it looks like we’re going to stay here for a week and explore the island. The place was technically closed-the Cook Islanders take their Sundays very seriously-but there was someone there who took my reservation for a scooter and I’ll pick it up Monday morning at 0800. $20/day is a good deal for such fun transportation! The only hang-up is I’ll have to take a motorcycle test (even though we had a scooter for three days on Aitutaki) and we have to go the Rarotonga Police Department to get a local driver’s license. Should be fun!

The rest of today was just reading our books and we went for a couple mile long walk just to get off the boat and stretch our legs. When we came back, Ann was talking to our boat neighbors and found out they had a key to the showers and unabashedly asked to borrow it (the harbor master has been closed all weekend since we got here and we can’t get our own key until Monday/tomorrow). Score! We got it and both of us enjoyed the first real shower in a while.

The other fun thing: people love to come down to the wharf and look at the boats. Since we’re Med-moored, our cockpit is facing the wharf and thus looking right at the people who are in turn looking down at us! We have now started conversations with lots of people who have given us their names, email, etc and invited us to visit them. It’s the same in all the areas we visit. People are interested in our story as we are in theirs and we have sort of pre-arranged to meet folks in lands we have yet to visit. Most of the folks we have met are from NZ and are on vacation here in the Cooks, but some are local and have invited us to stop by their business or call them if we’re in their town.

Yesterday on the wharf we also witnessed a cultural event that you just don’t see in the US. There was a small ship here-an island freighter-that also took passengers. Mid-morning we noticed a lot of people starting to congregate. Many had rugs and other mattress type things and we suddenly realized this freighter was going to be more of a ferry and would be taking a ton of people. It all came together when we realized that the last week of so has been Constitution Day in the Cook Islands. A celebration of their independence (I think from Great Britain-they are now aligned with NZ). Anyway, a hundred or so people were getting on board for a three day passage back to one of several Northern Cook islands. It was like watching a cruise ship leave except that you realized that these passengers would be setting up their own mattresses in the hallways of the ship for the trip. No fancy staterooms, yet everyone was thrilled to be on board and heading home.

Tomorrow, once we have the scooter (assuming I can pass the scooter test), we’ll do a tour of the island.

Postion: 21 degrees, 12 minutes south; 159 degrees, 07 minutes west

Contrary to current beliefs, we are comfortably situated in Rarotonga.

There was a rumor going around that the harbor was closed due to dredging. They are in fact dredging, but the harbor is not closed. This is a beautiful island and in some respects we’re glad people are avoiding it this year because of the rumor. More for us. There are only a couple boats in here, so it is very uncrowded. We’re thinking we’ll stay a week. There’s lot to do here including renting a scooter, hiking across the island (and taking a bus back-the buses here have two designations; Clockwise and Anticlockwise. That’s it!) and snorkeling. Not to mention the great Saturday market. We browsed it today and will hit it more seriously next week. There are some nice carvings and black pearls to by had.

On the way here-as if there wasn’t enough adventure from getting out of Aitutaki-a bolt holding the alternator bracket broke. Yikes. More stuff I never planned to have to fix. Anyway, we were having lunch in the cockpit when I smelled burnt rubber. I’ve learned to investigate stuff like that right away and pulled the engine cover off. Right away I saw the fan belt was loose. I looked for why it was loose and found the alternator bracket hanging in the breeze. We shut down the engine right away and investigated further. Found the head of a bolt in the bilge. OK, looked at the engine, OH-there’s the rest of the bolt still in the engine itself. So, I drilled a pilot hole in the bolt and then put a bolt extractor in the drill and crossed fingers. It didn’t look like it was going to come out, but after some work,I finally got the stub of the broken bolt to come out. Now all we had to do was replace the bolt. Oops, special size, we don’t have any. So, bailing wire, some silicone glue and a undersized screw and we were able to affect a jury-rigged solution that got us into Rarotonga.

Oh, I forgot to mention that after our adventure getting out of Aitutaki, we had a spectacular sail down here to Raro. We finally got out of Aitutaki around 1530 and the rest of the day and all night had a glorious sail. But, come early afternoon the wind had dropped and unless we wanted to spend another night at sea, we needed to start the engine. So with four hours to go we started the engine and that’s when the broken part showed up.

The upshot of all this was that we had to come into Raro in the dark. Fortunately it’s very straightforward. You just pick up the range lights and come straight in. We did that, but looking at it today in the light, I’m impressed with how narrow it actually was. The other fortunate thing was Orcinius got in here in the afternoon and were waiting for us to show up, so we had a welcoming party who allowed us to just side tie to them instead of med-moor in the dark. (And Orcinius had already cleared it with the Port Captain so that we COULD come in – with limited space you need special approval.)So we did and that’s how we stayed the night. Today, we all had to clear the harbor for a couple hours to allow them to finish doing some dredging. After about an hour they signaled all was clear to come back in and we successfully med-moored to the harbor wall. Charisma did good.

I finished the day taking apart the bailing wire solution to the alternator bracket and putting in a new bolt of the correct size I was able to find at the local hardware store. It’s 5/16″ SS, about 4″ long. I will have to find the exact part which is a special hardened steel, but this will work until we’re able to find a place with the right parts. In mean time, we’re good to go.

Position: 20 degrees, 07 minutes south; 160 degrees, 02 minutes west

The Captain and some of her helpers heel Charisma over to her rail

Jim was hanging on the halyard, while John (to the right) had it anchored to the reef to pull the mast over

John and Jim setting up the halyard anchor (note they are standing on the reef)

Giant clam

A little too much adventure today thank you very much. We almost spent the night and possibly much longer stuck aground in the pass, waiting for the next really high tide out of Aitutaki.

But first let me tell you about the marine reserve we visited today where they are growing endangered giant clams. These clams grow up to four feet across and we’ve been seeing them on our snorkeling expeditions. Yes, these are the ones you see on TV, grab the divers’ leg. They are big enough to do that, but they are filter feeders and not man-eaters. Anyway, they are also apparently delicious enough that they were almost collected to extinction. They are also very beautiful. When they are open, the “lips” of the clams are the most brilliant colors of blue, green, purple and yellow/brown, although the shells are just plain white. So we toured the facility where they are actually breeding them and then putting them out in the marine preserve. It takes about six years before they are old enough to transfer from the tanks to the lagoon.

After that, Orcinius (John and Lisa) and we “scootered” over to a nice little spot on the other side of the island for a last lunch on Aitutaki. The day was carefully scripted as it was important to time it to precisely hit high tide if we were to get out of the pass, so there was a little clock watching going on to make sure we made it back to our boats in time to get ready to leave. Orcinius was anchored with their stern tied by rope to a coconut palm and we were side tied to them. We knew it would take some effort to get untangled just getting out. Little did we know what lay ahead.

After lunch we motored back to the scooter rental place and dropped our trusty mounts off with a fond farewell. These are a darn fun way to get around the little islands and it looks like we might have opportunity to rent others in islands yet to be visited. The rental place was nice enough to drop us back at the boats so we saved a little time there that could be used preparing for sea.

After getting the dinghies stowed, engines put away, etc, we got together and briefed how we would deal with the pass and the spot where Charisma ran aground on the way in a couple days ago. It was agreed that Orcinius, which only draws 4.5 feet would lead and if we ran aground again, they would back up and grab a bridle prepared and in place on both boats to which we would attach a tow line. They could then pull us across the shallow spot if we “found” it again. Additionally Sockdologer (Jim and Karen) volunteered to follow us out in their dinghy and be the “in between” that could zip back and forth transferring lines and such if needed. So, it was with this little flotilla all set that the time came-about 30 minutes before highest tide. We started engines and prepared to leave. I put the engine in gear and throttled forward. Nothing. We didn’t budge. We were hard aground right there where we were anchored. At 30 minutes to high tide. Uh Oh!

I won’t describe in detail all the maneuvers we did to get off the bottom but suffice to say John worked hard on Orcinius to get the right purchase on Charisma to pull her forward, Lisa was masterful (as always) driving the big 44 foot cat and Sockdologer was great helping to keep their anchor line from getting sucked into our propwash as we were running at high power trying to drive off. Finally a combination of power, leverage and tide combined to float/drag us off our perch and we started moving. Cheers from all as we slipped into the (slightly) deeper water of the pass with Orcinius just in front of us as planned. The only problem here was that we had used precious time against the high tide just getting out. We motored very slowly down the pass, just 50 yards behind Orcinius, both boats seeking the best way through the narrow pass. You could see the undercut coral on each side and you the bottom just 6-7 feet below. Since we draw almost 6, we were holding our breath all the way. Just as we thought we might make it this time I felt the characteristic tap, tap, clunk of the bottom making contact with the sand/coral. Just as I was hoping against all hope that we would slide over the shallow spot, we hit solidly, the bow went down as we stopped and…(on the radio) I announced; “We’re aground”. Just as Orcinius was getting ready to come back to tow us out, THEY ran aground. I saw their boat shudder and tip forward then suddenly stop. This wasn’t part of the plan! Now even if they could get off, they couldn’t come back and tow us out. And the tide is now past its peak and starting its six hour journey to low tide. We were stuck and would start tipping over while spending a very uncomfortable night waiting for the next high tide 12 hours later and a chance to get off. No bueno. Not a good place to be.

We all jumped into action. We didn’t have long to somehow get us both out the pass. But as I was working on our problem, in the back of my mind I was thinking; “They only draw 4.5 feet to our 6 feet, how in the heck are we going to get over the next bump even if we get past this one?” Well, we’d get to that later, in the mean time we have this spot to get past. Back to the same “aground drill” we used earlier in the week. Move the heavy water jugs to the other side of the boat, move me to the bow and get Ann to try and drive us off, hoping that these changes would be enough to tip the keel over and allow us to sneak over the reef. We moved a couple feet and then stuck again. This time a bit further on as Charisma was now tipping over a little, standing on her keel in the increasingly shallow water. I’m guessing the depth at that point was around 5 feet 4 inches. We needed 8 more inches of water or make the boat 8 inches shallower in order to make it out. Turns out the latter is easier to do once you have reached maximum high tide as we already had.

Next step was to get Karen and Jim who were standing by in their dinghy to help. Karen came aboard and took the helm, Ann and I stayed on the bow and Jim hung off the end of the boom. We heeled Charisma over and down by the bow, put the engine in full forward, pushing billows of sand off the bottom and behind us. We again moved a little but just seemed to push even farther onto the bar or whatever was down there. Time is really working against us now. I can feel us tipped further over standing on the keel as the tide is starting to recede. At this point, John and Lisa got Orcinius loose and were able to continue out the pass. They radioed for Jim to come out and get John in the dinghy so he could come back and help. Lisa would stay with Orcinius to keep her on station just outside the pass.

While Jim was getting John and bringing him back, we were still working feverishly trying to beat the tide. Our next step was to unfurl the jib and try to use that as extra power and as a way to heel Charisma even further than we could with just our weight. There was 14 knots of wind off our quarter, so it might work. Getting ready, we unfurled the jib, quickly sheeted it in, applied full power on the engine and muscles tense and straining trying to will the boat off, we watched as we seemed to gain a few inches, then a few more then suddenly we broke free. We quickly doused the jib so as not to gain too much uncontrolled speed and slam into the reef. We only got about 40 feet when we hit another high spot and boom, we’re solid on again.

By this time Jim and John were almost back to Charisma and John had a plan. “Give me a halyard and tie it to your longest rope and give me your dinghy anchor.” As we quickly set that up, he Jim dragged the now extended halyard over to the side of the pass which was only about 25 feet away. They jumped out of the dinghy and were standing in four feet of water over coral and sand. They then planted the anchor in the sand and started to pull on the halyard (which since it goes to the top of the mast, this lever arm provides a lot of leverage to pull Charisma over on her side) trying to “tip” a 24,000 pound boat enough to tilt the keel such that we could get over what looked like less than five feet of water. Just then, another dinghy with the only other cruisers in the area showed up. Moe and Margaret from Wadda (from the US). They had been snorkeling and saw our boats stopped in the pass and thought, “That doesn’t look right!” While they were making their way over, I rigged a footstep out on the end of the boom for Moe to stand on-seeking maximum leverage. I stood on the boom out as far as I could balance, Margaret hung onto the boom, Ann was on the bowsprit, Karen at the helm and John and Jim standing on the edge of the pass pulling on the halyard. The combination had Charisma tipped over so far, her deck rail was almost in the water. This proved to be just barely enough because at full power we started inching forward dragging on the shallow bottom. Karen shouted, “It feels more like I’m driving a tractor through the field than a boat!” We were literally dragging Charisma over the shallow spot in the pass. Finally over, she was floating again and picking up speed very quickly. We throttled back and just then heard a muffled shout; “Bob!” I looked back and John, who was tied to the dinghy, halyard and anchor was being dragged through the water behind us. He had put his snorkel back on so he could breathe, since his face was being pulled under water, and unless I slowed down we were going to drown him. Also, when we broke free, Jim was pulling on the halyard and had to let go. That left him standing waist deep on the reef at the edge of the pass watching as John, dinghy and Charisma, all headed out! Fortunately Moe and Margaret went back in their dinghy to get him while John was able to disengage from us and we all headed out to deeper water.

I can’t quite describe how happy I was to be back in the deep blue. Floating. That’s what a boat’s supposed to do. We adored Aitutaki, but I am glad to be out although it was one of our favorite stops on the trip so far.

Once in deep water we hove to, as did Orcinius and both John and I dove to check the bottom on our respective boats. His description, “Well, we won’t have to sand the bottom when we haul for new bottom paint”. On Charisma there is a shallow gouge on the very bottom of the keel where we dragged over some coral, the bottom paint on the bottom of the keel is all rubbed off, but that’s all I could see for now. I’ll dive her again when I have more time and in calmer water, but it doesn’t look like all the dragging caused any serious damage. As for negotiating questionable passes again, I think I can say that I have now had quite enough of that kind of adventure. Many thanks to the cast of this adventure, including our Australian friends, Jo and Mike on shore, who helped untie the stern line to the palm tree and helped keep Sockdolager from swinging into us as we broke out of the mud! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

On the motu near Aitutaki

Only one way to get there. By dinghy over shallow coral reefs

You have to walk in the last 100 yards or so. Too shallow for the motors/props

We got to see live giant clams

Some great snorkeling

Even some big fish

Lots of fun

That’s the name of the Motu that we dinghied to with Orcinius and Sockdolager today to go snorkeling. There’s a marine preserve there, so we weaved our way through the bommies (i.e. coral mounds) for an hour to get there. But was it worth it! The water was turquoise and warm and the snorkeling was great. But more fun was the camaraderie of three couples tripping across the waters in their silly dinghies out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. At several points on the way, the water got shallow and we just got out and walked the dinghies. Finally we found the marine preserve area and put anchors in the sand in about three feet of water right on the edge of the reef. We were then able to walk a few feet over and slide into the deeper water where we were met by giant clams! They could easily grab your whole leg they were so big. Beautiful too. So many colors. I swam over and poked one just to see if it would close all the way. It didn’t fall for my bluff. It flinched a little but then realized it could just about swallow me whole and that was that. We finished the dinghy part of the day with a picnic lunch with our three dinghies tied together and anchored over the sand several hundred yards off the island in the middle of the lagoon. Nothing but clear, ice blue water all around. Simply wonderful!

Since we got up at 0700 to get started on the day, we were done snorkeling by 1300 or so. This gave us time to go motor scootering some more. Oh, I haven’t mentioned that the best mode of transportation on the island is a motor scooter and we rented one! $25/day. What a bargain! There are not a lot of roads here and half of them are dirt anyway, so scooters are the favored mode of transport. Very few cars, lots of scooters. We have been having a blast scootering around the island on the main road and off road as well. You see so much more on a scooter than when you rent a car. So scooter some more we did.

As much as we could easily spend a month here, having a fairly deep draft boat, we have to live by the tides. Unfortunately tomorrow is the last day we can leave here in the daylight for at least two more weeks. So, regrettably tomorrow we’re heading out. Ann and I have both commented how easy it would be to just stay here, period. It’s such a relaxing place. I imagine this may be what Hawaii might have been like 100 years ago. The people are unbelievably friendly and while there are some resorts, they are very small and tucked away so you don’t even notice them. There are no high rises and locals claim there is no crime. You literally cannot pass someone on the street without saying, “hello”, even on a motorbike. Since I am not proficient enough yet to take a hand off the handlebar to wave, I have a head nod that says “hi” that seems to be working as everyone who passes us when I nod either waves or nods back. And I mean everyone. Even in cars. You just can’t pass without saying “hi” or waving or in my case a head nod.

So I’ll end this in the spirit of Aitutaki and say; “Hi, how are ya?!”

Position: 18 degrees, 51 minutes south; 159 degrees, 48 minutes west

Bummer. Aground and it was high tide in the middle of the channel. We should have had several feet under the keel

The channel is very narrow

Finally inside the reef, we tied up to Orcinius with Sockdologer on the other side. Orcinius had an anchor out and was stern tied to the trees

We were ready for it and yes, it happened. We ran aground coming in the very narrow and very shallow pass into Aitutaki.

There was a four knot ebb right at the ocean and I had Charisma gunned up but we were only making 3 knots over the ground. Then after 50 yards, the current dropped and we brought the RPMs down to a slower level, but we were still doing about 4 knots when we felt the bump, bump-at which point I said something like; “oh darn it!” and we took a really big bump-Charisma went bow down as the aft part of the keel hit really hard and we just stopped. Totally. Completely.

We were now in the middle (if you could say such a tiny channel even has a middle-it felt barely wide enough for us to fit through) of the pass and hard on the sand. Not moving. Blocking the pass. Didn’t really matter since no-one else was going to use it, we were the only non-local boat in that whole day. Other than us, only the fisherman used the pass and they were in little motor boats that drew about 2 feet. We draw 5’8″ before a ton of gear (literally) so loaded down, I’m guessing we actually draw 6′.

Six feet should have been OK, but I forgot to read some of the fine print of the chart book as follows: “…hug the sticks…”, (channel markers are sticks in the sand), “…close on to the north side EXCEPT around the wreck where you should stay out a little further…” . I stayed with the hug the sticks part and didn’t notice the “EXCEPT” part. So while hugging the sticks close on to the north side of the channel, we basically high centered Charisma on the sand. We hit so hard the alarm went off on the fluxgate compass (more on that below) since it couldn’t comprehend why we stopped so fast.

Once it became obvious we were hard aground I went through my usual litany of swear words to describe such a situation properly to Jesus Christ, then relented and quickly started taking action to remedy the situation. I was worried about two things: The current was going at right angles to the pass, so if we drifted loose we could really get in trouble by drifting onto the hard and very shallow coral that lined the sides of the pass and be in much more serious trouble. We only had 30 minutes before max high tide. We had to work fast and get loose by then, otherwise we’d spend the next 12 hours enjoying the view as the tide cycled back to where we’d have enough water to lift us off. Fortunately we had Orcinius on the radio. They got here a couple days before us and being a catamaran, they didn’t draw as much and thus were able to get in easier and were med-moored to a palm tree in the tidal basin. “Orcinius, we’re aground” was our simple message. Their response; “We’re on our way out in the dinghy”.

Everyone knows about this pass. Everyone knows it’s rumored to be only six feet deep, but that’s at mean low tide, so there should have been enough water for us at high tide. Anyway, we were all ready for the drill. While John and Lisa from Orcinius were heading out to help us in their dinghy, we set our plan in motion. We were aground with the shallow water on our port side, so we had to “tip” our keel to starboard to reduce the depth and pivot it away from the shallow water. We quickly put the boom over to the port side and Ann worked to set the preventer to hold it 90 degrees to the boat. While she was setting up the boom, I dashed to the foredeck and untied the dinghy (which was deflated and folded into its bag and lashed to the deck) and moved it to the port side. We also had two 5 gallon water jugs on the starboard side that I unlashed and moved to port. Just this moved about 200 pounds from one side of Charisma over to port. Then I put Ann on the bowsprit to try and drop the bow and lift the deep part of the keel while I gunned the engine. No joy. We’re still hard and fast.

At about this point, John and Lisa came on the scene. We started out with both of them hanging off the boom from their dinghy hoping to pull Charisma further over to port. I again gunned the engine. We weren’t moving, but when I moved the wheel from one side to the other, Charisma would pivot so I knew we were just sitting on the lowest part of the keel and not too far from coming off. The problem at this point was ME. Not literally, but my weight in the cockpit steering the boat was keeping the keel firmly in the sand. OK, so now we’ll try this: Ann and Bob on the bowsprit waaay out in front of the bow. John hanging on the boom 10 feet to port making a pretty effective lever-arm and Lisa (who weighs almost nothing as far as we can tell) steering. Back to full power, turn the wheel left then right, then left again-I can see Charisma pivoting-I shout; “MORE POWER”and she turns it up. We can see sand boiling up from the stern as the big propeller is pushing tons of water and then…inch by inch, I think I can see we’re moving. Yes, we’re moving. Slowly at first, then it’s clear we’re sliding off the sand. Yay! We’re free!

John relaxed off the boom and headed back in to prepare for us to side-tie to Orcinius and Lisa stayed on for the ride in. The rest of the way was anti-climax, but still amazingly tight. Even the turning basin inside was barely big enough for Charisma to turn without doing a “back and fill”. In the mean time “Saint John” had set up everything on Orcinius so we didn’t have to drop an anchor and med-moor. We would just tie up to Orcinius who already had an anchor out the bow and the stern tied to a coconut palm tree. Yes, that’s how small this harbor is. You have such little room, you are tying the stern to trees to keep from swinging into the coral as wind and current change.

It doesn’t matter too much anyway-at anything but high tide, we actually sit on the bottom here in the anchorage. It was a little unnerving last night as we could hear and feel Charisma settle into the mud as the tide went out. We’re probably about a foot in the mud at low tide and just barely floating at high tide.

I mentioned an alarm went off in the electronics right as we ran aground. It was a different one than I’d ever heard and I was busy, so told Ann to just turn it off and come back up above deck. Turns out the fluxgate compass doesn’t like sudden stops. What the heck’s a flux gate compass you ask? Don’t ask, but suffice it to say it’s a gyro type compass that provides the synchronization between radar and GPS so the two systems can talk with each other and show up together on the chart plotter. After we got in and settled down after our entertaining entrance, I noticed the error message and the fact that the GPS/Radar overlay no longer worked. Crap! I don’t know how to fix that stuff! Once again, out come the binders of manuals and after some reading I found the answer. “Turn the power off and then on again”. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had added the word; “crisply”. In other words, reboot the system. I did that and it now works. Yay! Crisis averted.

OK, so that’s our yesterday. Today, we rented motorbikes (actually one, we ride together) and motored around the island. What a blast! No traffic and scooting around on both two lane asphalt and dirt roads. Really fun! Also, the people here are amazing/incredible. We have decided that no matter what the reality, we have decided “Aitutaki” means; “really nice, friendly people”. And everyone speaks English! But more on these last topics tomorrow. It’s time for bed for now. Motorbilkes, flux-gate fixes and dinner and a Polynesian dance show with Orcininus have exhausted us for now.

See you tomorrow.