Wed, Sept 24 - Day 2 at Palmerston Atoll
Bob picked us up at 10am in his aluminum boat. Metua greeted us when we got to the island and told us she'd watched the 5 movies we'd given her and would like 5 more so Sean went back to Adventure to get them when Bill went to pick up the next load of yachties. We couldn't believe that she could watch so many movies in such a short time. Bill had insisted that I bring my sheets to wash them, so I put the first load in the machine before going to the kitchen to make brownies. I wanted to contribute to the meal and just happen to have two boxes of brownies on the boat. Inano and Topou were in the main kitchen working on making lunch dishes. We chatted while we all cooked. We were going to go snorkeling again, but it rained on and off all day. My clothes from the previous day were still damp, so Bill helped me hang my sheets on some other clothes lines that were covered.

I handed out bright-colored sunglasses to the young kids and two beach balls to the 1 year old boy, Sydney. He loved the beach balls and Metua, his mom, said that he'd had one in the past, but the older kids had popped it. Now, whenever one of the other kids started playing with the beach ball, Metua yelled at them to leave it alone. She hid one of the balls under her bed so if the other popped, Sydney would still have one. Although Sydney is a little boy, he wears dresses most of the time. Metua said that he picks his own clothes out and he always picks dresses.

Nedike, a 6 year old boy, kept breaking his sunglasses and trying to get another pair from me. I showed him how to fix the glasses, which pull apart and snap back together. He finally told me that his mom threw part of his glasses away in the rubbish. I gave him one more pair and told him that was all he could have. He ended up following me around and bugging me all day about his sunglasses. He was really cute.

I gave Metua two bags of the girls' clothes that were too small. She said she'd share them with the other families.

Metua called us over to watch her remove lunch from the covered oven in the ground. This was another way they used the 50-gallon fuel drums. They buried half of a drum in the ground, filled the bottom with coals, loaded it with pots of fish, pork, chicken, and banana poke, covered it with burlap and paper sacks, and then waited for a few hours. It looked really cool, but some of the meat ended up being over cooked. Inano took the pot of banana poke and added a coconut cream sauce to it. We also had pasta salad, seafood pasta, and the usual coconut or frozen pineapple drinks.

After lunch, some of the kids saw my Pirates of the Caribbean Life game sticking out of a bag and wanted to play. I was going to give the game to the school, but told the kids that we could play a quick game. Four kids, aged 10 and under, ran to help me set the game up. I knew it was going to be chaos. The kids were clearly not use to playing board games or waiting to take turns. Andrew, the oldest, took over in trying to make the other children play right. They wanted to get out the money and Life cards, but I told them that we were just spinning the dial and then moving the ships forward to see who would get to the end first. Thankfully, it didn't take long to get thought the game, but there was plenty of yelling and hand slapping as the children tried to take control.

Topou saw that I needed a break from the kids and asked if the girls and I wanted to come with her to feed her animals. We walked the short distance to her home and she got some parrot fish filets to feed to Goldeen's baby boobie, which they'd brought from one of the smaller islands. It still had its baby down-feathers, but was getting quite large. Its home was a small plywood platform, mounted on a pole about six feet above the ground. Topou cut the fillets into long stripes and held them in the air for the boobie to grab in its beak and then swallow. This was the fourth or fifth boobie they had raised and the others flew free, but came back to the house to visit once in a while. They said the feet on the adults were pink, so I think these may be red-footed boobies. I want to go to the island where the birds nest, but I don't think we'll have time. Topou then used a heavy axe to break four coconuts in half and threw them on the ground for the chickens to eat. They very efficiently pecked the coconut meat from the shell. The three pigs were now squealing uncontrollably. They knew their time was near. Topou used a metal bar, which stuck up from the ground about waist high, to shuck coconuts. She then used the back of a knife to crack them in half and cut the meat out into three large bowls. Andrew had come to help his mother and put the bowls into the pens and then filled each bowl with water as the pigs ate. They feed the pigs two times a day this way. The pigs don't get a lot of fat on them because of the coconut diet, but they are still a favorite meat with the islanders. The largest pig will be Christmas dinner. Mehau, Topou's youngest daughter, had tagged along and Tara was letting her take photos with her camera. She was having a lot of fun capturing the animal-feeding chores for us. She then took a photo of Casey's butt by accident and when she looked at the replay of the photo, she giggled. Andrew went to see why she was laughing and giggled too. That was all the encouragement she needed. Soon, she'd photographed each of our butts and they giggled as they looked at each photo.

I had given Bob and Bill two stocks of bananas and Edward had picked up his supplies and the bananas that I'd put on our friend's boats to bring from Aitutaki. Bob and Bill asked if Edward had paid for his supplies. I told them he said to come by so he could pay me, but that originally thought he would be our host family and was not going to make him pay for the supplies, which totaled $170USD. But now that he wasn't our host family, it was a bit awkward. The said that even if he was my host family, they didn't want the islanders to order supplies to be brought and then not pay for them. It would set a bad precedence and they wouldn't allow it. It was enough that we provided free shipping for the supplies. I asked if the bananas could be a gift, as they were shared between the families, and they said that was fine. Later, Bob talked with Edward about how the families should always pay for supplies ordered through the yachties and he agreed that it was a good policy. They don't get the opportunity to do this very often because it requires a yacht moored at Palmerston to have radio contact with a boat that is coming to Palmerston, but is still on an island from which they can purchase supplies.

Bob's son, Andrew, lead Casey and me to Edward's house on the South side of the island. Our friends from other boats were there, so we chatted a bit with them while Edward went to get money. Edward and his wife thanked us again and again for bringing the supplies. Edward said that it has helped him sleep better because they'd been out of milk for quite some time and every morning his kids would argue with their mother about having to eat their cereal with sweetened water. It would wake him up and he'd have to settle the argument. He also was having to drink his coffee without milk. After paying me, he offered me some frozen parrot fish and I said that I would get some from him later. Andrew was still waiting for us because we had school supplies to give to the teacher. Andrew took us to her house and we gave her 30 graph-paper notebooks, 144 pencils, Pirates of the Caribbean Life game, and 12 packs of 24 colored pencils.

When we got back to Bill's house, Metua called me over to the Yacht Club table and presented me with an ice cold beer. She said that a boat had given Bill a 24-pack of bottled beer as a gift and he'd been keeping it for a special occasion. Some of the men on the island had heard about the beer and demanded that Bill share it with them. He refused. Now, he broke out the sacred beer, an unheard of luxury on the island this long after a supply ship had come. I felt guilty drinking it and refused a second one when offered. Bill brought me another anyway. He didn't drink any, but enjoyed his guests enjoying their ice cold brew.

For the past two days, Inano had been weaving a wide-brimmed hat for Marnix to thank him for his work at the clinic. She used dry coconut leaves and was just putting on the final touch, a woven band. She had measured his head and chosen a round of wood that was the same size and used it to form the weave shape. It was beautiful and Marnix wore it proudly. She even added an elastic band to go under his chin so the wind wouldn't blow it off his head.

Bob got us back to our boats just before sunset. The reef pass is very narrow, not well-marked, and has a fast current during tide fluctuations. There is no way to navigate the pass in the dark. Metua asked that we send 5 more movies back with Bob because she'd watched the 5 Sean brought that morning.

That evening, Jan came over for dinner. Casey made grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. He stayed to watch Romancing the Stone with us. We went to bed in the slightly damp sheets I'd pulled from the lines at Bill's house just before coming back to Adventure. We think we might leave in the morning, but the weather looks bad.

Thu, Sept 25 - Day 3 at Palmerston Atoll
Today, five boats were sailing away when I awoke. Jan rowed the dinghy over to give us our VHF radio that he'd borrowed the night before. A little after he left, Jeffrey rowed over and we'd return some clothes he'd borrowed from a local and some CDs of music he'd borrowed from Marnix. He'd just found out that Ogopogo was leaving this morning and he didn't have time to go to shore before they left. He also asked if we'd get his clothes that were handing on the clothes line back at Bill's house and bring them to Niue, where we'd meet them in a few days. Sean really wanted to leave, but I complained enough about the rough seas and high winds that Sean said we could stay one more day. Our friends from Free Spirit called on the VHF and are coming in this morning, so that helped him make up his mind to stay.

We called Bob to pick us up and the weather was beautiful. No rain, just sunny skies. Our laundry was finally dry, so I folded it. Even though I had a laundry bag to contain the clean laundry, Bill insisted that I use the heavy-duty plastic bag he gave me to keep make sure the clothes stayed dry on the trip to the boat. He wanted to seal the bag with his Seal-a-Meal machine, but I told him is was fine as-is.

Metua usually cooks in the smaller kitchen near the dining area, rather than in the large, main kitchen. She said that this is because her mother-in-law, Inano, doesn't approve of the way she cooks. The main issue seems to be that Inano doesn't like people to taste what they are cooking with their fingers, and Metua said that if she cooks near Inano, she's always in trouble because of it. The islanders all eat with their fingers, rather than with silverware, so I can see how it would be difficult for her to stop doing it when she cooks.

We brought some bananas from Adventure that were getting too ripe and so did Inna from Zangeeze, so we had about 50 ripe bananas. Inano said it was no problem to use them up and asked for me to peel and smash the bananas into a huge bowl. She then added a cup of sugar and 11 cups of corn starch. That's right, eleven cups of corn starch. I stirred until my arm ached, and then Topou took over. We poured the mixture into a large greased pan and then slow-cooked it for two or three hours. The top got hard and brown. Inano went to the yard and pulled out a shoot of long grass, which she stuck into the dish. It came out clean on the edge, but a bit stuck to it in the middle. So she cooked it some more. Mean while, she cracked two coconuts down the middle and shredded the meat using a jagged-toothed metal tool that was mounted to a small bench seat. She then placed the shredded coconut in a light cloth and twisted it until all the milk was extracted. She stirred a bit of sugar into the milk and then simmered it on the stove until it became thick, but not stirring it while cooking. The baked banana mixture was then spooned into serving bowls, dipping the spoon into the cream before each clump was spooned out so that the cream coated one side of it. It tasted yummy! This was a simple way to use about 50 ripe bananas. I've always made banana bread or muffins, which take a lot longer to prepare.

After lunch, we went snorkeling in Duke's Bay. One of the little girls, Mehau, got permission to come with us and said she'd just play in the water near the shore. We gave her a spare mask so she could look at the fish by the beach. She loved Tara's underwater camera and had taken a bunch of photos when we went to see Topou feed her animals.

Sean and I decided to take a romantic walk around the island by ourselves. I took photos and picked up shells as I walked comfortably on the white sand and chunky coral ground with my flip flops firmly secured to my feet. Sean hobbled along with bare feet when we hit a coral patch. 3/4ths of the way around the island, we saw a huge rain squall in the near distance. Since I had my expensive Sony SLR camera with me, I was a bit nervous about it raining on us. We started walking faster and watched as a solid wall of rain passed near us. The sky above us was clear, but we could feel a slight sprinkle from the passing storm. We turned inland for protection and walked to Edward's house. He was cutting freshly-butchered chickens and his wife, Shirley, was cooking sweet pancakes. All of Edward's yachties had left that morning. He said that is boys had done well on their tests in school, so they were celebrating by having chicken for lunch. His boys, ages 8 and 11, were disappointed that Tara and Casey weren't with us. They'd seen Sean and me walking along the beach and thought the girls were with us. Edward said that the boys ran and got their volleyball and hit it back and forth, waiting for the girls to come so they'd have two more players. They poured us coffee and Shirley brought us sweet pancakes to have with it.

Bob took us back to Adventure and Goldeen and Andrew came on board to pick out some more movies for Metua to watch.

Fri, Sept 26 - Day 4 at Palmerston Atoll
We looked at the weather reports and they didn't look good. Sean said we should go and I said we should stay. Our friends who had left the previous day were in rough sea conditions and 20-25 knots of wind. Camille had lost the use of both its main sail and front sail and had just repaired a problem they were having with their motor, which was their only remaining means of propulsion. Sean said we were still going to go. As we discussed the situation, Metua called me on the radio and asked if we would stay another day. She had a gift for me and had forgotten to give it to me before we left. After much discussion, we stayed another day. I called "Alpha Gulf", the radio name for our hosts, and let them know we'd be staying another day. Bob came to pick us up a little later. I took ingredients to make bread so we'd have some for our trip to Niue.

I went to Inano's kitchen and asked if I could make bread so we'd have some for our trip to Niue. Showing her generous spirit, she said, "Of course my dear. I'll get the flour." I thanked her, but told her I had brought my own supplies. They haven't had a supply ship in 4 or 5 months, so I'm even more amazed at their generosity in freely sharing their dwindling supplies. Inano sat in the kitchen, her favorite place to be, and talked with me as I made the bread. The girls washed their hands and became my dough kneaders. I mentioned to Inano that I'd like for her to teach me how to weave something simple from coconut leaves. She was elated that I asked and said we'd do it after lunch.

The baby, Seymour, was wearing a pretty blue and white polka dotted dress with lace straps. Tara recognized his dress as a shirt that was too small for her and had been in the bags of clothes we'd given Metua.

For lunch, we had two types of fried fish, french fries, coleslaw, crepes with strawberry jelly, cake with fruit cocktail and custard, banana poke, stewed chicken, and rice. Bill started pulling ice-cold coconuts from his special coconut refrigerator and cracking the tops off for people to drink. The family sat in plastic chairs below the dinning area while the yachties ate. This makes us all feel a bit uncomfortable, but it's the way Bill wants it to be. We eat at 1pm sharp, but if someone who is expected is missing from the table, we wait for them.

After lunch, I went into the kitchen and began to bake my bread. I'd made long, hot-dog like buns so we could make sandwiches during our passage. Inano came and sat in the kitchen with me and when everyone else had eaten, she said she'd just go get her plate of food and come back to the kitchen to eat while she talked with me.

After the rolls were baked and Inano had eaten, she went and got the supplies we'd need to make a fan from coconut leaves. She split each leaf about one-third of the way across, making it about a third of an inch wide. She did this using a homemade metal tool that was shaped like a tear-drop. It had one pointed end to dig into the leaf and the smooth, round part fit into her palm. She cut 24 leaves and said it was just enough to make a small fan. We lined the stem-sides of the leaves up and bundled them in four packs of six leaves each. We then tied two of these together to make two large packs, keeping the stem-sides lined up. We tied both of these together to make one large bundle of 24 leaves. Each time we bundled them together, we used the small slices of the coconut leaves that were waste to tie in a granny knot around them. The bundled fronds were then braded along each side to make the middle part of the fan. Now the weaving began, taking one side and weaving it to the other side. When the fan was large enough, the edges were folded back into the fan weaved through. She used a homemade brass needle, with a blunt, smooth point, and was flat and had a large eye, to thread the end of the fronds back into the weave. She said that the needle part is not necessary, but makes a stronger finish to the weave.

The fan took about two hours to weave and, in her low, high-pitched voice, Inano told me of historical events on the island. She told me of a cyclone that recently came and killed 26 people on a nearby island. Then one came that was headed directly for Palmerston. A supply ship was passing by to get out of the cyclone's path and stopped to take the people to another island. But the weather was already very bad and all the Palmerstonians decided to take their chances on the island. "We felt it was better to die on our home land, than to perish at sea in a strange boat," Inano said. The cyclone took a turn and missed Palmerston by 60 miles. It was enough to keep everyone safe.

Inano pulled out a plastic jar that looked like an old oatmeal container. She unscrewed the lid and revealed her weaving tools. She showed me items her husband had made for her; one brass and one metal weaving needle and several metal cutting tools. She pulled out a small, slightly rusted pocket knife that had a drawing of the queen of England on it and then another, similar-looking knife with a drawing of the queen's yacht, the Britannia. She said that one year, the Britannia had come to Palmerston for the first time before it had even visited Roratonga, the largest Cook Island. The officials at Roratonga didn't believe the Palmerstonians about the Britannia coming there because all boats were required to check into Roratonga before going to the other islands. The Britannia didn't go to Roratonga that year. She said that the queen was not on the yacht, but it was still very exciting to have such a prestigious boat come to visit. The Britannia came four more times without any royalty on board and then, in 1971, Prince Phillip, his brother, and his daughter came. Palmerston received a telegram from Roratonga at 1pm that the Britannia would be at Palmerston the next day. The people in the village stayed up all night preparing for the visit. The men filled bags with sand for a make-shift wharf so the prince wouldn't have to step into the water when he got out of the boat that would bring him to shore. The women found large bolts of fabric and rolled them out from the ocean landing spot to the village about 100 yards away, sort of a rolling out of the red carpet deal. They prepared a feast and cleaned their homes. Inano was at first honored when the prince and his procession came into her house and then horrified when they walked directly into a room that hadn't been prepared for him to see. It was filled with clothing that people had been trying on as they were frantically looking for white shirts and blue pants or skirts as a uniform dress for the event.

The islanders were invited to tour the Britannia and the ship had a small store where Inano's husband had bought the two knives that were now in her hand.

The Duke snorkeled in an area off the village and it is now called Duke's Bay. The Prince's brother had talked to Inano's uncle about naming the village xxx. He wanted this because he had purchased a home in Palmerston, England and the home was named xxx. He thought it would be neat to have an island with the same two names attached to it. No agreement was made at the time, so xxx later mailed a letter to Inano's uncle asking him to name the town xxx. He sent a reproduction of a painting of his house and said that if he agreed to name the town xxx, he'd send a larger picture of the house. Since her uncle didn't know how to read, he simply stuck the letter and picture into a drawer and forgot about it. Years later, Inano's granddaughter found the letter and picture in a drawer. The letter was partially eaten by bugs, but was still intact. Inano went and got the letter and picture for me to read and see.

In the middle of making the fan, someone yelled for everyone to come to the beach. The whales were back at the anchorage and were putting on a show, breaching and popping their heads out of the water, with lots of spouting.

Inano told me that she was sad that her weaving skills had not been passed down to the next generations because her children and grandchildren weren't interested in learning. She makes hats, bags, mats, baskets, fans, and much more with coconut tree leaves. Our fan was finally done and was perfect. I think I may be able to reproduce it and can't wait until I get to our next island to try it.

Metua presented the girls and me with shell necklaces and also gave me a coconut and woven-frond bag she and Inano had made. We said our farewells again and Inano cried as we hugged her. We'll see what the weather reports look like in the morning...

Sat. Sep 27-day 1 at sea to Niue
The weather and wave conditions are predicted to be rough over the next two days, but Sean insists on leaving. It will be a rough passage. Metua called on the radio and asked if we were going to stay another day. I told her we were leaving and said our goodbyes and thanks. Tara was fighting sea sickness as soon as we got out of the lee of the island. I gave her medicine and she managed to keep from throwing up, but she didn't feel well. I was not feeling well either, but had a milder case of sea sickness. I slept in the cockpit when I wasn't on watch and managed to control my sickness. Our electronic wind indicator is not working again, so we don't know the wind speed and need to rely on the feel of the wind on our skin to tell the direction for setting the sails.

We dodged squalls throughout the day, but when they hit us, they just brought rain but not much added wind.

Sun. Sep 28-day 2 at sea to Niue
Sean was just finishing listening to the net at 9:30 am when I heard the wind pick up and the windmill started making a horrible metal clicking noise. It was hitting metal against metal. I yelled for Sean to come to help me stop the windmill, which was starting to spin even faster. A huge gust of wind hit us just as we tied down the windmill. The autopilot started beeping, indicating that it had lost steerage. I turned it off so I could hand-steer. Sean tried to pull in the jib, which was reefed to 50 percent, but when he unclamped the furling sheet, the force of the wind on the sail pulled the line from his hands and he ended up letting almost all of the sail out. He yelled for me to pull the boat into the wind so he could get the jib in, but the rudder was hard over and the boat wasn't responding. The wind finally caught our bow and we pulled the boom around to tack. With the jib back-filled, Sean was able to pull it in. He ran to the main sheet to let the boom swing out so the wind would spill out of the sail and de-power the boat. Not able to control the boat, I tacked back to port and yelled that the rudder wasn't responding properly. It was making a horrible grinding sound. Sean took the wheel and quickly realized I had been correct about the wheel not responding to keep us into the wind. Our main was double-reefed, but we needed to get it down. Our wind indicator had quit working the day before so we had no idea how fast the wind was blowing, but it was more than we'd ever experienced before. We were going 9 to 10 knots with the wind 15 degrees off our bow, which shouldn't be happening because our theoretical hull speed in 8 knots. The whole boat was moaning and vibrating. The churned-up ocean was crashing over our bow and coming into the top hatches that were closed, but had poor seals.

The radar displayed even more bad news when we noticed the small, one-mile wide squall had turned into a black mass that covered our entire display that showed a ten mile radius around Adventure. The rain came down in buckets and was the worst we've had yet on our two-year trip. Actually, it didn't come down, but rather side-ways, whipping into our covered cockpit as if we had no covering at all. The rain stung our faces and bare skin as we worked to control the boat. Sean decided to turn the wheel away from the wind slightly to see if the rudder was even working. The wind caught our bow and swung us 180 degrees around, even as he turned the wheel completely the opposite direction. I yell that we're about to jibe and the mainsail is hard out to the port side, rather than in the center position that it should be to do a jib. An instant later, the boom swung uncontrolled to the other side of the boat, ripping the starboard side of our traveler blocks out and then the boom break flew off the boom. The waves are causing Adventure to toss from side to side and as the next wave hits our starboard side, the boom jibes uncontrolled to the port side, exploding the port traveler blocks. The only thing keeping our main from smashing against the mast was the mainsheet. It was the only thing still attached to the boom to keep it from swinging all the way against the mast and was pulled in just enough to absorb the impact as the boom swung back and forth.

I'd already taken control of the wheel from Sean and he ran to the mainsheet to pull it in as the boom took the third swing of another accidental jibe. This is when Casey, who had been reading below the entire trip thus far, poked her head up into the cockpit to see what was going on. Sean yelled, "Get below!" and she disappeared. Pulling in the mainsheet only partially controlled the wild swinging of the boom and we were headed directly down wind. Our only goal now was to get the sail down. Dropping the main sail while going down wind is not a good idea, but since the sail seemed slack at that moment, I yelled for Sean to drop it. Sean popped the cleat up that held the main halyard and the sail instantly drop into our lazy jacks, which hold the sail material on top of the boom. It still had about four feet left to drop, so Sean had to go up on deck and pull it down. He tied it down with a few sail ties and then tied a dock line to the end of the boom and then to a deck cleat. The boom and sail were now secure and we were going 8 knots down wind with bare poles. The wind and rain were incredible. Tara yelled that she was going to be sick and I directed her to the stern seat that's safe to hang her head over the side of the boat. After she threw up, she said, "I feel so much better!" She vocalized what all of us were now feeling. Our boat was damaged, but it was still floating and we were all unharmed.

Once the storm passed over, the rain and wind stopped as suddenly as it had come. We later found out that the same squall hit our friends that had left two days before us. It hit Ogopogo at 3am, five and a half hours before it hit us. They had a true wind speed of 49 knots, but knew that it had gusted higher. When it hit, their boat had rounded up into the wind, which made it slow to 2 knots. They were able to pull in their front sail and left their triple-reefed main up. They lost one of their batons in their sail, but were otherwise undamaged. Peg said she went below and prayed while the three guys on her boat sailed through it. Two other boats more serious damage, one blew out their mainsail.

We're soaked to the bone and I'm shivering. I don't know if it's from the wetness or the stress of what we'd just gone through. We go and change into dry clothes and Sean assessed the damage:
- torn jib
- twisted boom break track and clamp
- damaged rudder bearings
- shorted-out tri-color mast light
- windmill tailfin snapped in two
- traveler block screws sheered off

See Sean's blog for more details...

Mon. Sep 29-day 3 at sea to Niue
We prayed for the rudder to hold together as we motored toward Niue. I don't know if we'll ever put up our sails again! In the middle of the night, on Sean's watch, he woke me up because the autopilot had failed. I steered while he looked for the problem. He found the autopilot ram screws had come loose and put them back on. The autopilot was now back in action, but we don't know what caused the screws to come out.

In the morning the sea was a calming down and there was light wind. It was time to lick our wounds. We used sail tape to repair the two-foot tear in jib, which should hold for light sailing.

Sean looked for the rudder failure point and finally decided we needed to get the metal plate off the emergency tiller hole. This seems like it should be straight forward in case there is an emergency, you'd want to be able to get the plate off quickly. However, the plate screws onto the deck and has two pencil-width holes that a special tool fits into to unscrew it. We don't have the special tool and even if we did, we'd never be able to find it in an emergency. Sean had dug out our emergency tiller and it seemed logical that the tool would be in the emergency tiller bag. It was not. Sean tried hammering a screw driver side-ways in one of the holes to jar it loose, but it held tight. After trying several other ways to get it loose, we decided to work on something else.

He needed an electric screwdriver to fix a lot of the damage, but he'd given one away in Panama, his father had dropped one into the sea while fixing something on deck, and the last one we had had been stolen in Bora Bora. Later in the day, it occurred to me that our dinghy motor lock consisted of a long, metal bar with a groove cut out of one side. We could put in a washer, a bolt, another washer, and then tighten it together with a bolt to make leverage point to fit into one of the holes in the deck plate. By mounting two of these screws on the metal bar, it would fit perfectly into the two deck plate holes. It worked and, with Sean pushing hard, the deck plate unscrewed. I think God took mercy on us and gave me the idea. Under the deck plate, we saw the end of the rudder post, wobbling back and forth. We don't know anything about rudder engineering, but we think it may be a bearing problem. Sean read about it in one of his books and said that there is a chance of the boat sinking if water starts to come through the bearing.

Sean fixed one of the traveler pulleys, but needs power screw driver to retap the screw holes in the other pulley.

Sean called into the 9am net and reported our rudder problem. He asked for contact with boats behind us in case the rudder fails. Swingin' on a Star is about 100 miles (20 hours) behind us and we now have regular check in times with them on the SSB. It's suppose to be nice weather and seas for the next two or three days. Niue is an open anchorage with mooring balls, which are all currently taken. In Westerly winds, the mooring field is not good. We'll need to get to Tonga or Fiji to fix rudder, but will stop first at Niue to recover. We don't know yet, but we may need to get the boat pulled out of water to fix the rudder.

The wind died completely and the sea smoothed out to almost a flat calm. It was just what we needed. We lounged around, read books, and watched movies. In the evening, we all sat up on the deck and watched a pod of whales pass by on our port side and then a beautiful sunset. The stars reflected on the water and, as it got darker, Adventure left a trail of phosphorescence. It was magical and looked like the sky and sea were both filled with stars.

Tue. Sep 30-day 4 at sea to Niue
We motored over smooth seas with no wind. We arrived at Niue at 1:30pm and hooked to one of the two available mooring balls. The crystal-clear water is 70 feet deep under our keel, but we can clearly see the bottom. We called Niue Radio on the VHF and they directed us to meet customs at the dock in an hour. Since the mooring and dock are in an open roadstead of ocean, the dinghy docking situation is unique. To keep dinghies safe from the swell that hits the dock, dinghies are lifted out of the water with an electric crane. When we arrived at the dock, we put our dinghy-lift ring over the giant metal crane hook and waited for someone to operate the crane. When the customs guy came, he informed us that it was a self-operating deal. We pushed and pulled a lever to operate the crane and pulled our dinghy out of the water. It was really hot and there was no wind. We perspired as we presented our paperwork and passports to the customs guy to check into the country. He informed us that here is a $30NZD per person charge for checking out of the country.

We walked to the yacht club, where they had excellent ice cream. We stayed there the rest of the evening, talking with our boating friends as they came to the yacht club for the evening's sausage sizzle; $2.50NZD per sausage. Everyone bought us drinks because they were happy we had made it to a safe harbor. They all knew about our boat damage and had been praying for our safety. Peg almost cried when she saw us. She kept hugging and kissing us and said they'd been sitting at a restaurant at the South point of the island all day, looking for our boat to come in. They missed us because we'd come past the north end of the island. Friends gathered around to hear Sean tell the story of our harrowing adventure. He had to tell the story several times as more people arrived at the club. He is at his best when he's telling a story; the center of attention, animated, and fully expressive. I even had to tell it once to one of the tables of people.

This mother-of-all squall had impacted everyone there. Those who were moored here at Niue thought that they were going to be blown on the reef and experienced high swells. Others chose to spend a miserable night off shore to let the storm pass, some sails were damaged or destroyed. Ogopogo had been on passage to Niue when it hit them. Misery loves company, so we passed the evening telling our story and listened to others tell theirs.