Cook Islands

Suwarro, Cook Islands

August 7-9, 2017

After leaving Mopelia, we sailed 5 days to Suwarro, a Cook Island national park. Suwarro was made famous by Tom Neale  who decided to leave his family and live in solidarity on this beautiful atoll. Granted Suwarro is lovely, however, I'm not so sure I'd want to ditch my family just to be alone for that long. 

We anchored in Suwarro just in time for the SE winds to kick up to a steady 25 knots. Unfortunately, Suwarro offers zero protection from a SE wind direction and we spent the next two days bouncing around as if we were riding a bronco. (We were able to stay on the full 8 seconds) Just about every boat in the anchorage lost a snubber or bridal. We were lucky and lost both. 

The conditions in the anchorage were so poor that the rangers asked that all the boats come to shore to check in versus their standard coming aboard to complete the paperwork and collect fees. We managed to get off our boat for two nights to enjoy cookouts. Having caught 3 large mahi mahi on the way to Suwarro and not having a freezer to store the fish, we fed all the boats in the anchorage the two nights we were there.(We had eaten the largest Mahi Mahi ourselves on the way in) 

Cooking up some of the fish we had caught on our way. We estimate we caught close to 80 pounds total

Jessica turned 14 while underway to Suwarro. She wasn't terribly excited to be under sail for her birthday, however, she'll never forget where she was while turning 14. We promised a beach party as soon as we got to Suwarro. Our first night on the beach we gathered all of the cruisers to help eat our fish and celebrate Jessica's birthday. Everyone helped create a wind shield as Phil lit her birthday candles. As expected, the high winds blew them out before he could light all 4 (there was no way he'd be able to light all 14.) 

With all 4 candles lit, cruisers helped sing the worlds fastest rendition of 'Happy Birthday' before the wind swept through and blew her candles out.