to Samoa

Yachting

Lewis sails to Samoa

Story and photography by SALLY ANDREW

David Lewis - adventurer, scientist, sailor - recently returned from another voyage around the Pacific, sailing via the Cook Islands and French Polynesia to the seventh South Pacific Festival of the Arts in Western Samoa. Leaving New Zealand aboard his 27’ Southern Seas 11, Force 8 winds on the tail caused a few bumps and bruises. Afterwards, Lewis reported good fast sailing until 160 miles from Rarotonga. “Calms, then relentless northerlies. We tacked to and fro until daily log entries read 10 miles made

good toward Raro.”

Tired after a night hove-to off Avatiu, Southern Seas II made a

less-than-graceful

entrance into the harbour. The gear lever was acci dentally kicked and the boat bashed into the dock wall, snap ping the bobstay fitting. A week later, it was weld ed good as new.

That night, how ever, a rare nor’wester smashed them

against the dock and broke it again. They moved Southern Seas II to Avarua harbour

David Lewis on board the Maori Waka, Te Aurere

INSET: Lewis teaching inside a marae at Auckland University, New Zealand

and made repairs. Lewis lived in Rarotonga as a young boy and

enjoyed returning home.

In Tahiti, friends from Hokule’a’s 1976 voyage gave him a big wel come. “So it went in enjoyable cruis ing style,” comments Lewis, “though trade winds this season were mostly absent.” Moorea was “a haven of peace and beauty after noisy expen sive Papeete” and, at remote Suvarov in the north Cooks, Southern Seas II found coconut crabs and no less than eight yachts anchored there.

In Raiatea, “we payed our respects to the sacred site of Taputapuatea”.

According to legend, in 1350, at the last great gathering of voyaging canoes, a curse was placed on the temple of Taputapuatea by a Maori tohunga in revenge for murder. In 1995, a flotilla of contemporary dou ble-hulled sailing canoes from Hawaii, New Zealand, the Cook Islands and Tahiti gathered in Taputapuatea for a special ceremony.

The ancient tapu was lifted off the sacred site. Dr Lewis spent last September in Western Samoa where 200 musicians, dancers and artisans from 21 neighbouring islands took part in the South Pacific Festival of the Arts. There were 75 cruising yachts anchored in tiny Apia harbour - you could just about step from deck to deck to get ashore. Two traditional ocean-voyaging canoes arrived - Te Au O Tonga (Southern Mist) from the Cook Islands, skippered by Sir Tom Davis who reported an easy five-day sail from Aitutaki. American Samoa’s newly launched canoe Folauga O Samoa (Navigators of Samoa) had problems with high seas and reported a 19-hour roller coaster ride. In the end, they were towed into port.

According to Dr Lewis, a work shop on “ceremonial navigation” by Sosthenes Emwalu of Puluwat (Micronesia) made the whole festival worthwhile. Lewis explains; “Ceremonial navigation is the spiritu al and ritualistic side of the art...knowing how to navigate by the stars, waves and winds as well as how to predict weather, use medicines, sing chants and call on magic for fish ing and planting.”

In general, though, the symposium on non-instrument navigation was a

shambles. “It was poorly organised [and] largely videos of Hokule’a’s trips ...[which were designed] as presentations to Hawaiian school kids [rather than spurs to] serious debate. Hekenukumai Busby, builder/owner of New Zealand’s voyaging canoe Te Aurere, got squeezed out of the programme and it was pure chance I heard the Puluwat delega tion was there at all. I rushed over just before they left and, sure enough, there was the old pirate and master navigator Hipour looking unchanged after 28 years. [lt was] a great joyous reunion!”

After the festival at Apia, Southern Seas II headed back to Auckland via Vava’u which Lewis calls “a yachting paradise” and Nuku’alofa, capital of the Kingdom of Tonga. After a fast trip towards New Zealand, “we were stopped in our tracks 150 miles off Opua - by southerlies this time.

Oh, I do want a boat that can go to wind ward”.

Lewis and his boat are now in Auckland, moored up a creek in a friend’s back garden.

“A rather dull prospect after the islands but I must get to writing sometime.” ■