Peter Carr
In a conversation this morning with a Canadian he revealed that the temperature at his home in Ottawa was minus 27 degrees Celsius.
And he was revelling in the balmy plus-33 degrees we are enjoying at Aitutaki in the Cook Islands. Or to be more exact while anchored very close to the outside of the sharp-toothed reef that guards Aitutaki.
Cheers from Peter Carr.
So, the sharp-eyed among you will by now have realised that I have temporarily deserted Cambridge (where I believe it has been rather wet) for the balmy airs of the South Pacific.
We are back with our usual cruise company and have, so far, transited the Bay of Islands, Savusavu, Nukualofa and arrived off Aitutaki this morning as we devoured breakfast on the open air deck. Very pleasant.
Hence this week is mainly about the Cook Islands – a subject that appears in our news regularly. The 15 islands embrace (locally) about 20,000 people but a further 94,000 are enjoying (mainly) Auckland and a few in Australia. And why will be revealed shortly.
Captain Cook sited the Cook Islands in 1773 but, contrary to public opinion, did not name them after himself but attributed the nomenclature to his boss the First Lord of the Admiralty. Away from Rarotonga he also sited Aitutaki but did not land and left it to another Englishman, several years later, to go ashore and meet with the Polynesian natives who stretched back to 900AD. He was Captain Bligh of Mutiny on the Bounty fame.
In about 1962 Sir Robert Muldoon (who may then not have been knighted) offered several alternatives to Albert Henry (PM of the Cooks) being four options of “care”. The wily Henry – also later knighted then stripped of the title, and in 2023 posthumously pardoned – grabbed the most attractive of the four being that the Cooks would self-govern with a Westminster style parliament but that New Zealand would look after, in the main, Foreign Affairs and Defence.
Winston Peters has been hot on those issues very recently.
But Albert Henry seized swiftly on the real kicker – this being that Muldoon also offered New Zealand passports to every Cook Islander – hence the imbalanced drift to Auckland. The geographical shift of many brought with it employment and a huge monthly movement of financial remittances back to the Cooks.
Aitutaki hosts the most beautiful lagoon in the world. Bar none. Snorkelling is both delightful and exciting.
Our visit included a visit to One Foot Island where thousands of tiny crabs emerge to the surface of the beach when a loud whistle is sounded. It is just over an hour by plane from Rarotonga and I used to visit regularly on business. I ran across Prime Minister David Lange one day and found out that Aitutaki was his regular hideaway when he wanted a break from the lunacy of the Beehive.
So French Polynesia beckons. My (could be improved) French will have to be dusted off as there are nine island calls ahead.
À bientôt!
Peter Carr in the Cook Islands – AI generated.
