Solar Eclipse

So we had planned to leave today, making yesterday the 'goodbye day'.
Anyways, we were saying goodbye to the couple on Karma around dinnertime and
just happened to be on their top deck. Everyone forgot that there would be a
solar eclipse, but we were just then watching the sunset. All of a sudden,
the sun started to split into two pieces..what was happening? Then Daddy
said: 'The solar eclipse is going on right now!'. It was so cool to watch
the sun slowly disappear beneath the horizon in two different pieces. Then,
right as the last of the sun went below the horizon, a green flash happened!
A green flash is when you see a tiny bit of lime green flash out from where
the sun had just set. It was especially awesome because, since there were
two suns, there were two green flashes. Anyways, when we woke up this
morning, there was no wind and we didn't end up leaving. Instead we took the
whole anchorage to another island here called 7 Islands, for the day. It was
a beautiful spot with amazing snorkeling and a sandy bottom. We all played
on the two kayaks that we had for a while before going to shore to see the
whale bones. So the bones were really big and you could sit in one of them
like it was a chair! In one spot there was a whole chain of bones put
together like pieces of a puzzle (on my way to the bones, I ran into a
tree). Finally, after a delicious pizza lunch made by an Italian couple that
came with us, we headed back to the main anchorage. Because the sun was in
our face, and the visibility of the water wasn't so great, I got to hang out
on the spreaders and look for shallow spots. We are now on a mooring and
prepared for the 2 night trip that starts tomorrow at the crack of dawn.
Well, I'm gonna go read..bye!

Cruise Ships in the Cooks ???

So today, we woke up in the morning to find a huge cruise ship called the
Paul Gaugin approaching Suwarrow. This was expected, since the cruise was
planned last summer and the family ashore warned us that they would be
coming. Even so, the cruise ship was so big compared to our small boats and
so tall compared to the palm tree height island, it just didn't seem
possible that it could be here. Luckily, the draft of the cruise ship was
too deep and it couldn't come into the lagoon, but the ships' 300 passengers
would be. Their plan was to bring all of the people ashore via a smaller
boat, and then spend the day here. The family ashore were still quite
confused on what they were supposed to do..are they supposed to give them
lunch and tours..are they supposed to act like Indians and go flying around
in the trees with paint on their faces? Well, we were hoping that they were
going to host a big dinner on the ship and invite all the cruisers (we would
of course say yes, but the chances of that happening were small). Anyways,
when the first tender was spotted we all scrambled to the binoculars. It
turned out that the ship was only bringing some supplies to the family, and
telling them (much to the family's relief) that: 'Because of the big waves,
we are not going to be coming ashore..instead we are going to be leaving the
island in the next hour'. Well, after days of cleaning and preparing the
island, they just left supplies and went..that's not so bad! So, soon the
cruise ship was no longer in sight.
Anyways, the boys on Whisper are over on the boat now and are playing Legos
with Cole, the couple on Qayak just left (they brought us M&Ms'!!) and
Mommy is making what smells like a delicious lunch. I think that I'm going
to go and make a bracelet..bye!

Scooters on Aitutaki

This was written earlier in July-So we are now in the Cook Islands at an
island called Aitutaki. It's a small island surrounded by a beautiful blue
lagoon with very shallow waters and few boats. A few years ago the TV series
'Survivor' was filmed here. Anyways, we left Bora Bora on the 30th of June,
and after a bit of a bumpy passage (3 days with 12 to 25 knots of wind and
15 to 20 foot seas), we arrived in the pass of Aitutaki on July 2nd. Because
we arrived at around 6:30 pm, we had to drop the anchor in the most
convenient spot for the night before the sun went totally down. Dosia was
already here, and helped us put down our stern anchor before coming over for
a delicious chili dinner cooked by Mommy. The next day we went ashore to
check in and explore a little. Once we were cleared, Margie and Drew on
Dosia took us to the scooter rental place where we got two mopeds to explore
the island on. Margie and Drew already had a scooter and had explored the
island a little before us, so they gave us the tour of the small island
ending with a yummy dinner at one of the local restaurants. On the fourth of
July we had Dosia, and another boat, Big Air over to Zen for dinner. It was
really fun..we watched some funny parts of a movie that Dosia brought, and
JP, a single hander on Big Air brought over some amazing home-made garlic
bread. The next day (my birthday!) we stayed on the boat the whole day and I
practiced playing my flute that I had gotten as one of my presents. On the
6th, we took a tour around the lagoon with a few other couples from hotels.
The lagoon was so beautiful and there were areas where you could walk in
waist deep water for a really long time. My favorite spot was a big sand bar
in the middle of the lagoon surrounded with deeper water, where we jumped
into off the top of our tour boat. After relaxing on the sand bar for a
little while we went snorkeling in the place where huge oyster shells were
grown..they really were huge. Finally, we went to One Toe..I mean One Foot
Island where we had a delicious lunch of fresh fruits, vegetables and fish.
Finally, we got back on the boat after 3 hours on the island and headed back
to Zen. A few days later, we went to one of the resorts to see the coolest
fire and dance show that I have ever seen. There was a really yummy buffet
with all sorts of traditional foods, and then a crazy fire show with about
10 people swinging around fire on batons. It was amazing. Before the fire,
there was a short dance show and Cole and I were invited to dance.

This was written on July 17th-So after a few more days in Aitutaki, we left
on a 2 night passage to Suwarrow. Suwarrow is an atoll that has not been
touched by man, and is a Cook Island national park. A family of 6 (the
parents have 4 boys ages 8 to 13) are the park rangers of this atoll and
help to preserve the wildlife in Aitutaki. They are really friendly and had
every boat in the anchorage come to their open air home for a potluck dinner
last night. It was really fun, and Cole and I played soccer with the 4 boys
ashore and the 2 boys on the boat Whisper. There are many sharks here, but
there are only black-tips in the anchorage and you don't really have to
worry too much about them. But on the other side of Anchorage Island, the
main motu, the boys feed black-tips, white-tips and grays. It's been raining
all night, but it looks like there is sun now! Being closer to the Equater
than Aitutaki, we are getting 82 degree weather again, which feels really
warm compared to the 75 degrees that we were in only a week ago. Well, I'm
going to go read..bye!

Suwarrow

So after a few more days in Aitutaki, we left on a 2 night passage to
Suwarrow. Suwarrow is an atoll that has not been touched by man, and is a
Cook Island national park. A family of 6 (the parents have 4 boys ages 8 to
13) are the park rangers of this atoll and help to preserve the wildlife in
Aitutaki. They are really friendly and had every boat in the anchorage come
to their open air home for a potluck dinner last night. It was really fun,
and Cole and I played soccer with the 4 boys ashore and the 2 boys on the
boat Whisper. There are many sharks here, but there are only black-tips in
the anchorage and you don't really have to worry too much about them. On the
other side of Anchorage Island, the main motu, the boys feed black-tips,
white-tips and grays. It's been raining all night, but it looks like there
is sun now! Being closer to the Equator than Aitutaki, we are getting 82
degree weather again, which feels really warm compared to the 75 degrees
that we were in only a week ago. Well, I have a bit of a fever today, so I'm
gonna go read..bye!

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