Cook Islands 2001

The island of Aitutaki is surrounded by a distant coral reef which creates an amazingly large sheltered lagoon. We wanted to do a boat ride/snorkel trip in the lagoon, but did not much want to go on a ‘cattle barge’ style snorkel trip. What we really wanted was to rent our own boat, but we were more than happy to settle on a boat with a driver. We asked around on the island and the answer was that we had to go talk with Mr. Bishop. We located Mr. Bishop’s house and he agreed that the next day we would be picked up at our hotel and would have a full day with a boat and driver in the lagoon.

Bright and early the next day a very congenial Cook Islander picked us up at our hotel. We assumed that he would be our guide for the day because he explained that he was going to go fishing, but since we were doing a lagoon tour, he picked us up instead. He drove us to the end of the road and dropped us off at a pier, where another Cook Islander took custody of us. He explained that he had to drive us to Mr. Bishop’s house so we could pay for the tour. On the way to Mr. Bishop’s house he explained that he was going to go fishing, except that he had to pick us up so he did not go fishing. After we had settled up with Mr. Bishop we were driven to another beach were a boat and boat driver were waiting. Our good natured boat driver, Manu, explained that he had planned on going fishing that day, but cancelled because our of lagoon tour.

As for the tour, the water was crystal clear and warm, the coral and sea life was fabulous and a good time was had by all.

The guide book describes a Cook Island event known as Island Nights. Coming from Hawaii I read: “Tourist Luau.” On our first night in Aitutaki we decided to check out the Island Nights event at the big resort at the end of the island. I was kind of dubious, but there really was not much else to do at night.

The food was great, the drinks were great and the Polynesian dancing was great. Besides the good food and great dancing, one of the other differences between a Hawaii tourist luau and the Cook Islands Island Nights was that the dancers did not pick one sunburned tourists from the audience to give the crash course in the sorta Tahitian hip wiggle, but went through the audience and got everyone to dance.

The next night as dinner time was rolling around we decided to go to the Island Nights in our neighborhood. We were staying on the main drag (a narrow two lane partially paved coral road), in an older family run hotel, rather than the end of the island with the fancy resorts. The first thing we noticed when we wandered into the modest restaurant of the night’s festivities was that our waitress from the big resort the night before was the bartender on this night. Soon Cook Islanders started coming into the restaurant carrying bowls and platters of food. Turns out the smaller restaurants did not have the capacity to cook all the food for an Island Nights and thus they had the neighbors help cook. We also came to understand as we stayed on Aitutaki, no two restaurants held an Island Nights on the same night. This was undoubtedly because there were not enough tourists or wait help on the island for more than one Island Nights at a time.

When arriving on an island, it is rarely what one had imagined based upon the guide book or preconceived notions. Some are more urban, others more rustic and some just more hilly. I had planned that we would rent bicycles to circumnavigate the little island of Aitutaki. After we walked to the bicycle rental shop, we decided to rent a motor scooter instead.

After a few minutes on our motor scooter we noticed something a little odd. Every single adult outside was either mowing a lawn, messing with a lawn mower of moving a lawn mower. By moving I mean by hand, by cart, by car or by truck. It was almost like some strange sort of cargo cult involving lawn mowers. We soon learned that every three months the Cook Islands Department of Public Health did a thorough inspection and anyone with an un-kept yard was fined. In pure Cook Island style, lawn mowers were being barrowed, loaned and operated and the entire island was perfumed with fresh cut grass.

Our hotel room on Aitutaki came equipped with an orange cat. Because he seemed to come with the room, we fed him while we were there. We were impressed that the room came with this amenity as lodging on the Island was inexpensive, in fact we spent more to board our cat at home than we spent for our hotel on Aitutaki.