Aitutaki

Pronounced “eye-too-tah-key”.

As we sailed west from Tahiti we left French Polynesia and entered the Cook Islands. From the point of view of a guy on a cruise ship, the only differences were:

In addition to their native “island” language they now speak English rather than French (duh)
They drive on the left side of the road

If I had spent any local money, I’m sure that would have been different as well

Aitutaki is one of the many, many such islands scattered across the south Pacific. It’s the second-most populated of the Cook Islands (after Rarotonga), with about 1,800 people.

There were several “swim at the local resort” or “snorkeling” tours, but I signed up for the “Aitutaki Great Circle” driving tour. They were not kidding. A dozen of us cruisers jammed ourselves into a van and we literally drove on the island’s ring road. There are eight villages on the island, each with a central building for general use (weddings, town meetings, etc.). The largest such village has 400 people. Nothing amazing to see. The was a archeological site of standing stones, which were supposedly used for assorted island and village chiefs seating during meetings.

We drove to the “mountain” (120 meters high) and got a good look around. Aitutaki has a great,wide coral atoll that protects it from things like tsunami. The reef ring has many small islands, two of which were used for the “Survivor: Cook Islands” TV show.

When you stop at the airport for a rest room break, you know there’s not much on the island. During World War 2 the allies built two aircraft runways and stationed folks here to protect supply and communication lanes. However, Aitutaki is very pretty and the folks are nice. It was good to walk on something that doesn’t move with the waves. Our ship was not allowed into the lagoon, so we took tenders. We could not drop anchor due to the depth, so the ship used it’s thrusters the entire time to maintain position.

Not much on Aitutaki, so here are some assorted pictures. This is Bora Bora as we left. I’m still blown away by the clouds here.

Here is one of the many flower arrangements on the ship after we left Tahiti. There must be a business there that puts these together specifically for the cruise industry.

Speaking of flowers, here is something from my on-board origami class. I’ve never seen a two-part origami before. There are about a dozen kids on this segment of the cruise – seems some grandparents have invited families for this part of the cruise. and they love the origami class.