Snapshot of Suwarrow atoll taken from our electronic chart
We are anchored in 8 metres of clear water behind Anchorage Island inside Suwarrow atoll in the Northern Cooks Group, 250 miles away from the nearest land and 680 miles from Bora Bora. The passage from the Society island chain took us 5 and a half days. We changed direction after the first day, heading North West to the Northern Cooks rather than going straight westwards along the Central route via Palmerston and Niue, with its more unpredictable weather patterns.
Suwarrow is the Cook Islands' only national park and has a population of 2, currently Head Ranger Harry and his wife Va'ine, resident here for 8 months looking after the atoll. Harry and his wife have the island (almost) to themselves and in fact have no physical contact with anyone from their department for that entire period. They are brought up from Rarotonga in early May with all their supplies and then get picked up in November for the return trip. Harry said to us "We hope they remember to pick us up before the first cyclone". Harry's home island is Manihiki, 250 miles to the North of here. It is another atoll, but got a direct hit in 1997 from a cyclone and has never fully recovered.
An island to themselves - Ranger Harry and his wife Va'ine at their home
Suwarrow, like many of the Cook Islands, has an interesting history. It was never really permanently settled by Polynesians, but burial mounds have shown that people came here at times in the past. It got its name from a Russian expedition ship, the 'Suvorov' in 1814. Occasionally, Russian ships come by to pay a visit to this tiny speck of the Pacific that has some connection with Mother Russia, however tenuous. It has been the scene of several adventurers and eccentrics, including visits from author Robert Louis Stephenson and an American family, the Frisbies, who survived a terrible cyclone here in the 1940s. NZ coastwatchers were stationed on the main motu (where we are now) during the 2nd World War, supposedly to keep an eye out for Japanese warships. Kiwi Tom Neale stayed alone on the island for many years at a time between 1952 and 1977 and wrote a book about his experiences called "An Island to Oneself". He was married to a Rarotongan woman and had kids, but preferred the life of a hermit on Suwarrow! One of his sons is now a senior official on another remote Cook Island atoll, Palmerston.
Suwarrow is more or less like many other atolls we have seen in French Polynesia and PNG, with clear water and an encircling barrier reef and large lagoon. The motus are home to breeding colonies of terns, boobies, frigate birds and red tailed tropic birds while there are also good numbers of coconut crabs which are becoming endangered elsewhere in the Pacific.
Beautiful beach on Suwarrow's Anchorage Island
When we dropped anchor we noticed that half a dozen black tipped reef sharks were busy circling around the boat, no doubt hoping for a feed. They are quite harmless and we have swum to and from nearby bommies with them close by. We have been told that there are tiger, mako and nurse sharks in the lagoon, which are potentially more dangerous, but "they don't come around here."
Cook Islanders, like Niueans and Tokelau Islanders, have a close relationship with New Zealand, although the scattered island nation has been independent for many years. All Cook Islanders have complementary New Zealand citizenship and many spend time studying or working in the Land of the Long White Cloud, a population drain which makes it hard for the islands to maintain a viable economy without being propped up by remittances from islanders overseas and NZ government aid. Most Cook islanders speak a dialect of Maori, which is quite closely related to Tahitian from where the ancestors of these islands and those of NZ Maori came from originally. Ia Orana - the commonly heard greeting in Tahiti and nearby islands - is replaced by Kia Orana here and of course which then becomes Kia Ora in NZ. It's a neat example of Darwinian evolution applied to cultural change due to geographical separation!
Meanwhile, Harry says he is busy, eradicating rats and monitoring the health of the birdlife and keeping an eye on all the yachties who stop by on their way to Samoa and Tonga. He says we are the 64th yacht to stop by this year! There are two other yachts in the anchorage at the moment and Harry is arranging a "pot luck" BBQ on the beach tomorrow. He supplies the fish and we bring the rest! Yachties are pretty well the only people that Harry and his wife see while on the island and he remembers all of the people he meets! Apart from being the Head Ranger and informal yachtie host he also acts as chief cop, customs, immigration, health and biosecurity officer for the Cook Islands Government. He spent an hour getting us to fill in a whole bunch of forms before we were allowed ashore after dropping anchor. All a bit surreal in this remote place!
Tom Neale's family's memory of the island's famous hermit
We will be leaving fairly soon for Pago Pago in American Samoa, 450 miles to the west and another 3 or 4 days at sea. Pago Pago is only 2 or 3 days sail from Vavaâu in Northern Tonga where hopefully we can rest up before heading to NZ.