Palmerston Island: An Island to Itself

Palmerston Island as viewed from the north side of the island. Just behind those waves is a fringing reef that goes all the way around the island.

As part of the tradition of Palmerston Island, our host Edward Marsters and his friends Will Rowe and Arthur Neal come out to the boat to meet us and helped us get tied up.

Anchoring at Palmerston is tricky. Here we are in 220 feet of water and we've run lines out 45 degrees to two different mooring buoys owned by Edward. The wind here is blowing from the "safe" easterly direction, if it were to change to a westerly we'd have a reef just 30 yards from our stern.

After a long 640-mile, 4-day downwind sleigh ride, we arrived at the very remote Palmerston Island this morning at 9:00 am. As promised, a boat met us in the lee of the island and directed us to a privately-owned buoy, where Edward Marsters, his son David, and Kiwi friend Will Hamm helped us tie up. They even ran a line to a second buoy for extra protection in the 225 ft. deep water just off the reef. Luckily the prevailing wind all week is easterly that pushes our boat away from the very dangerous reef to the open ocean (Edward has the wreck of a 32 ft. Westsail in his front yard that didn't follow his instructions). Even so we dropped 60 ft. of anchor down so if the wind did shift it would have a chance to catch us before we went up on the reef.

The tradition on Palmerston Island is that you are "adopted" by a local family whose responsibility is to transport you to and from your boat, to feed you, do your laundry, and make you feel like part of the family. In a quid pro quo world we also brought some supplies for the family and offered extra stuff we had on the boat. They only get supply boats about three times a year so they have to be creative about surviving.

We got a brief rest then Edward ferried Arthur Neale, the island administrator, out to the boat for health, immigration, and customs clearances that ran about US$90. More about Arthur later.

Edward Marsters is an excellent boatsman and fisherman. We felt totally safe with him at the controls.

Here Edward navigates the very shallow and dangerous Small Boat Pass to the inner lagoon. Not wanting to continually rescue cruisers attempting this pass in their dinghies, your Palmerston Island host provides all the transportation during your stay.

We learned that Edward's advice was always spot on. Here's the hull of a boat that went up on the reef on Palmerston who felt he didn't need to follow Edward's advice on how to tie up his boat.

Most meals included rice, BBQ chicken or pork, fish, taro, potatoes and a delicious homemade lemonade.

Here Will joins us for lunch as Shirley explains the different offerings.

People on Palmerston work very hard, but they also are very social and spend a lot of time just sitting around talking.

Edward took us through the very narrow and dangerous pass in the reef to his house on the windward side of the island where we met his family and enjoyed a wonderful Cook Islands lunch of snapper, parrot fish, rice and bananas cooked by his wife Shirley. During lunch we learned about the unique Palmerston Island, where Scottish sailor William Marsters brought three wives with him from Raratonga and proceeded to populate the island, a section deeded to each wife and their offspring. Marsters established a church, and a society based on strict but fair rules that still govern Palmerston today. The island has about 45 residents today with many of the younger kids staying in more populated Rarotonga.

Arthur Neale, Tom Neale's son, brought us up to date on events that happened to his father following the period covered in his book.

As we each talked about why we all ended up here, the conversation turned to a book famous amongst the blue water cruisers called "An Island to Oneself" by New Zealander Tom Neale. It's about Tom's quest for the Polynesian lifestyle and his years spent alone on a Cook Island called Suwarrow. Many blue water sailors will cite Neale's book as the catalyst for their own wish to sail the South Pacific. I was amazed at the knowledge Arthur had about Neale's life when he quietly added: "He was my dad." I was flummoxed, as the Brits would say.

During the rest of the lunch I had a chance to sit and query Arthur about his dad and details from the book. What an opportunity for a book lover like myself to get the inside story on such a famous author and book.

Here are the two school teachers on Palmerston, Mellisa from South Africa and Josh from the US.

The school is modern and well equipped. When kids reach high school age they move to Rarotonga to finish their education.

Will Rowe, a commercial airline pilot who is on hiatus, shows his rental house on Palmerston.

This is the oldest graveyard on Palmerston.

The island has modern, if not expensive, telephone and Internet connections via this satellite link.

 

An example of a colorfully decorated house on Palmerston.

This is the original house that William Marsters lived in with his three wives.

They are drying pandemus fronds to help with decorating for an upcoming event.

Will and David then took us for a long walk around the island, pointing out the modern conveniences of a solar power plant with underground wiring to all the houses, a satellite receiving station for Internet and email, and a very modern school. At the school we met American Josh Simon and his South African wife Melissa who are teaching at the school for two years. Talk about the dream assignment. The kids are all in a special individualized learning programs that emphasize independent studies. Ironically Josh and Melissa are leaving on a trip to Guatemala to learn Spanish, Patagonia for outdoor activities, and South Africa to visit family, on almost the identical schedule our daughter and her family are doing this fall. Got to get them together.

This house is typical of the original homes still standing on Palmerston.

We visited the grave of William Marsters who died in 1899, surrounded by the graves of countless other Marsters who died on the island. Just behind the grave yard is the original home of William Marsters made out of massive oak beams salvaged from nearby shipwrecks.

While we are totally wiped out from the arduous long sail and the full day of touring, we're looking forward to tomorrow when William will pick us up at 9:00 am for church, followed by a large family lunch (Meryl is baking a cake), and lazing around on hammocks down by the beach. One of elder William Marsters strict rules is absolutely no work on the Sabbath. I'm totally in line with that.

Reminder: We will backfill these blog posts with videos and photos as soon as we get someplace with fast Internet.

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