Sunday 26th August

Rarotonga,
Cook Islands

21 12.295 S
159 47.091 W


Yet more boats have arrived and the dock is now full. No one plans to leave until the threat of the severe gale has passed so we are all companionable dockmates for a while yet. There was even a cruise liner (Tahitian Princess) anchored outside of the harbour this morning at dawn – we think they had a medical emergency on board as they talked about docking in the harbour at one point - we weren’t sure where they thought they would get in though as there was no space. Gerry helped to tie up a catamaran this morning, the guy had single handed it from Tahiti to here (nuts!). The women from the other boats all trouped off to church first thing this morning to hear the choirs singing, as we had done that last week we stayed on our boat and opted to have a cooked breakfast instead. Following breakfast I bagged up all the books that we had finished with to offer for exchange with the other boats, some of the books I haven’t read yet but Gerry has speed read them all and wants something new to read. We took off into town – everything closed except for the café, and we went there for lunch, along with every other tourist who had braved the drier day. Having eaten Gerry suggested that we tour the island one more time (?) but this time we went round it clockwise. I have to say that stupid as it sounds I saw different things by going this way around, I still an unimpressed with it all but at least I have seen it from every viewpoint!


One of the things that stuck in my mind was a deserted / unfinished hotel complex with the best views of the beach and set in magnificent grounds. We aren’t sure if the place was never completed, has run to ruin or what happened, it is a huge complex and looks so forlorn it is such a sad waste of land and space. Looking at the place now we think it would take a fortune to fix it up to useable state, the funny thing is that the grounds seem to be being cared for – it’s almost as if there is some legal dispute or court battle being waged over the place and everything has ground to a standstill. Anyway we didn’t see anything on this tour to make us change our minds about the state of the tourist sites of interest so we made our way back to the boat for the afternoon where Abigail and Gerry went for a sleep whilst I typed these notes out.