Cook Islands Games athletics competition

I think athletics is the most interesting code in any sports gathering like the Cook Islands Games (and the forthcoming Pacific Mini Games in September).
Lots of different activities make for some good picture opportunities!
The CI Games athletics took place over two evenings and was held at Titikaveka college field. This was obviously not ideal practice since athletics at the PMG will be at the national stadium at Tereora. That field is being tweaked and upgraded so it wasn’t available although it doesn’t look as though much has been happening apart from re-roofing the grandstand.
However, the officials seemed to have everything under control so they should cope well in September. The only people who didn’t have a lot to do were marshals. As with many of the codes, the numbers taking part weren’t all that large.
Well, the weather was hot and sunny and the young athletes seemed to be having a good time. Let’s hope that remains true for the mini games.

Cook Islands Games Golf and League Sevens

The golf competition took place over four days and was well supported although, as with most codes, the outer islands were mostly represented by people living on Rarotonga.
League sevens had just three vaka teams, Te Au O Tonga, Takitumu and Puaikura.
Usually with league sevens and rugby sevens Raro-based players form OI teams but Monday evening probably wasn’t a very good time. The rugby sevens on Saturday managed to find six teams but even that isn’t as many as when there are stand-alone competitions with no other sports going on.

Cook Islands Games bowls and basketball

The Cook Islands Games are over and now we will see what lessons have been learned.
Of the two codes in this video, bowls and basketball, the bowlers looked as though they were having a great time. It’s a very social sport! The clubhouse was humming and everybody, from young kids to grannies and granddads, was enjoying it. Our bowlers have been to many international events and organised several themselves. If other Pacific bowlers are like ours it should be an excellent competition at the mini games.
Basketball isn’t one of the mini games codes but was added to the Cook Islands games to give the players a tournament for this year. The code went to the Pacific Games in Samoa and was disappointed to be left out of the mini games.

Cook Islands Games sailing competition

The sailing competition was supposed to take place in Aitutaki. That’s where the Pacific Mini Games regatta will be held in September. But there was no money to get people, and possibly boats, to the island so it was relocated to Muri lagoon.
Fortunately the sailing fraternity have been very active in holding regattas in outer islands. In fact they’ve trained a lot of youngsters particularly in Aitutaki and Manihiki who are now out-sailing the old hands. When it comes to the mini games the sailing event will no doubt be efficiently run even though this practice event hasn’t been ideal.
The weather’s been great though.
The race shown in the video is the radial rig Laser class. It had only three competitors although the previous two races had twelve and five respectively.
The winner was Teau McKenzie for Te Au O Tonga, followed by Helema William for Purapura zone and Anne Tierney for Takitumu.

Cook Islands Games volleyball and triathlon

Here are another couple of sports videos – and there are plenty more to come.
Of the seventeen sports in action here I’ve got shots of thirteen.
I missed out on tennis and oe vaka (outrigger canoeing) which clashed with the first day of athletics. Anyway, since I’m shooting from the shore it’s a matter of filming the canoes leaving Avarua harbour or coming back in with not much going on for spectators in the meantime. Been there, done that (see Vaka Eiva videos). Aquatics (swimming to you and me) takes place in the lagoon and it’s another code that’s hard to film from the shore. Boxing is the final missing ‘sport’. Grown men (and women!) doing their best to injure each other isn’t my idea of fun although I’m sure it will be popular. It takes place at the Banana Court tonight (Thursday) and that’s another reason for not filming – it will be crowded and dark so I’m wimping out. My apologies to fans of pugilism.

Cook Islands Games touch rugby and table tennis

Here are videos of the first couple of sports at the Cook Islands Games.
Seventeen codes were included in the programme which was supposed to include teams from the outer islands. Unfortunately it looks as though none of them could afford to travel to Rarotonga. Rumour has it that they were hoping for assistance from CISNOC but didn’t find out until a week or so ago that none would be forthcoming.
So most ‘outer island’ teams are made up of Raro-based players and in some cases there are precious few of them to go around. For those codes the programme of events doesn’t bear much resemblance to what is happening on the ground.
Tennis, for example, was slated for action on one morning and five afternoons. However, due to lack of competitors, it took only one morning to complete. Sadly I didn’t manage to film any of this – it was taking place at the same time and venue as the touch rugby competition but I thought the two people I could see in the distance were knocking up, waiting for the contest to start whereas in fact it was finishing. Pity about that!
Results are also a bit hard to come by. There is a CISNOC section on the Sporting Pulse website and it even has a results page but so far nothing much is on it apart from a brief comment that ‘Takitumu showed their strengths in both men’s and women’s categories’.
Things could have been updated by now – follow this link to find out.
But as a trial for the Pacific Mini Games it shows there’s a lot to be done.
Some codes seem to be well-organised. In particular the lawn bowlers are having a ball and netballers are out in full force, players and supporters, for their afternoon competition days.
This video is of touch rugby and table tennis.
More later.

Cook Islands Games Opening Ceremony

The Cook Islands Games are now underway.
They were postponed from April 2008 until now so that they could be used as a practice run for the forthcoming Pacific Mini Games in September.
The programme for the opening ceremony was relatively straightforward. Dignitaries, anthems, drums and chants, parade and entry of teams to Te Atukura, games flag and torch being carried from the CISNOC office by named codes and athletes.
The trouble was, nobody seems to have told the teams about it.
Or as CINews charitably put it on Saturday, “Athletes must have been too busy training for their games … as only a few made an appearance at yesterday’s opening ceremony.”
Four teams showed up, Aitutaki, Mangaia, RAMA (Rakahanga and Manihiki) and Puaikura who provided the entertainment.
The opening started about half an hour late but at least it was short and sweet.
And the start of the CI Games shows that practice is certainly needed before the big one.

Avatiu Eels entertain

Fundraising is a constant problem for sports teams in the Cook Islands. It’s hard enough for those on Rarotonga but pity the poor outer islanders where the populations are dwindling and the amount of disposable cash much less.
Rugby league now has a team from Aitutaki playing in the premier grade. The Sharks used to be easy beats but they are now pretty competitive. Fundraising must be a nightmare for them though. They have to fly over to Raro for all their away games, five of them, and even with concession rates, getting an entire team over here doesn’t come cheap.
The Raro teams have it easy in comparison as they only have to fly to Aitutaki once each per season.
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago the Avatiu Eels held a fundraising night at their clubhouse and put on a really good affair. The ticket price included a plate of food (all Cookies know what that involves) and happy hour drink prices and the show. As well as the Tumeke dance group (see previous video) and three individual performances, the league teams had to put on an item. This one is by the under 18 side and although they said it was a last minute effort they had a lot of fun and so did the audience. They really rocked the upstairs veranda where it was all happening!

Tumeke Dance Group – a family affair

Cook Islands culture, dancing in particular, is alive and well on Rarotonga and there’s a new dance group to prove it.
The Tumeke Dance Group was formed in August 2008 when members of the Tauira family decided to celebrate the 21st birthday of Andrew Rauraa, partner of Tangi.
The show proved so popular that they were asked to do other performances, Christmas in the Park for Rotaract was one of them, and they are regulars at the Avatiu club house where this video was filmed at an Avatiu Eels rugby league club fundraiser.
The group has expanded and now has its own drummers. Friends as well as family make up Tumeke and there are plenty of young ones to learn and continue the tradition of Cook Islands dancing.
They choreograph all their own dances – lots of innovative new moves with the emphasis on having fun!
Tumeke is holding working bees as well as dance shows as they raise money for a trip to Australia. They want to travel in April 2010, school holiday time, so that the whole group including all the youngsters can go along.
The dancers are Brianna Tauira,Tangi Tauira, Teheikura Tauira, Puni Tauira and Tutemaeva Poaru with young warriors Teaui Rairoa, Tamanui Nicholas, Petero Teio and Tuira Thompson.
COMING SOON: More video from the Avatiu Eels fundraiser show.

The Polynesian Chestnut

I’i is the local name for the Polynesian chestnut tree.
On Rarotonga you can see them in the bush on hillsides and they also grow on other southern group islands and, as the name suggests, on other islands of Polynesia. I’ve seen them in Hawaii, too.
They’re tall and impressive, growing to 30 metres (CI Biodiversity database) but the most striking thing about them is the fluted trunk. When the trees are eight or nine years old projections start to grow out of the main trunk old to form wings like flying buttresses.
The fruit are kidney-shaped and have a very tough skin. The chestnut season runs for about three months from late February or March.
On Rarotonga they are usually boiled – for a very long time according to the ladies outside the Empire theatre who sell them! But in other parts of the Pacific they may be roasted; apparently this is a favourite way of cooking them in Tahiti.
The Air Tahiti website says that mape (the Tahitian name for the fruit) can be used to cure stonefish stings.
“To make the concoction, the juice of green mape is mixed with the juice from atea (erythrina indica) bark by chewing it. The resulting paste is slathered onto the sting and the inflammation subsides soon after.”
I’ve never heard of this Maori medicine cure for stonefish stings but the atea (also called the coral tree or tiger’s claw) is rare in the Cook Islands.
The chestnuts have a nutty flavour and if you eat a large number at one time they are reputed to have the same effect on the digestive system as too many baked beans. Flatulence!
Polynesian Chestnut
Check recipes for the chestnut on Foodista

Tereora Touch Tournament

There are several secondary schools on Rarotonga but Tereora College is sometimes called the ‘national college’ and is the largest with the most senior classes.
The students follow New Zealand’s curricula and take NZ exams but life’s not all about work. Last week one of the inter-house sports competitions was held – the touch tournament.
Tereora has four houses. They used to be called after mountains – Ikurangi was one – but nowadays the kids seem to refer to them, somewhat uninspiringly, as House 1, House 2, House 3 and House 4 with colours red, blue, green and yellow, not necessarily in that order.
We’ve had some wet weather recently but it was sunny for the tournament which was held on the Nikao sports field, probably because the stadium is being tarted up ready for the Pacific Mini Games in September.
I’m not sure who won the tournament but the guys in yellow were most visible and everyone seemed to be having a good time.
Back to the books this week.

Marching to a different beat?

Rarotonga’s traditionally had two float parades each year; the Constitution parade at the end of July or beginning of August, starting the celebrations marking the Cook Islands’ version of independence day, now called Te Maeva Nui; and the Tiare (flower) parade in late November or early December.
In the 1980s and 90s the Constitution parade was a grand affair with up to thirty floats representing businesses, government departments, schools, clubs and of course the outer islanders who were here for the cultural competition. There were often a couple of brass bands. The Tiare parade didn’t have the outer island groups but it still made a pretty impressive show. Some of the floats were a mass of flowers and individuals would often dress up and take part. The Miss Tiare (junior beauty) pageant was a later addition and the contestants joined in the parade with a float each. Parades used to start at Avatiu harbour and head along the main road to Avarua harbour where the judging took place. Spectators packed the street and there was a real party atmosphere.
Well, times have changed.
The parades now start at Avarua harbour and head towards Avatiu harbour ending at Punanga Nui market and sadly both are shadows of their former selves.
Large numbers of people headed overseas after the economic meltdown in the mid 1990s, and some of the competitive spirit seems to have gone with them.
The big businesses don’t take part any more, the bands have fallen silent and if it weren’t for the outer island groups the Constitution parade would be a pretty dismal affair.
The video shows the 2008 Constitution parade and the Tiare parade in 2000. By 2000 the really awesome floats had disappeared but at least there were a few businesses and a lot of work went into Telecom’s Miss Tiare chariot. Compare this with the 2008 Miss Tiare parade. It’s now dwindled to a handful of cars or trucks just for the contestants.

Gone fishing

Walking along Nikao beach one day in February we saw a large number of dead fish along the high waterline. They were small, up to about four centimetres, transparent or silver-coloured and flat (although this could have been the result of being dead and dried out). More washed up over the next few days.
They were probably maito (surgeonfish) juveniles. The fish develops from little more than an egg with a tail to a miniature adult during the larval stage out in the ocean. When they become juveniles they move onto the reef and lagoon. Transparency helps save them from being eaten by predators and the adult can look very different.
A few days later the lagoon was swarming with tiny black fish. There were shoals all along the shoreline but particularly around rocks and coral outcrops where they seemed to be grazing, sucking up food like a vacuum cleaner.
The Cook Islands Biodiversity Database lists 18 different sorts of maito. These ones looked like the dusky surgeonfish, however I have since been told they are striped bristletooth (at the moment there's no picture of them in the database).
If the numbers are similar all around Rarotonga, there must be several million of them in the lagoons and there are even more on the outer surfaces of the reef. That’s what the birds, probably brown noddys, are fishing for.
Apparently this mass swarming occurs every five or six years, for reasons unknown, although some of the video of the last time it happened was taken in 2006 and there were larger flocks of fishing noddys that time.
The surviving maito are now growing larger, and there are still plenty around so it’s surprising that there aren’t more birds after them. The birds wouldn’t even have to walk along the beach, just stand in the water and wait for dinner to come to them.
Maybe the noddys actually like the thrill of the chase. It could be fun dive-bombing the surf.
Anyone for avian extreme sports?

Flying high - microlight flight over Rarotonga

This video is a compilation of two microlight flights.
The first, around Nikao, took place in October 2001 and the other, to Muri, in August 2003. Some still photos taken on the Muri flight are included.
In the years since these flights things have changed.
For a start, Avatiu Harbour redevelopment has continued and the western end looks pretty flash now. Mama’s Café has been demolished and the old police station has been replaced by a new Chinese-built building that, by all accounts, is less rainproof than the old one. The island was hit by five cyclones in 2005; Trader Jacks at Avarua Harbour was trashed and rebuilt – yet again; the T-Shirt Factory building has gone; and the former Marine Resources office was gutted and is now a canoe shed.
And there are a lot more buildings along the main road.
Another change is that you can no longer take a microlight flight to look at it all. Sad to say, that business went pear-shaped.
Air-related companies often seem to come to a sad end here, particularly those closely tourism-related.
Once upon a time we had tandem skydiving. I remember once an eighty-year-old lady made a jump. A birthday treat I think it was. Some birthday present; personally I’d rather have a bottle of champagne. Anyway, obviously not enough other people made the leap so the business folded.
They’re not alone.
Over the years since the airport opened (in the 1970s and a large proportion of the population promptly left for New Zealand, never to return), we’ve had South Pacific Island Airways, Kiwi International, Hawaiian Air, Aloha, Air Nauru, Polynesian Airlines, Air Pacific and Canada 3000. We even had our own airline in 1985, Cook Islands International. It was a partnership with Ansett of Australia, and the plane used for the once-weekly flight had Ansett livery on one side and CI International on the other. It lost huge sums of money and quietly faded away like most of the others. Some airlines went broke, others just cut us out of their routes.
At the moment Pacific Blue (a Virgin company) links Rarotonga with New Zealand and Air Tahiti flies Raro/Papeete.
Air New Zealand used to fly from Rarotonga to Hawaii, Fiji, Papeete and Los Angeles as well as Auckland. Now our government pays AirNZ $5 million a year to keep the LA flight operating. Apart from that it’s Auckland or nothing.
About eight years ago Air NZ’s standard full fare economy return fare from Raro to Auckland was $2200. At the moment the equivalent fare now is $1280.
Internet special fares start at around $600 return.
Competition when we’ve had it has been good for the flying public.

Team triathlon – three times the fun?

There’s a lot of sport on Rarotonga.
Last Saturday, for example, several age grades of rugby league took place, netballers had their second round of the season, golfers and lawn bowlers played hard, the sailing club raced in Muri lagoon, and somewhere outrigger canoeists paddled and surfers caught waves. Meanwhile during the week we had squash, touch rugby, a duathlon and Hash House Harriers.
So Rarotonga is an energetic place, but on Saturday the greatest output of energy per person was probably at Tikioki where the Cook Islands Triathlon Association held the annual team tri event.
It’s a relay with teams of three from places like businesses, clubs, government departments and families. Competitors swim 500 metres, bike eight kilometres and run two kilometres and then hand over to the next person, although this year for the first time there was an individual-disciplines category in which one person swims, cycles or runs three times.
Twenty six teams signed on to take part and with heaps of supporters and officials there was a real party atmosphere at the Beach Cargo venue.
The gun athletes were no doubt training for the Cook Islands games in April, the international triathlon in May and the Pacific mini games in September and there were plenty of prizes and spot prizes in various divisions, but for many people the thrill of completing the course made the effort worth while.
A bit of exercise, a drink or two and a lot of socialising – that’s competition in a tropical island paradise for you.
For results check out Cook Islands News – it should be updated on Wednesday.

Rarotonga’s indoor stadium update

Rarotonga’s multi sports complex at Nikao is starting to take shape now. The additional Chinese workmen have arrived as well as a lot more containers of equipment and materials. The site is a hive of activity (weather permitting) every day except Sunday. The work continues after dark some nights.
It certainly isn’t controversial any longer; the Cook Islands government is adept at generating new scandals to occupy the public.
The fuel tank farm purchase is supposedly on hold. Yeah, right! we’ve been told that before and meanwhile cabinet have continued to ask banks about loans and the financial secretary refuses to let anyone see the agreements he signed about it. He claims it’s because of confidentiality but I assume it’s because he’s embarrassed about making such a pig’s ear of the whole thing. Nobody (except government and not even all of them!) can believe they’re planning to shell out five million dollars for something that’s only got a few years to run on the lease. And it looks as though they’ve also committed funds to buy another fuel farm – the airplane jet fuel facility – without even talking to the airlines.
You’d think they had money to burn – my tax money – but somebody must have been doing a bit of adding up and decided that cash might get a bit tight over the next year. So in order to save money the government wants to cut the superannuation rate for public servants.
Public servants were the first to join the super scheme and paid 3% of their salary the first year, 4% the second and 5% from then on. Employers, ie government for public servants, paid the same amount. Most private sector employers are now in the scheme although there were grave doubts about it in the beginning, mainly because nobody in their right minds would have trusted a pack of MPs with a piggy bank let alone the super fund. We were all assured that it was safe from government interference. Now they want to treat the rate like a yoyo to cover their own shortcomings. It’s a disgraceful thing to do to people’s future pensions. Yet another ominous sign that they’re not to be trusted.
Mind you, the so-called opposition is no better. They should be howling in outrage but the only thing that aroused their interest in a recent (and rare) sitting of parliament was the question of VIP parking for MPs at the airport.
Check out the details in Cook Islands News online.

Lightning over Rarotonga

The six o’clock TVNZ news is rebroadcast in Rarotonga at 8.30pm. Well to be more accurate it’s some time between twenty past eight and five to nine depending on what programme precedes it.
The weather segment of the news includes forecast symbols for Australia and the Pacific islands, including the Cook Islands.
Since early December our symbol has shown a dark cloud with flashes of lightning, rain and a temperature between 29C and 31C. The temperature’s been about right but we haven’t had much in the way of thunderstorms - until this week.
On Tuesday night we had two or three great lightning displays.
The first one started at about 6.30pm, still daylight but you could see the flashes illuminating the tops of the clouds. That was to the NNW. Very little thunder so it must have been a long way away.
It kept going though, and moved slowly to the west and then another display started up in the northwest. There was still no thunder and no rain.
The video was taken at around 9pm. By that time the storms had moved around to the west and there was an average of about 15 seconds between flashes but I’ve edited out the waiting time to make it look more exciting.
The display lasted for several more hours and another storm started up in the north at about 9.30pm. Actually heard some thunder from that one although it was still far out to sea.
So the TV weather forecast got it right at last.
Actually it’s just as well we haven’t had too many storms because whenever they come close, large numbers of the islands’ computers suffer from fried motherboards and hard drives. This is an additional expense that web surfers just don’t need given the already exorbitant cost of keeping up with the world online.
Telecom Cook Islands, the country’s monopoly ISP, is currently pushing a deal whereby you get ‘up to’ 1Mbps download speed and 20Gb data allowance (with a 10c per Mb excess fee) for the princely sum of $1650 per month. And I didn’t forget the decimal point. That really is one-thousand-six-hundred-and-fifty dollars. A month. Something similar from Telecom NZ (which is a major shareholder in TCI) will cost you $59.95 per month with a speed of up to 4Mbps and if you go over the 20Gb the speed drops but there’s no extra charge. That’s over 27 times more expensive.
It’s not cheap staying in touch in the islands!

Tahitian Princess’s last visit to Rarotonga

The Princess Cruises ship Tahitian Princess paid its last visit to the Cook Islands on Saturday.
Locals will be sad to say goodbye.
The Tahitian Princess has been a regular visitor to Rarotonga for several years. Every ten days or so during the cruise season the elegant-looking ship dropped anchor beyond the reef so passengers could come ashore on small tenders. Well, they could if the weather was OK. If the seas were rough, riding the tenders was too dangerous and the visits were cancelled.
Over the years the harbour has changed quite a bit. There is now a western basin where small fishing boats anchor and this is where the tenders unload. Shopkeepers set up stalls on the foreshore above the harbour on boat days, mainly for black pearls, carvings, pareu and woven souvenirs. Visitors can also pick up tours and dive boats here.
Saturday was a lovely day, no problem getting people ashore and the island would have looked beautiful to those who stayed on the ship.
There is talk of building an alternative ship’s tender harbour on the western side of Rarotonga. It would be small and only be used when the sea swells in the Avatiu area stop the safe transport of passengers to the island.
A total of 28 cruise ships visited Rarotonga last year but another 13 could not stop over because of heavy swells. In fact the first scheduled cruise ship of 2008, the Seven Seas Voyager, was unable to land anyone. That’s a big disappointment for stallholders and tour companies. However, with world finances in their current state we’re unlikely to see a new tender harbour any time soon.
The Tahitian Princess is heading for the northern hemisphere this year but other cruise lines are planning to call in and they should all be welcomed with open arms, weather permitting, as they make a real difference to the local economy
Well, at least it was fine for the Princess’s final visit so let’s hope everyone had a great time and has lots of happy memories of Rarotonga and the Cook Islands.

Rarotonga’s cross-island walk

Members of the Cook Islands search and rescue organisation have just placed new markers along Rarotonga’s cross-island track. The track leads from the Avatiu valley, up to the Needle, about 350 metres above sea level, then down through the Papua valley to Wigmore’s Waterfall.
Heading up from the Avatiu side the track is reasonably clear but from the base of the needle there are two ways down, one goes along a ridge and the other through the valley. The route crosses the Papua stream in several places and there are also other tracks leading off the main path. It’s often difficult to see where you are supposed to be going.
In fact two female tourists lost their way in early January and spent a night in the bush.
Even in dry weather the steep slopes can be slippery and the head of Rescue Cook Islands, Charles Carlson, says the cross-island track isn’t a walk in the park! Especially after rain, the ground and stream crossings can be treacherous. On one rescue mission a tourist with a broken leg had to be carried out.
Carlson says that if it’s raining you shouldn’t go.
As the video (filmed several years ago) shows, there are some fantastic views on the track over both sides of the island but in wet weather it wouldn’t look nearly so impressive.
The two tracks leading down from the Needle to Wigmore’s Waterfall are now marked with green steel plates nailed to the trees.

In a league of its own

Rarotonga rugby league got under way on Saturday with a two day pre-season seven-a-side tournament.
Eight teams in two pools of four battled it out for bragging rights; two each from Avatiu, Arorangi and Ngatangiia plus Titikaveka Bulldogs and Takuvaine Warriors.
Day one was held at the recently upgraded Avatiu Swamp but the finals were moved to Ngatangiia so the Avatiu field wouldn’t get too cut up.
Although the rain stopped on Saturday afternoon I was expecting plenty of mud and puddles – makes for interesting pictures! But Nukupere Park, the Ngatangiia sports ground, was firm and dry, not a puddle in sight. Must be because it’s just about on Muri beach, very sandy soil so the rain drains away rapidly.
A lot of younger players were strutting their stuff, no doubt hoping to catch the eye of selectors for the mini games in September.
The season proper gets going on February 6 and will include a team from Aitutaki, the Sharks.

Hallelujah! Leonard Cohen in Auckland

We’ve just returned from Auckland. It was raining when we left, so much so that Air New Zealand provided large black umbrellas to keep passengers dry crossing the tarmac with ground staff to ferry the brollies back. It’s been raining ever since we got back but Auckland was fine. It was fine, it was fine, it was fine … for a while.
We were there for the Leonard Cohen concert at the Vector Arena along with over 12,000 other people. Grey-haired heads predominated, hardly surprising as many of the audience must have been fans since Cohen first started in the late sixties or early seventies.
The surprising thing was the number of younger people present. They would have reduced the average age of the audience to about 60.
Cohen’s 74 now and last did a concert tour fifteen years ago. This one was necessary because his accountant (make that former accountant) cheated him out of $5 million. We were all there to contribute to his new pension fund.
It was amazing, fantastic, awesome … you just run out of superlatives to describe the event.
The stage is at one end of the arena with two levels of tiered seating around the other three sides plus rows of floor seating. Two large screens flanked the stage and an area towards the rear of the floor housed a video mixing/editing set up.
The sound was superb, the lighting great and the screens meant you could see close up views of all the performers.
Leonard Cohen came bouncing onto the stage to a standing ovation and finally departed some three hours later after three encores and several more standing ovations. Mind you, the seats at the arena aren’t all that comfortable and, after a while, standing seemed like a good option.
He sang old familiar songs, some with new arrangements, and the audience cheered and applauded as they recognised each one. He sang, played guitar, skipped, kneeled and squatted – for seventy-four-years-old his knees are in great condition!

The band and backing singers, the Unified Heart Touring Company, were all introduced at one time or another and all performed solos. It was a pleasure to hear them; these are highly skilled musicians in their own right. Cohen came across as a gentleman and it wasn’t just the fedora and suit.
Quite a few clips of the concert have appeared on YouTube but most of them were taken using cell phones, you could see small bright squares of light bobbing about all over the arena – dreadful quality sound and vision.
Here’s one reasonable clip taken from close to the stage on the left hand side.

I’m hoping that somebody will put out an official DVD. It shouldn’t take long to produce because what was being shown on the screens at the concert was really very good. I’d buy a copy and so would a large number of those in the audience. It would all help to increase Cohen’s pension fund.

Stormy weather, muddy waters

We recently had some wet weather. Nothing like the floods in Fiji, eleven dead, thousands evacuated from their homes and many tourists stranded. The Cook Islands are usually much luckier with their weather and I hope that continues.
But when we get heavy rain a lot of soil makes its way into the lagoon. The new stadium site in Nikao is a humungous source of loose dirt at the moment and the muddy water flows via various ditches and culverts into the airport drainage channel and then straight into the lagoon at the sea wall. But it’s not the only one. The Takuvaine stream outflow by Trader Jacks at Avarua harbour is another waterway that looks like liquid mud in rainy weather. The soil probably comes from taro patches and fields further inland but really heavy weather yields a bumper crop of plastic bottles and other rubbish.
Still, that’s better than Muri lagoon where the Titikaveka pig farms are still dumping pig poo into streams which feed straight into the lagoon.
At least Nikao dirt is clean dirt! As you can see from the video, fine weather and a high tide or two soon clear the surface mud away but the lagoon is fairly shallow and not very pretty for the most part. That’s probably an effect of all the run-off over the years. It’s a problem that the environment service is aware of. They used to run adverts warning people that mud in the lagoons kills off coral, but it’s difficult to know what they can do about it.

Mini games mayhem

Interesting times in Rarotonga.
Never mind that the hospital has advised people to drive carefully and not have accidents because the island’s sole anaesthetist is sick - the mini games is where it’s all happening. Or not as the case may be.
David Lobb is a well-respected sportsman and organiser who has been involved participating in and running some of the major events that have been hosted in the Cook Islands over the years. As CEO of the games organising committee he gave a statement to the media concerning lack of communication with and lack of action by the games board. He was promptly dumped.
The games board is made up of four politicians and two department heads who are considered to be arrogant and incompetent by many people. There are a few other hangers on but generally speaking you wouldn’t expect the board to organise its way out of a paper bag let alone run a major sporting event.
Three codes threatened to pull out of the games. One of them, tennis, has now done so but it’s no great loss. Athletics and weightlifting are the other two and that is far more serious; our best young athlete is Sam Pera junior and it would be a real shame if we couldn’t get to see the lad in action; and without athletics there would really be no point in holding a mini games, even though we haven’t got any world beating athletes.
Any way, you can read all about it on the Cook Islands News website.
In the end everything will get sorted out, the games will go ahead and be a great event but honestly it would have been better to keep David Lobb and dump the games board.
The video shows how the indoor stadium is coming along. There was a long delay waiting for equipment to arrive on the boat and we’ve just had some rough weather which will hold things up again, but I’m sure it will be finished in time for everything.

Free RaroLens 2009 Year Planner

If you’re interested in the Cook Islands and what’s going on here, download and print this free pdf year planner and keep track of all that’s happening this year.
As well as the usual sporting events like the international triathlon, round Rarotonga road race and vaka eiva canoe festival, this year we have the Pacific mini games – assuming all the controversy is sorted out and the games go ahead – the world youth netball championships, a mini golden oldies rugby festival and the Cook Islands games where outer islanders have the chance to compete against their Rarotonga brothers and sisters for the chance to represent the country at the mini games.
There may be a rugby 15s tournament for the eastern zone of the the Oceania Cup. This includes the Cooks, Niue and Tahiti but dates are yet to be confirmed as the tournament was originally scheduled to take place in Niue.
On the culture front the composers’ competition, dancer of the year, Maeva Nui culture festival and tiare flower festival are all on the calendar.
It should be another action packed twelve months.
The year planner is A3 size so if you have an A4 printer make sure you set it to ‘fit to paper’ or the equivalent.

Once were fireworks

There were fireworks to welcome in 2009 in lots of places around the world, many of them quite spectacular, London and Sydney for example. (The great thing about the web is you can get to see them on YouTube.)
Well in years gone by Rarotonga also had new year pyrotechnic displays but ours were a little different from the rest of the world’s. Naturally.
They were organised by Geoff Bergin and the first one was, I think, in 2000. It wasn’t actually on New Year’s Eve but either the first or second of January; the idea was that welcoming the new year was a family thing and the fireworks were an extra entertainment to keep the kids happy when they might otherwise have started getting bored. Geoff set up the display on the roof of the Empire Theatre and although I didn’t see this one it was popular enough for him to organise one the following year. This time Geoff and a couple of helpers used the top of a container parked in the area that now houses the Chinese courthouse. (That was kind of appropriate considering that the original courthouse on that site was burned down in the early 1990s in a blaze that also took the post office and government cabinet rooms.)
The next year the fireworks were arranged on a platform in the lagoon and spectators packed Maire Nui drive. There was also a great view from Trader Jacks. The problem with using the lagoon is that high tides and rough seas as well as bad weather could all affect the fireworks and if they got wet it took several days to dry them out. Later displays were set up on the foreshore with flight paths aimed out over the lagoon so the sea was no longer a problem but wind and weather could still create havoc.
The display couldn’t take place if it was raining or if the wind was blowing towards the shore or harbour. One ‘new year’ show actually didn’t occur until February because of bad weather! And once we had two halves punctuated by the arrival of an Air New Zealand plane.
Only in the Cook Islands.
Meanwhile Geoff had an enormous amount of work setting up the display with only a couple of helpers. He also spent time seeking sponsorship from local businesses and occasionally the government. He said he even got blamed when the weather was bad and things had to be postponed. Sad to report, he eventually flagged it away. He still does smaller shows for private functions and I believe one of the hotels or restaurants had new- year-welcome fireworks but the public extravaganzas are a thing of the past.
(The video is a compilation of several years’ worth of fireworks.)

Happy New Year from Rarotonga

Two thousand and nine got off to a quiet start on Rarotonga. The weather was fine and no doubt there were plenty of people out and about counting down 2008, but I wasn’t one of them. The police have had a high profile over the holiday period, targetting drunk drivers, underage drinkers and troublemakers in bars and nightclubs. It seems to have worked over Christmas with only a few accidents, one fight in town and a couple of noisy parties reported.
In Nikao at midnight, as the old year ended and the new one began, there were no shotgun blasts, no fireworks and no cars honking their horns. Come to think of it I didn’t hear many cars at all. And on New Year’s Day in Avarua there were no signs of broken glass, smashed bottles or empty cans. A peaceful start to the year.
The Cooks received four Queen’s New Year Honours awards.
Marjorie Crocombe, one of the first CI graduates from the University of the South Pacific, got an OBE for services to the Pacific and Cook Islands in education and literature; Tutai Toru, former long time head of immigration and a stalwart of Avatiu sports club, got an MBE for services to the public and sport; Tom Wichman was awarded a BEM for services to the community and scientific inventions. Tom has been promoting alternative energy sources in the Cooks for many years. Justice of the peace Pae Tuteru also received a BEM for services to the public and church.
Amazingly there were no politicians on the list! Mind you the pols always keep the KBEs for themselves and presumably there’s a limit to the frequency they can give one or other of themselves a knighthood.
Congratulations to Marje, Tom, Tutai and Pae. Let’s hope the rest of the year is full of more glad tidings.