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.