Leaving the safe harbour

Just a quick note to let you know that this afternoon we sail to Palmerston Island - and will potentially be out of contact for a month. Palmerston is the smallest of the Cook Islands, and the hardest to visit, so of course I have been scheming since we got here, trying to figure out how to make it work. It is accessible only by the occasional cargo ship, but we didn't want to be away from Rarotonga 2-3 months, the normal gap between ships. Managed to get a ride on a marine research vessel - a large yacht - and we sail this afternoon. It will take two days to get there.

There are 70 people on Palmerston - and it is the only island of the Cooks where English is the first language. Everyone has the same surname... all thanks to the British bloke who came to the island in the early 1800s and populated the place with considerable help from his three island wives. There is one computer, one public telephone, no roads or cars, and more freezers per head of population than anywhere in the world - fishing is the only industry.

We will be away about three weeks. C will be going to the tiny school there (25 kids) and I will be volunteering in the school and helping with island administration. They have a tradition that no one ever pays to stay on the island, but you work to earn your keep. Not that there are many visitors anyway, aside from yachties.

It's been a hell of a week, doing all the work I didn't do when I had dengue fever - finally finishing the last article on Thursday night - and getting the house ready for the people who are renting it while we are away to cover costs. And buying all the food we need for three weeks etc, as there are no shops and nothing grows there (no soil, only sand). I've still got the cold - hopefully the sea air will blow it away.

So we're leaving the safe harbour and catching the trade winds in our sails. We are coming back on a cargo ship in early-July, sleeping on the deck on a mat like the locals. Quite the adventure. If we don't get back in touch some time around then, the ship didn't come!

Till then.

*****