Palmerston Island (Cook Islands) and Beveridge Reef

Thursday August 13th 2015

Having left French Polynesia (Bora Bora) on Wednesday, July 29th, we arrived at Palmerston Island (and Atoll) on Sunday, August 2nd, in the morning. It was windy and the seas were rough, making the anchorage quite 'rolly', but we were grateful to have the hook down and to be able to get some rest after five nights at sea. The crossing had gone well with strong winds most of the way and we managed to catch a few fish (one Tuna and two Mahi Mahi- although sadly one of these last two fell back into the water!). Still, our fridge was overflowing!

We were on the look out for whales, having been told that migration season had started, we knew we had better chances of seeing them. Indeed; we saw our first set of whales just as we were leaving the pass in Bora Bora a large humpback made an appearance behind us.The next two sightings came while at anchor at Palmerston. We would see them, not so far off the boat, one particularly memorable show was just at sunset, we saw at least three quite magic really!

Palmerston Atoll in the Northern Cook Islands is made up of 4-5 small islands. Palmerston Island, which is the only one which is lived on is Palmerston Island has just over 50 inhabitants, most of them being descendants of William Marsters who came to the island in the early 1800s with his wife. Being an ambitious man, he then acquired two more wives, and from these three marriages came three families. Each of these families owns one third of the island and when visitors come, they are assigned one of these families as their host family.

The Marsters Cemetery

Our host was Edward Marsters and his family. Because we happened to arrive during the 50th anniversary of The Cook Islands independence celebrations, and 70+% of the population of Palmerston was absent (having all gone to Rarotonga where the celebrations were taking place), we had the island mostly to ourselves (with 6 other visiting boats). We stayed 4 days and had a very nice time. Edward was an excellent host, every morning he picked us up in his boat and took us to shore where we enjoyed a lovely lunch (Parrot fish or which ever type of fish caught on the reef that morning).

Cruisers being picked up by their host family

Meg makes a new friend

Edward shared his home and family with us, played the ukelele, sang and told us stories. On our first day, Edward gave us a tour of the island (it takes less than an hour to walk around the entire island) and over the next few days we had many opportunities to walk around and discover it on our own. On these walks we saw many large mahogany trees. The streets were all well kept and clean. They are simply raked white sand lined with trees.We saw the beautiful main street (all white sand below our feet) with its pretty church and where the original house built in the 1800's is still standing.

Palmerston Main Street. There are no cars, so it is all sand !

Beautiful Meg

Amelie and the 6 other boats who shared the anchorage

We saw the new power plant which consists of many rows of solar panels which provides all 50 inhabitants with 24 hours of Electricity. This was a welcomed improvement as we were told that before this plant was up and running, the islanders had to alternate between 6 hours of power on and then 6 hours off (6 hours off was the maximum possible because this allowed them to keep the fish in their deep freezers cold without it thawing). An interesting fact that we found out is that Palmerston Island has the highest amount of deep freezers per capita in the world ! This is because the fish they catch is their livelihood. When the supply ship comes in (twice a year!), the fish is sent back to Rarotonga to get sold. One of the villagers we met, Bill, who runs the "Palmerston Yacht Club", has another use for his freezer too: he stockpiles it full of ICE CREAM and so, everyday after our lunch with Edward, we would all end up at Bills to have a chat and enjoy the "All-You-Can-Eat" ice cream! Bill was always insisting that we had second and third helpings! It became a favourite of the kids and when we would go for walks, Matthew would recognize Bill's place and pull me towards it saying: "Ice cream! Ice cream!”

True colours appear in brief sunshine

We also met Rose, one of the school teachers. She told us that her dad was shipwrecked on the island in the 1950s and that it was it was Bill's mom and dad who took him in while he repaired his boat. It took him 9 months until his boat was fixed, but he stayed another 2 years. Growing up, she had heard all about Palmerston (her dad wrote a couple of books about his adventure which have been published) and so she wanted to see it for herself. When she came to visit, they offered her a job at the school, and this year will be her fourth year living there! She is going back home to England next November, I am sure she will miss the peace and quiet beauty of her island.

Mark and Matthew meet "Bacon"

Our kids sure had a good time too! (Matthew, Meghan and the kids from SV Perry and SV Seabbatical). Most kids were away at the 50th celebrations, but the few who stayed behind were thrilled to play with our kids. Meghan and I also took this opportunity to throw together a puppet show for them! Tons of fun! I've done many puppet shows in the last 10 years, but this is the first one I ever did barefoot and where a live pig nearly stole the show !

Bacon, as he is called by Edward and his family, came out while we were performing and all the kids were calling out " There's Bacon! There's Bacon!" it was too funny !

"Bacon" is actually the little piglets name, given to him by Edwards Family, who keep him as a pet well, that is, until he is all grown up, at which point he will most likely fulfill his higher calling, and, well, lets just say that his given name is quite appropriate!

Until that day, still many years away, Bacon is a happy little critter that acts just like a dog. There are no dogs on Palmerston, so he's taken on the role I guess. Everyday he comes running along and lays down at your feet where he can be petted. Every day when we arrived at the island, the first question the kids would all ask would be: Is bacon still alive? Was he eaten?

Palmerston has the highest number of freezers in the world, (per capita !)

Our host on Palmerston, Edwards Marsters

MC and Meg present their puppet show

Parrot fish being filleted for our lunch

Beveridge Reef : 

On Thursday August 6th, we said farewell to our wonderful hosts and everyone and headed back out to sea. After a couple of days of rolling seas, we made it to Beveridge Reef, where we are currently and where we are now waiting for a favourable weather window to get to Niue. We must wait for the winds to switch back to being from the East or South East in order to be able to anchor in Niue. Wind from any other direction would make it impossible for us to stop there and we really really want to stop there. 

Meanwhile Beveridge is a truly unique anchorage owing to the fact that there is no land. We saw another set of whales on our way in to the reef which excited everyone. As I type this, we are anchored inside the reef in 10 feet of water, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the closest land is Niue: 120 miles away. So we are surrounded by underwater reef, with waves breaking all around us. The water is light blue and very very clear. Mark and Matt (SV Perry) went snorkelling for lobster today. The visibility was exceptional (200 feet or more) with lots of reef fish to see and perfect reef for lobsters. Unfortunately, it is also much colder than what we have been used to (~72 deg F/21 deg C) and they did not catch any lobsters, but they are here as Mark found a couple of moulted shells. Maybe before we leave! Today everyone braved the cool water and we snorkelled around the wreck of a fishing boat on the reef and some of the reef surrounding it. A few of us even found 4 sleeping white tip reef sharks under a shelf on the reef!

The wreck on Beveridge Reef

The breakers on Beverage Reef

Matthew enjoying a swim 120 nm from land !

It is very windy, but we are comfortable here and will remain here until Tuesday or Wednesday, when the wind shift we are looking for is supposed to happen. Meanwhile we are enjoying our time here in the middle of nowhere. We are "boat bound", but securely anchored and stable, Matthew is able to swim and we can dinghy over to visit with our neighbours (SV Perry and SV Seabbatical) We're looking forward to seeing more in Niue, when we get there on Thursday.It is time to sign off again, but we send you hugs and kisses from the whole crew. Until next time,4Ms at sea. XXXX

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Meghan On Amelie (Written in August 2015)

Palmerston Island (Cook Islands)

French Polynesia was clearly only our start to the South Pacific islands because this past month has been pretty busy as we hop from beautiful island to beautiful island!

As we come out of French territory and approach New Zealand, we start to see more Kiwi trends and products (and accents)!  Actually, the Cook Islands are claimed by New Zealand like French Polynesia is claimed by France.

I may have already told some of you that on Palmerston Island, three very isolated islands in the Cook archipelago, depending on which mooring ball you hook up to in the anchorage, you will have what they call a host family.  That means that each host family owns a mooring ball and if whoever's you hook up to, that family takes care of you the whole time you stay.  For example, that family brings you onto shore everyday (you are not allowed to take your own dinghy in). 

We happened to come to Palmerston Island at the time when the 50th Anniversary party of the Cook Islands was happening at the capital island, Rarotonga.  Because of this event, almost the entire island had gone so since there were about six boats in the anchorage, we were more people than there actually were on the island!

Now, the way the people got to Rarotonga is they all went on board the last supply ship that came and so they would return on the next one that came through.  Now the part that amazed me is how many times the supply ship actually comes to Palmerston Island: twice or three times a year!  Could you imagine living on a miniature island (just to give you perspective, we walked around the entire island in a few hours) in the middle of nowhere with all your exported goods coming just twice a year?

The first thing we saw when we landed on the beach was what had once been about a 35 foot sailboat but it had obviously gone up on the reef and was now used for a little shelter (or at least half of it was).  Also, it wasn't until right before we left that I realized that the tarp in front of Edward's house, a member of our host family, was actually a sail and the pole holding it up was a boom!  I later found out that all the steel that was on the houses or in gardens or anywhere around town, all the town's steel came from that sailboat!  It made me realize that these people really do use every resource to their advantage.  We have been looking for a place like Palmerston Island to present our puppet play to the school children and even though almost all the kids were away at Rarotonga, there was still one family with four children who we presented it to (for those of you who don't know about our puppet play, see "Globetrotting Puppets", one of our older blogs from last year).   It was a real experience to do it (1)outside in the sand, and (2) barefoot!There was one teacher still at the school who stayed behind and her name was Rose.  She was actually British and she had very interesting story.  In the 50s, her father had been shipwrecked at Palmerston and some of the locals had helped him fix up his boat over the next nine months.  Later, he told Rose all about Palmerston Island and when she went to visit it for the first time, the people offered her a job as teacher and now she has been working there for four years!

Here is just a few interesting facts about Palmerston to leave you with.  The first man who came to Palmerston, his last name was Marsters and his wives and him basically populated the island from there so for the longest time, every single person on the island's last name was Marsters!  Now, many still are Marsters (anyone who is a permanent resident) but some are not, like Rose.  Also, here is a question: how many people do you think live on Palmerston Island?  Maybe 1000 or 500 or 300?  I bet none of you guessed 64 though, am I right?!? 

Beveridge Reef

We had originally planned to go straight to Niue right after Palmerston but some unpredictable weather started going through Niue so we decided to take a detour and just stay for a few days in a place called Beveridge Reef instead.

Beveridge Reef has honestly got to be one of the top phenomenas on Earth!  The reef is thin and in a horseshoe shape.  Inside the horseshoe is just a normal anchorage but really, the amazing part about it is that the nearest land is 120 miles away so all you see on the horizon is breaking waves but you are still anchored in 20 ft of water!

We only went snorkelling once on the reef because of the unusually cold water temperature (about 20 degrees C which is quite cold for the ocean).  This is caused by a change of currents called El Niño which happens every few years.  In some places, it makes the water warmer (like the Galapagos Islands) and in some places it makes the water and air colder (like most of the South Pacific islands).  I don't actually mind the colder weather too much because it is preparing me for New Zealand which will be more like a Canadian summer instead of a Caribbean summer.