The Cook Islands - Palmerston

The Cook Islands is a self-governing parliamentary democracy in free association with New Zealand. The fifteen small islands in the group have a total land area of 92.7 square miles, spread over a total area of 690,000 square miles of ocean. Despite its remote location, tourism is the country's number one industry, economically way ahead of offshore banking, pearls, marine and fruit exports.

On the advice of other cruisers, we chose to stop at the island of Palmerston as we’d heard that it was a particularly friendly place. Sailing from Bora Bora we arrived seven days later at this intriguing island which is inhabited by the descendants of an Englishman called William Marsters and various Polynesian wives.

Marsters had built a house with the timber from various shipwrecks, which still stands today and serves as a storeroom and cyclone shelter. He divided the island into portions for each of the three families, wisely laying down rules to protect against intermarriage and providing for the distribution of property. Land is allocated by matriarchal progression within the family groups and private ownership of land is not recognized.

William Marsters’ grave and his original house, at left.

There seem to be a variety of stories of how this Gloucestershire man came to the island and how many Polynesian wives he had, (having deserted his English wife and children in England) and how many children he fathered (between 17 and 26). His descendants number well over a thousand, dispersed through the rest of the Cooks and New Zealand. At the time we visited, there were about 60 people living there, from three separate families and all bearing the Marsters name.

Palmerston is really an atoll. Atolls are made when a volcano pierces the ocean’s surface creating an island. Over time a coral reef grows up around the shoreline and bit by bit the volcanic centre begins sinking. Already established, the coral continues to grow as the land sinks, never getting any higher than the surface of the water until finally the volcano tip is gone leaving only the ring of coral reef surrounding a relatively shallow lagoon. On larger parts of the reef, plant life can survive, soil gathers and islands (motus) are created. The village of Palmerston is situated on the largest of this type of island within the reef.

We arrived on a Saturday afternoon and found four other yachts already there, including Moose, anchored outside against the reef - not an ideal spot, but the wind was ok at the time. A small boat came out of the lagoon (only very shallow-keeled boats can enter the lagoon) and a couple of men, speaking impeccable English, helped us find a spot and get the anchor in. That evening a launch came out to do the most polite check in we had ever encountered. In theory, because the Cooks enjoy this free association with New Zealand, they obey New Zealand’s rules of quarantine and our boat was formally checked, but they approved everything and nothing was confiscated. This was fortunate as we had not been warned of this and still had a fairly full larder from Bora Bora.

Palmerston is part of the Cooks, but because of it’s unique history it is somehow separate from the rest of the group. Of course, it is very isolated and a long boat ride to the next island. We found them a charming, friendly and incredibly hospitable people. The three families on the island take it in turns to look after the cruisers, and the hospitality was really quite extraordinary. The morning after our arrival, Simon, head of the reigning family at that time came out in his motor boat and ferried all of us cruisers ashore (15 people from 5 boats) in relays. The ride in this little vessel through the gap in the reef, invisible to us until caught up and buffeted by the churning froth, was terrifying, but a piece of cake for Simon.

Simon and the kids, Forever anchored in the background

Once safely inside the lagoon and brought ashore to the village, all visitors were offered, for the duration of our trip, the full use of the family homes, including showers and washing machine – not knowing this we hadn’t brought in our dirty laundry or towels for a shower. All of this was offered at no cost; there didn’t seem to be any currency on the island. Of course, we all took in gifts of fresh or tinned food, rice, clothing, fishing tackle, books, cd’s, dvd’s or toys for the children, so everyone benefits from the trade. The islanders all speak beautiful, slightly old fashioned, English as their first language and have to be taught the local Maori language. There were many gorgeous children with delightful manners - all pre-teens as the older kids were apparently away at school.

At midday a copious lunch was presented by Simon’s sister-in-law, Shirley.  A long table was laid in the sand outside her home and the 15 cruisers plus her own family were fed a feast of chicken, baby booby birds (harvested rather unsportingly from their nests as they are too young to fly), fish, rice, coconut, salad, and various other unidentified items which we bravely tried out – some delicious, some not.  Icy cold fruit juices were served as well as coffee and tea.  I believe a meal of this magnitude is presented every day, and later in the afternoon tea and cakes were produced.  The island is so small that we were able to take a walk around it in a couple of hours.

A couple of the yachts had remained there enjoying this outstanding place for over two weeks, but, to our great dismay the wind increased and swung around that evening, backing us onto the reef. All the yachts passed an awful night with two of them losing their anchors. We compared notes with Moose on the radio - they tried anchoring on the other side of the island, but also gave up and in great disappointment, we all left.

So, off we went in strong winds and ugly waves, but when it is really rough, so theory has it, the sea is the safest place to be. We had planned to stop at the island of Niue, but the wind continued unfavourably, so we just kept on going for another six days till we got to the Vava’u group in Tonga. Mike caught a good fish near Tonga which fed us for some days.
During this trip we passed through the longitude of W165 which put us at exactly


HALF WAY AROUND THE WORLD


in an east/west direction, since our most easterly point had been E15 - in Italy. It had only taken us three years! As we travelled westwards, we were adjusting our clocks back one hour every 900 nautical miles. At the Equator 1 degree of longitude is 60 miles and each time zone is 15 degrees, therefore 60 x 15 = 900 miles. The circumference of the earth at the Equator is exactly 900 x 24 = 21600 nautical miles (slightly more in statute miles).


Note: I left my camera on board that one day we went ashore at Palmerston, so all the photos in this blog are from Moose’s library. My grateful thanks to Duncan and Irene. They spent longer there and got to know the locals better than we did and you can read their account in their wonderful cruising blog: http://www.getjealous.com/