# Suvorov Atoll.



## Cpt Dick Brooks (May 13, 2013)

At 1630 hours on 12th March, 1981, Début got underway from Bora Bora... the most north-westerly inhabited island in French Polynesia, in the South Pacific Ocean. We were heading west for the uninhabited island of Suvorov Atoll, in the remote and exotic Northern Cook Island Archipelago. We'd waited an extra week for the third cyclone of the season to pass Bora Bora... the previous cyclone pulverizing the island and smashing up the yacht club veranda. 
We steamed close in among the moored yachts to salute Alex and his family, sounding the Marseillaise on the ship's horn as we passed. It was a bright, sunny day, with a large ground-swell of sixteen feet from the north-west. Because of the cyclone, there was a confused sea... waves breaking in all directions.
After three hours out from the passage of Bora Bora, Maupiti Island was four miles off the port beam. It was a volcanic cone, pushing up from the ocean floor some two miles below, and I had used it while anchored at Baie Faanui to swing my compass. At 0915 hours the next morning, Matu Onu was sighted fine on the starboard bow. We passed two miles south of it, calculating our average speed at nine and a half knots. An hour later, the wind changed to the south-east, and the sea began to settle down.
The next day passed uneventful for us on board Début, and everyone settled down to being at sea again, with only the day-to-day routine of running the ship. I marked off the miles on the chart from my calculations of the sun. Our fourth day out was sunny and calm, with a light breeze from the north-east and a patchy scattering of cloud. By 1410 hours, I'd fixed our position at 40 miles south-east of Suvorov Atoll. Three hours later, we altered course to 280° until our distance was run.
We were there... as far as I could calculate... but where was the island? I was looking right at it, but didn't know it then. It was just on dusk, so I set a course south to take me clear of the island and the close proximity of the surrounding reefs. At 1930 hours, we shut down the main engine and drifted for the night.
I was really annoyed with myself for failing to find the island before dark, but as it was so low-lying, the only thing to do was wait. I scoured through the pilot book until something caught my eye. It mentioned about the mist rising from the surf breaking on the reef, hiding the island from view. As I thought about it, I realised there'd been an area ahead of the ship with an indistinct horizon. 
The next day dawned calm, with a light north-easterly breeze. There was seven tenths cloud cover, which didn't help with my sights. After two reasonable sun-shots, I calculated our position at 35 miles due south of Suvorov Atoll.
We got underway at 1340 hours, and four hours later three palm trees appeared dead ahead of us in a clump. As the pilot book had indicated, the place the island appeared was the only part of the horizon which was indistinct. The crew doubted our position, and had been straining themselves in every vantage point on the ship to prove their point.
Two hours after first sighting the palm trees, we entered the lagoon through a narrow passage on the eastern side of Anchorage Island, on the northern edge of the atoll. It was very shallow, with coral-heads dotted about within the passage itself, and the current ran fierce on the ebb tide. The helm responded well, and we were soon gliding through the aquamarine-water of the inner lagoon. We let go the anchor close by the palm-studded island in a 140 feet of water, with six shackles of chain.
Anchorage Island is one of the most beautiful places on earth. It is uninhabited and bedecked with coconut palms, surrounded by a pristine coral-sand beach... the perfect desert island paradise set in a turquoise sea. In the centre of the island, standing among the shade of the palms, is the house once used by the recluse, Tom Neale. It was here that he lived for seven years of solitude, and later wrote his book, 'An Island to Myself.' It had originally been built during The Second World War for the coast-watcher stationed on the island.
We explored all over the tiny island, and down in the depths of the lagoon to 240 feet deep. There were Nassau grouper and trivially in abundance, and more sharks than were comfortable to be around. We collected baskets of black-lipped ousters for their shells, and gorged ourselves on clam chowder. On land, there were all the green coconuts we could drink, and bright red coconut-crabs to cook up when we'd had our fill of lobsters and fish. Many of the immature coconut palms were used for heart-of-palm salad for our table.
After mounting a small expedition with the Rabalo to the wreck of a Korean long-liner on the eastern side of the atoll, we got underway with Début and headed south down the lagoon. Lying right up on the reef on her side was the wreck of a Taiwanese long-liner. She'd only been there about two years, and was still in quite good condition. I'd heard all about yachties filling up with her fuel, but her tanks were now completely empty when we sounded them. We removed all her bronze portholes and both generators to sell, and many other parts including both her anchors and chain.

It was while we were working on the wreck that a yacht came down the lagoon to see us. Naked and covered in black engine-oil from head to foot, we piled in the launch to go over to them. 'Unlikely' was a 50 foot Bermudan-rigged ketch, owned by a young American guy. His girlfriend turned out to be Helen... the young pirate-girl from Gulfito, who'd carried a live parrot on her shoulder. Her sister, Morning, had frizzy red hair and alabaster white skin... flawless and without blemish... giving off a wonderful fragrance. They came on board Début for supper, and soon joined in with my crew by taking off their clothes.
I held Morning in my arms that night, cuddling her and Lorraine on each side of me, while she told me all about herself. Her sister had been a little cold towards me, and she asked me where I'd met her before. We all laughed when I told her about Gulfito and the parrot. She was nervous, and I could tell that she was feeling a little uncomfortable with me... casual sex wasn't easy for her. I didn't want to rush things, so cupped her bare breast as I kissed her, then suckled her pink nipple inside my mouth. She stroked my hair as I suckled... her body was quivering with pent-up anticipation.
Morning wrapped her arms around my neck and her eyes filled with tears... her body was racked with her sobbing as she clung to me. She had obviously been through a bad time, so I just let her cry herself out... gently kissing away her tears as they fell.
In time, she stopped sobbing, and a little later stopped crying. "I'm sorry, Dick!" she blubbered. "I couldn't help myself... I just fell apart. I'm a big baby. I came over here to make love with you, and all I've done is cry. Make love to me, please."
I increased my stroke into her a little to comply with her request. "What happened to bring all this on, Morning?" I asked her. "Why so long?"
Her eyes flooded with fresh tears, and she buried her face against my neck. "I'm not an ordinary nurse," she blubbered. "But a palliative-care nurse... I specialize in intensive care. My last patient was an old lady, and I lived in her house with her. She was very ill with inoperable cancer." She caught her breath and sobbed. "She didn't get better, but took more than a year to die. Every day, I looked after her... I cooked her food for her and fed her with my own hands... emptied her bedpans, wiped her bottom and bathed her. And after all that time, she went and died on me! She died in the middle of the night in my arms.
"I lay with her for the rest of the night... just holding her." The tears were freely flowing down her cheeks. "I was crying, like I am now... not just for her... but for me! She had left me all alone, after everything I'd done for her. I had a nervous breakdown and had to go into a sanatorium... I've only just come out. I joined my sister on Mike's yacht in Tahiti... they thought it would help me get over it." She broke out with fresh sobbing. "Make love to me, Dick, please! I need to be loved... so much."
I met up with her again in Pago Pago, and she stayed with me on board Début for another five days while Unlikely was up on the slipway. On our last evening together, we made up a foursome with Mike and her sister to eat at the Rainmaker Hotel. Even Helen lost most of her stiffness towards me, and both girls ended up with the giggles because of the jokes I traded with Mike. 
Morning was seen off at the airport by Mike and her sister the following morning, to report back to her nursing agency for her next assignment. The day after that Unlikely sailed for Japan, taking Dave and Andrea along with them as extra crew.

On our return to Anchorage Island, we loaded all the loose gear lying around the beach, including a 15 foot weather buoy launched some ten years before down in the Antarctic, and a stack of new roofing iron left behind by a visiting Japanese expedition. There was the mainmast and a stack of gear from a catamaran wrecked on the fringing reef the year before. We found piles of long-line from the wrecked fishing-ships, and dozens of fishing floats... some of them made of glass. These, in particular, were high in demand by tourists visiting the islands of the South Seas.
I was slowly filling my hold with re-saleable gear that would later help get money to live. Several of the crew were unhappy about removing things from the island, but they could leave the ship and be on their way whenever they felt like it. They could telephone home to have money sent on to our next port of call, while I had to earn my keep... even by recycling the flotsam washed up on a desert island's beach. I didn't just own Début... she also owned me... and that was the end of it.
At 1745 hours on 12th April, after spending a month in this most wonderful place on earth, we got underway for Pago Pago, in American Samoa. Début cleared the passage on the high tide, and I followed the reef around to the northern point of the atoll. It was a sunny evening, with a calm sea and a slight easterly breeze. On a course of 256°, the dawn brought us another calm, sunny day. We crossed 165° longitude and put the clocks back an hour to GMT - 11 hours. By 1910 hours, I'd picked up the radio beacon in Tutuila Island and was homing in on its signal.
At 0553 hours the next day, Tau Island of the Manu'a Islands was just on the starboard bow. They are the remains of an extinct volcano, which reach up to 300 feet. At 1112 hours, Tutuila Island was sighted on the starboard bow, and the course was altered to 265°. Three hours later, Aunuu Island was a mile off the starboard beam, and by 1500 hours we moored Début alongside the main Warf of Pago Pago. All the best, Cpt Dick Brooks.


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## Cpt Dick Brooks (May 13, 2013)

*For Hugh Ferguson.*

Hi, Hugh, good to hear from you. I'm glad you enjoyed my account of Suvorov Atoll. It is a wonderful place, and I have only been back there once more... when I took a group of elderly American tourists there for Goodtravel Tours on Début in 1982. I would love to go back there again... just to see the place... and have it marked up on my bucket list for a visit. As far as I know, the Cook Island government has kept it un-inhabited, leaving it just for the wildlife and visiting yachties. All the best, Cps Dick Brooks.
Ps. If you would like to read more of my work on my twelve year voyage around the tropical world, go to the Book forum and look for the Kindle code for the three books in The Black Ship's Odyssey, or the three books in The Black Ship Trilogy. The last three I wrote while castaway for three years on Emily Reef, after being shipwrecked in the Coral Sea. My seventh book, Whisky and Water, tells the story of chartering my second ship, the gaff yawl Biche, out of Ipswich in the early seventies, then buying my third ship and taking her out to the Persian Gulf, where I sold her to an Arab shipping company with a two year contract to serve as her captain. She was converted into a water tanker to supply the dozens of ships waiting offshore to unload their cargo, then to supply the water for the construction of Jebal Alley... plus a copious supply of whisky. My eighth book, From Beat to Open Deck, will be published by Amazon on their Kindle website next month. Please enjoy the read, Cpt Dick Brooks.


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