Suwarrow

We arrived in Suwarrow on 31 July after our slow sail of 7 days! The final night the wind picked up and we had a good breeze blowing in morning. We had a great sail and arrived early afternoon. As the passage had been fairly relaxing we were well rested and ready to enjoy ourselves. Not long after we had anchored we met up with Anne and Mark from Blue Rodeo and we spent a pleasant evening on their boat hearing all about the atoll over a few drinks!

The following morning the 2 rangers (Harry and Anthony) who live on the atoll came to the boat to clear us into the Cook Islands. It was very relaxed and informal with only a few forms to fill in. The anchorage is quite tricky to anchor in with lots of coral and we were not happy with where we had anchored yesterday so decided to move. This was a mistake!! First our chain was wrapped around coral which Tucker on Convivia very nicely helped us to untangle and then we anchored 4 times and each time were unhappy with our location. Finally we set the anchor in an OK spot which was lucky as by this stage our anchor windlass decided to go on strike. It was soon OK after a rest and a bit of cleaning!

After providing the mornings entertainment to the other boats in the anchorage we went snorkelling with Blue Rodeo. They took us to a lovely coral garden about 2 miles from the anchorage. It was a bumpy ride in the dinghy but worth it. The coral was very pretty and we saw turtles, sharks and hundreds of fish. On the way back we also went to another spot to see manta's.

The rangers were checking for rats on one of the Motus at the south end of the atoll. They laid traps and then returned to the motu over 3 days to see if they had caught any rats. On the second day the assistant ranger, Anthony, let us and Nicki and Dennis from Knotty Lady go with him to the motu. Most of the traps had been destroyed by Coconut crabs and no rats had been caught. We all had a picnic on the beach and a good wander around. We were allowed to catch one coconut crab which Dennis dug out of its den. That evening we had a BBQ on the beach and all tried the crab. It was tasty but there is not a lot of meat for such a big animal. It was a lovely location, at one point there were only 4 boats there and the 2 rangers. Towards the end of our stay more boats were arriving and there were 10 when we left.

We had a relaxing time walking around the motu near the anchorage (this is the only place we were allowed to go ashore without the rangers), snorkelling and having beach BBQ's in the evening. Anthony took the guys out fishing and we all provided a dish to accompany the fish barbeque. Just before we left Barbara and Michael arrived on Astarte. Barbara had caught a lovely tuna which they shared with us on our last evening. Barbara had also made us mini chocolate cakes for our sail to Samoa. Barbara is becoming famous among the cruisers for her chocolate cake! It was sad to leave such an idyllic location but time is marching on and we needed to continue west.