The origin of the 'Tabua' (Update 44)
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Date: Monday 7th June
Time: 1500 hours Cook Island Time (GMT – 10 hours)
Position: 19* 41.6’ South/ 164* 30.3’ West (536 n.m. from Sinalei)

Bula Viti kei Rotuma

We had a gorgeous night of sailing last night under the gennaker, mainsail with one reef and a full mizzen sail. The wind was a light 10 to 12 knots which is the reason we needed a reef in the main so that the gennaker would set.

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky for the first half of the night and most of the crew were on deck scanning the sky for the stars and planets we had already learnt about. Johnathan had the star maps laid out on deck and the crew hovered over trying to identify stars that we could use while heading West towards Samoa.

Amazingly we have not had too many clear nights during the entire voyage and I can probably count the clear nights on one hand.

At dinner we all reminisced about the wonderful stay in Rarotonga and the generosity of the people and the support from the Fijian Community. Vinaka Vaka Levu Rarotonga and the Fijian Community, we miss you all already.

As it approached dark, I heard on the radio that Te Matau a Maui had decided to drop their gennaker and replace it with the genoa a safer option as the gennaker is a very light weight sail that tears easily.

However we decided to keep our gennaker up forcing those on night watch to really concentrate on their steering. Steering in the dark teaches you to use your other senses to work out the wind shifts and gusts.

We steered through the night using the telltales (lightweight ribbon used to show wind direction) as our steering guide. Through the night the wind shifted to the East forcing us to sail further South then we would like.

So at daylight we gybed across on to the Starboard tack. We were now heading back towards Te Matau a Maui and Hine Moana who had steered a more North Westerly course over night. We could just make them out on the horizon to the East of us.

Because we are between time zones, it did not get light till after 6.45am this morning. So breakfast has been at a late 7.30am the last two mornings and not the usual 6am we have become used to at sea.

Tevita continued his impromptu Fijian language classes at breakfast learning the names of everything we were eating and also sharing with us the Raivavae and Tahitian names. Raivavae and Tahiti have two distinct languages although there are many common words.

As always there is plenty of laughter on deck at meal times with Tevita quickly learning what makes Fijians laugh.

Kelekele has been learning to play a Raivavae song on the ukulele and today he is learning the words under Tevia’s tuition.

We saw a rare sight this morning. Carson reading! Yes it has taken him thousands of miles to turn a switch off and he can now read without getting seasick.

You will remember Carson was forced to be our cameraman from Fiji to New Zealand because our cameraman Sairusi was not granted a visa. So Carson’s battle with seasickness started then.

He could only stand short stints looking through a camera lens before he would be rushing to the rail to be sick over the side.

It took him a few days to get used to that but has not been able to read at all when we are at sea. Just watching me punching away on the laptop writing these reports in rough seas would make him sick.

But he is finally over it and is enjoying being able to read at sea.

This morning the crew have been brushing up on their whale identification in preparation for Vava’u. They have also been reading about ‘Responsible Whale Watching’ procedures.

At lunch today, the discussion was about the whales tooth or ‘Tabua’. I asked Ratu Manoa how the Tabua came to be. He told us an interesting story about the original tabua originating from the root of the ‘Bua’ tree.

It was originally called the Buata and this was later changed to Tabua. The root was carved in to the shape of a whales tooth and had a similar colour and shape. Kai’afa still remembers this being used when he was a young boy in the village.

We assumed that the whales tooth was later used as it was the right shape and colour and took less work to prepare.

Still no fish been caught all the way from Raiatea and clearly a sign that the cry’s about ‘overfishing’ are correct. All three canoes and three support have not caught anything. Neither have we seen any tuna schools or birds feeding since before arriving in Rarotonga.

There has been very little wind all day with the wind varying between 5 and 12 knots. We got up to 8 knots for a while this morning but we are back to 4 - 5 knots now. This trip could take longer than expected.

Our diet has been very healthy since leaving Rarotonga because of all the fruit and vegetables we received. For the last two days we have been eating bele with lunch and dinner.

Rupeni made a wonderful lunch yesterday of fish, tomatoes, cucumber and chili in miti (coconut milk) with bele. Bele grows wild in Rarotonga and the Fijians there tell us not too many people eat it. I talked to Steven on Te Matau a Maui by VHF but did not tell him what we were eating because he and Moala would be homesick.

We have been snacking on fruit day and night including bananas, pawpaw, mandarins and sweet oranges. Hopefully we lose some weight from all the feasting in Rarotonga.

Moce

Colin/Uto ni Yalo

Report by Satellite Phone courtesy of DIGICEL