Cook Islands’ Busy Schooners
p. 37 · Read in the full issue
From Our Own Correspondent.
RAROTONGA, December 10.
THE schooner Tagua has been beat ing round the islands of the Lower Group since November 14. and the Tiare Taporo is away on one of her long trips north to the island of Penrhyn and the atolls of Manihiki and Rakahanga, which lie in the region of Penrhyn.
These two trim little schooners, with their bleached sails and white-painted hulls, resemble pleasure yachts rather than vessels trading between the islands carrying copra, fruit, general merchandise and human freight.
The Tagua is making her final round of the islands of the Lower Group for this year. It is probable that the Ti are Taporo will do the round again provided she arrives back from north within the next few days. Mangaia, in the Lower Gr-m, has not been visited for some months.
In any case, the inhabitants of the Group islands will see nothing of their Christmas presents and mails until possibly April. The two masters of the island schooners. Skipper Andy Thom son (Tagua) and Captain Viggo (Tiare Taporo), will be warmly welcomed by their friends in the islands when they return in the autumn with their ves sels laden with merchandise and bring ing tidings from Rarotonga and the outside world.
Mr. W. Davidson, of Nukualofa, Tonga, a well-known Islands merchant, arrived in Sydney, via New Zealand, in mid-December, and will receive medical attention before returning to the Protectorate. Mr. Davidson settled down in Tonga in 1916, and now con trols a large number of trading sta tions in the group.