People as warm as the sunshine.

An eager welcome at the airport.

Transportation to Atiu, courtesy of Air Raro.

Mere, our unofficial guide.

A friendly face.

Birdman George in the jungle.

A frigate bird in flight above Atiu.

I recently had the opportunity to visit the island of Atiu.

Of the 15 specks of land that comprise the Cook Islands, Atiu (pronounced AT-CHEW) is ranked third – behind Rarotonga and Aitutaki – in terms of population and development. As such, it is very much on the radar as a destination project for the Cook Islands Tourism Corporation.

When the CITC invited a group of nearly 30 travel industry types to the Cook Islands – in a marketing effort designed to spread the gospel of this tropical paradise – and a day trip to Atiu was added to the itinerary, I put my hand up to cover the event for the Cook Islands Herald.

It’s been 10 years since I was last on Atiu. Nothing much had changed. And that’s a good thing. Development is fine but, sometimes, you can develop the character right out of a place.

The airport terminal is still little more than an open-sided building with a roof. The cheeky sign – the one claiming to be an Atiu Airport Voluntary Security Check and asking passengers to “please hand their AK47s, Bazookas, grenades, explosives and nukes to the pilot on boarding the aircraft” – is still in place.

Our visiting party – flown in aboard two of Air Raro’s turbo props – was greeted by the locals with flower eis and kisses on the cheek. We were then divided into two groups for a tour of the island. I found myself with the larger group – along with Nerys Case of the Cook Islands News – sitting in the back of a truck belonging to George Mateariki, Aitu’s famed “Birdman George.”

George gave us a sample of the tour he provides for tourists, one where we were bounced and jounced over rutted jungle trails (I hesitate to call them “roads”), stopping at intervals so George could point out various bird life and explain the medicinal use of assorted flora. At one point, George skimmied up a palm tree to liberate several coconuts. Using a machete as skillfully as a surgeon’s scalpel, he hacked open the tops of the coconuts without spilling a drop of water and passed them around.

The majority of the passengers grumbled amongst themselves about they’d rather not be sitting there, watching a man climb a tree, because their lack of mobility made them easier targets for the swarms of voracious mozzies. Nerys and I watched in bemused silence. Neither of us is a local – Nerys is English; I’m Canadian – but we’d obviously been in the Cook Islands long enough to no longer qualify as fresh meat, because we were virtually ignored when it came to the involuntary blood donation.

The coconut water was refreshing and, much to my surprise, rather on the carbonated side. Not sure how that works. A touch of fermentation? Perhaps.

We stopped for a quick visit with Andrea Eimke at the Atiu Fibre Arts Studio, where we marvelled at the tivaevae – ceremonial quilted bedspreads – on display. Later during our tour, we drove past the coffee plantation run by Andrea’s husband, Juergen Manske-Eimke (known locally as “The German”). All of us gazed longingly at the coffee cherries, hoping – in vain, as it turned out – for a taste of their magic elixir.

Lunch – provided by Birdman George and his helpers – consisted of a variety of local food cooked in an umu, or underground oven. I’m an old hand when it comes to such traditional meals and so knew going in that, while there would be plenty of food, there would be a distinct lack of utensils and napkins. And so I only took what I could eat with my fingers, and sat close to the tap so I could rinse my hands off as soon as I was full.

 The afternoon was spent inspecting accommodation properties, so these travel agents and travel agency owners could see first-hand the types of places on offer for their potential customers. Nerys and I hopped out of the truck bed the first few stops, if only to stretch our legs but – honestly – if you’ve seen one room, you’ve seen them all. Eventually, we just stayed in the truck and turned our faces to the sun, soaking up the heat like lizards on a rock.

We were accompanied through most of the day by an Australian girl of maybe nine or 10, named Mere. Mere’s mother informed us that, yes, Mere should have been in school but woke up that morning feeling a bit on the crook side. Until, that is, she heard two planes filled with visitors were about to land and then – it’s a miracle! – she suddenly felt a whole lot better.

Mere – all toothy grin and red hair – was so thrilled to see us that she acted as a one-person welcoming committee all on her own. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t technically a native of Atiu – or even a Cook Islander, for that matter. Her genuine pleasure at seeing our group was a reflection of how everyone on the island greeted us.

Yes, there are rare birds to be seen on Atiu. And you really must swim in the sea caves. And tramp through unspoiled jungles. Or drink the home brew that will take the hair right off your tongue. But, in the end, it’s not the scenery or attractions that make a place special for me.

It’s the people.

Atiu hasn’t changed much in 10 years. Neither has the sunny attitude of its population. And that’s a good thing.

The final hot August night is closer than you think.

Talia Goldenberg

Still life. With cat.

The first thing I noticed about Talia Goldenberg was her body – she was showcasing a goodly portion of it and what was on display wasn’t very meaty.

Those two aspects alone were enough to tell me she wasn’t a local. The clincher was that all that bare skin was the colour of fresh milk on a snowy Minnesota morning.

I encountered Talia at the Avarua Wharf. I had ventured there because I was bored at the office. When your contract is nearly up and you’re desperate for a new one, sitting around the office looking bored is not the prescribed method for ensuring future employment.

I was hoping to find local kids leaping from the wharf into the harbour, so I could hand in enough photos – Hey, Look What The Kids Are Up To On Their Summer Holidays! – to fill a page in the Cook Islands Herald.

Instead, I encountered My Fine Young Colleague (MFYC), sitting on the top level of the lone set of bleachers that resides outside Trader Jacks. MFYC is 19 and and model-worthy and eager to embrace all the adventures the future may hold. Everything I’m not, actually.

Talia was  sitting on the bottom level of the bleachers, drawing in a sketchpad.

I greeted MFYC and, once I had his attention, indicated the young lady with the pen and paper. He shrugged in a way that told me he didn’t know who she was or what she was up to.

 Being the grizzled veteran, I took the lead, sitting down beside the young lady to ask what she was drawing. “Water,” she said, and then introduced herself as Talia Goldenberg, 20, from Portland, Oregon.

I do things like that – march right up to the Talia Goldenbergs of this world – because I am a highly-trained professional journalist and, as such, understand that stories do not drop, neatly wrapped and tied with a bow, on your lap. Sometimes you have to plunk yourself down beside a  young lady and go fishing.

It turned out that Talia was one of 25 art students – 21 ladies and the four luckiest lads in the history of the world – from Carleton College who had stopped in Rarotonga for six days en route to New Zealand and, later, Australia. They would spend 10 weeks away from home as part of an art course that would include such topics as drawing from nature and printmaking.

Home – as MFYC and I, now armed with our recording gear, discovered later when we met up with various members of the group at Paradise Inn for a round of interviews – is Northfield, Minnesota.

For what it was worth, I scored some serious brownie points by knowing Northfield was the setting for one of the James-Younger Gang’s heists.

It was at this point, however, that my fear for the future of the world was cemented.

MFYC: What gang?

Me: James-Younger. You know: Jesse James. The bank robber.

MFYC: Wasn’t he married to Sandra Bullock?

Me: Um, actually, I’m talking about the OTHER Jesse James.

MFYC: Never heard of him.

Me: Oh. Dear.

This exchange, conducted in front of Talia and her friends, their faces shiny with pride as they displayed their sketchbooks, was not the first time that day MFYC had demonstrated how big the gulf actually is between baby boomers and whatever generation is just now graduating from high school (iGeneration? Wii Generation?).

Earlier, at the office, MFYC had spotted a pile of LPs on a desk. We’re talking vinyl here, folks, the real deal. Classic with a capital “C.” MFYC held up Hot August Night, Neil Diamond’s live double album that every self-respecting baby boomer played until the needle on their turntable wore down to a nub.

“That, my young friend,” I said, “is one for the ages. They don’t make music like that anymore.”

His brow furrowed. He peered at the image on the front of the dust cover. Then he looked up at me.

“Who,” he asked, “is Neil Diamond?”

The generation gap just widened. If it continues to do so, it may just swallow me completely.

It’s a dirty job, but someone has to eat the pig’s head.

There are bits missing from inside this pig’s skull. I do not want to know where they went.

The ‘Cook Islands fork’ in action.

An action song is always a crowd favourite.

A young dancer puts on his game face.

Orama dance group performs for Bishop O’Connell.

The children of the congregation display their dancing skills.

There are several advantages to being a journalist. And if you give me a minute, I’m sure I can come up with one of them.

Oh, yeah: sometimes the assignment comes with food. 

As one of my Cook Islands Herald workmates says: Never say no to free food. As one of my brothers says: Free just tastes better. Of course, he was talking about beer at the time, but I’m assuming his theory holds true for most anything you put in your mouth. 

So, yeah, sometimes there is such a thing as a free lunch, although in my 20-plus years in the newspaper business, they have been rare. Oh, sure, there was the annual Cloverdale Rodeo press conference where the promoters put on a spread, but you had to be quick out of the gate to the buffet table to beat the radio guys and the sales guys and the city slickers from the daily papers who wouldn’t know a steer if it gored them in the expense account.

It’s different here in the Cook Islands. Someone wise and beautiful and very close to my heart once told me the best way to ensure Cook Islanders show up for a meeting is to tell them there will be kaikai (food) served afterwards. I’m guessing that works for most people, including me, in most any country you’d care to name. On numerous occasions I’ve endured boring social gatherings because someone said there’d be cake later. Mention pecan pie and I’ll not only show up, I may very well move in. 

I scored food big-time last week. Two days in a row, Jeane and I went to the Infrastructure Sector Forum to gather interviews for our Turama TV program. We had to show up during the lunch break because that was the only time people were available to talk. But first they had to eat. And, since we had to wait anyway, we were invited to eat as well. It would have seemed positively impolite not to partake. 

I did mention we went two days in a row, right? Sometimes you just have to go the extra mile to ensure you get everyone’s opinion. It’s called balanced reporting. It’s a dirty job but . . . well, you’ll have to finish that thought because I’m busy chewing. 

I didn’t eat as much on Day 2. Perhaps I was still full from breakfast. Perhaps I didn’t want to appear greedy. Perhaps it was the pig’s head on the food table. Upside down. With bits plucked out of it. Some days I forget I’m in a foreign country. This wasn’t one of those days. 

On Saturday, I attended the reception put on by the Catholic Church for Stuart O’Connell, the Bishop of Rarotonga. He was celebrating 50 years in the priesthood and there were speeches and gifts and entertainment, provided by one of the island’s cultural dance groups. 

And there was kaikai. But this time I did not elbow my way past the little old ladies to fill my plate. This time I hesitated. The food, you see, had sat outside through the ceremony and that always makes me a bit leery. The mayonnaise (as they call potato salad in the Cook Islands) looked particularly vulnerable to being out of the fridge for any length of time. 

But if anyone else was concerned about a future date with a stomach pump, you’d never know it. They dug right in, content to use their fingers (“Cook Islands forks” one local calls them) when utensils weren’t immediately available. 

When the reception was over, everyone went away full and content and happy. And, really, what more could you ask for out of life?

A $40 million superyacht? Meh.

The SY Perseus anchored off the community of Arorangi.

Capt. Aaron Abramowitz and the flag of the Isle of Man, where the Perseus is registered.

All areas of the vessel are monitored.

The control panels on the fly-bridge.

Jimmy Buffett autographed this fish fossil. For some reason.

Looking up the main mast. About 150 feet worth of up.

 This is an abridged version of the feature I wrote for the July 7, 2010 issue of the Cook Islands Herald. 

I knew I’d get wet during my tour of the SY Perseus. After all, I had to wade into the lagoon just to reach the tender where the superyacht’s captain, Aaron Abramowitz, waited to transport CITV’s Jeane Matenga and me through the reef break to the vessel.

What I hadn’t planned on doing was going for a swim. With my clothes on. Carrying my camera.

But that’s what nearly happened as I was stepping onto the Perseus. When the tender suddenly drifted away from under my back foot, I had to hastily lunge forward to avoid an unscheduled immersion in the deep blue sea.

It goes without saying that the rest of our exclusive tour of the Perseus was a little bit more graceful.

At 50 metres in length, the vessel can best be described as huge. It takes Abramowitz and a crew of eight – including three stewardesses and a classically-trained chef – to sail and maintain the yacht on her current round-the-world tour.

Abramowitz is understandably prudent when asked to name his boss.

“The owner is Irish,” he says. “Other than that, I can’t really divulge too much information.”

Later, he mentions how the owner flies his own planes. The only other clue in plain sight is a framed fish fossil signed by Jimmy Buffett. Is there a musical connection here? Do any members of U2 have their pilot’s licence?

Abramowitz is equally circumspect when it comes to confirming the rumour that the vessel is worth a cool $40 million US.

“To give you a rough idea, you could be looking at anywhere from $25 million to $50 million,” he says. “It really depends on the owner and what they want to put into their vessel.”

As Abramowitz and his crew await the arrival of the ship’s owner before departing for Aitutaki and then on to Mangaia for the solar eclipse, they are doing their best to play tourist while still keeping the vessel ship-shape. And, believe me, that’s a lot of vessel to keep clean.

“The boatswain is the individual on this boat who pretty much runs the maintenance of the deck,” Abramowitz says. “He will start on a Monday and, by Friday, he will have worked his way all the way to the back of the boat, hopefully get his weekend off, and then start all over again.

“These vessels are very, very expensive assets to own and to maintain. It can get away from you very quickly, so it’s a constant task keeping these things looking pretty.”

I eye the bow and ask how many guests – having chartered the ship for in excess of $170,000 US a week – ask to stand out there and scream “I’m the king of the world!” into the void.

“Quite a few,” says Abramowitz. “Usually after five or six drinks.”

With no alcohol forthcoming, I rightly assume I won’t be doing my best Jack Dawson imitation today.

Maybe I’ve been spoiled by those repeated viewings of Titanic but, considering how much a vessel like this is worth, I was expecting a bit more, well, opulence. Sure, there’s lots of chrome and teak, but even a slave wage like me knows those features come standard.

I wanted gold fixtures and jewel-encrusted chandeliers and Cordovan leather. Instead, we stand on a fly-bridge littered with misshapen lumps, protective coverings rendering the lounges indistinguishable from the Jacuzzi.

The downstairs areas, as well, turn out to be more workmanlike than wondrous, although, I’m sure, things get a bit fancier when the owner or guests are onboard. I catch a glimpse of the piano in the main salon and idly wonder if it is ever played in this age of iPods and MTV.

What the Perseus lacks in surface wealth, it makes up for in toys. Below decks, there are surfboards, fishing rods, a wakeboard, scuba tanks and snorkelling gear.

The ship itself is fully automated.

“You can pretty much sail the entire boat via joysticks,” Abramowitz says. “The entire boat and its systems are monitored through a computer system. You name it, we can look at it and operate it at the click of a mouse button.”

Abramowitz ticks off some of the ports of call on the world tour – Costa Rica, Mexico, Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam, China, Japan – and notes how experiencing these places makes up for all the hard work and long hours.

“I don’t know of any other industry in the world where you can get aboard some mode of transportation at someone else’s expense and see all these wonderful places,” he says. “I think that’s why what we do is so foreign to most people and they’re so intrigued by this lifestyle. It’s because the normal day-to-day routine for people is 180 degrees from what we do.”

Our tour complete, it’s time to return to dry land. I can’t leave, however, without asking the most important question of the day: might the yacht’s unnamed owner be interested in adopting me?

Abramowitz laughs: “He has a fairly sizable family but I’ll mention it to him in case he’s looking for an older child who’s already out of the house.”

 

The voice behind the camera contemplates wasted potential.

This is Travel Moeara.

That’s his real first name. One of his younger relatives was doing a lot of travelling for medical reasons when he was born and his name reflects his family’s situation at the time.

Travel and I work together for the Pitt Media Group. He films a documentary-style show for Cook Islands Television (CITV). The program is called Turama, which is a Cook Islands Maori word meaning to shine or enlighten. That’s what Travel does: he enlightens the people of the Cook Islands about the important aspects of life in a South Pacific country.

While Travel films the interviews, I use my tape recorder because, on the Wednesday after the program screens, I follow up with an associated story in the Cook Islands Herald.

I like working with Travel because he knows everyone on the island and so can arrange the interviews. Travel likes working with me because I don’t know everyone on the island and so can ask the difficult questions without embarrassment.

That also explains why a TV show, aimed mostly at the Maori-speaking populace, features a voice speaking with a Canadian accent. That might seem strange in another part of the world – having a foreigner figure so prominently in a local production – but this is the Cook Islands, where there is no hurry, no worry. People just shrug.

Travel asks me to photograph him when we’re on assignment. He says he wants a record of himself on the job to show his children when he starts a family. That seems legit, since Travel doesn’t appear to possess an ounce of ego.

But I still have a sneaky hunch he gets a kick out of seeing himself on the computee screen.

I don’t blame him. If I had this guy’s face, I’d pretty much be kissing the mirror every day.

* I learned another Cook Islands Maori word this week: momo.

Roughly translated, it means a waste, as in waste of potential. As in “She’s only 17 and she’s pregnant? What a waste.”

People say “momo” a lot on this island.

I don’t think Polynesian teens are any more sexual than their counterparts in the rest of the world. But, despite their girth and the fact they were quite happily living as cannibals before those interfering missionary bastards arrived to bugger up their lifestyle, Cook Islanders are, for the most part, a shy lot.

Too shy, it turns out, to acquire a condom. Too shy, it turns out, to ask to go on the Pill.

And so babies continue to have babies. And all those plans for a future filled with university studies and good jobs and seeing the Great Big World simply vanish in the time it takes some randy teenage boy to achieve orgasm.

Momo, indeed.