Update October 27, 2009
RAVEN IS SOLD!
It’s almost time for us to say good-bye to Raven. Our new FPB64 (Hull #1) will launch late this year and we haven’t figured out a good way to enjoy two boats at once! Sadly for us, this week we officially listed Raven with an international yacht broker. For further information contact us (using Comments at the bottom of this post) and we will put you in touch. We do have one more cruise planned aboard Raven in the Kingdom of Tonga this coming August/September. After that Raven will head to New Zealand where she will be officially available for trial in the Auckland area. Early inquiries and/or offers are welcome of course, but the logistics of prepurchase surveys are better off accomplished in New Zealand.
If you are seriously interested in blue water cruising, the Sundeer 64 is one of the finest boats ever designed in its class. Read what Sailing Magazine had to say in their September 2005 Best Boats issue. The Sundeer 64 is a cult boat with a big fan base, a true collector’s item. Raven was only on the market for two weeks when we were fortunate enough to purchase her nearly five years ago. We anticipate similar enthusiasm this time around. Owning Raven has been a life-changing experience for us – as it can be for you.
Yesterday we headed out of the harbor towards the anchorages, and this morning we decided to move around to a favorite spot called Blue Lagoon – a beautiful circlet of intense blue and turquoise water surrounded by breaking surf, coral reefs, limestone islands and sandy beaches where we were looking forward to a nice snorkel. Also we remembered a resort there from our last Tongan visit where we had enjoyed a delicious dinner – so had hopes of a repeat. Before any of this came about however, Mike spotted an enormous lake of blood staining the surf near the shore of the resort with a few locals knee deep in the water up to something. Always curious, we jumped in our dinghy and buzzed over to take a look.
We changed our plans a bit – bad weather was forecast for around Niue that we wanted to avoid, also due to hit Tonga in about six or seven days, so we decided to leave Suwarrow and head straight for Tonga to be sure we were settled in to the very nice safe harbor in Vava’u before the weather hit. We departed Suwarrow Monday afternoon, expecting to arrive in Tonga during the wee hours of Friday morning, except in Tonga it is really Saturday instead of Friday. Gets confusing sometimes – just hope we don’t get mixed up and miss our flight home! We leave on the 26th from Tonga, connect in Samoa the 25th (day before!), then arrive in LA on the 26th, same day we left only earlier!
We arrived at Suwarrow atoll Thursday morning at the end of the 200 mile passage from Penrhyn – uneventful sailing, light winds, a very comfortable ride. At night the radar screen was so empty it appeared to be broken – not a squall in sight. We did cross paths with the supply ship out of Rarotonga making its rounds of the islands, also passed a large buoy floating free – but nothing else. Nearly a full moon so lots of light on the water all night long.
For us Penrhyn’s biggest attraction is underwater. We’ve been in the water constantly on this trip, snorkeling and swimming several times a day and scouting out the site of our next scuba dive. We had already snorkeled through Takuua Passage near our anchorage and wanted to return and dive the pass near high tide when the incoming ocean water turns the lagoon water crystal clear as an aquarium.
Tetautua Village maintains a Yacht Record Book – an oversize hardback book with lined blank pages, covered with canvas and stored in a vinyl water resistant bag. Each visiting yacht over the past many years has filled out a page or two in the record book. It’s a blast to read through the old entries filled with photos, sketches, and journals posted by a wide variety of cruisers. Rod came here in 9 years ago on his own sailboat Uwhilna – we found his page and he bemoaned his lost youth as evidenced in the 8-year old photo (poor Rod is now an ancient old man of 42!).
Rod unpacked his speargun and has started shooting our dinner. He’s a really good spearfisherman, free-diving down and
Our hosts from Tetautua Village have continued to entertain us. This morning we followed our leader OJ by dinghy some four or five miles to the far side of the lagoon, following a curving track to avoid the ever present coral bommies, where the facilities of a bankrupt pearl farm lie abandoned on the western shore. Many of the villagers – men, women and children – had camped out at the pearl farm overnight for a coconut crab hunt, baiting the enormous blue crabs in the night with fresh coconut meat and then snatching them up and tossing them into an empty oil drum. This takes some finesse, as the crabs can easily snap off a finger with their powerful claws.
